“The problem with American education, according to Mr. Murray, is not what President Bush termed the "soft bigotry of low expectations" but rather the opposite: Far too many young people with inherent intellectual limitations are being pushed to advance academically when, Mr. Murray says, they are "just not smart enough" to improve much at all. It is "a triumph of hope over experience*," he says, to believe that school reform can make meaningful improvements in the academic performance of below-average students. (He might have noted, but doesn't, that such students are disproportionately black and Hispanic.)”