Inclusion Criteria:

* B-ALL patients must be enrolled on AALL08B1 or APEC14B1 (if open for the classification of newly diagnosed ALL patients) prior to treatment and enrollment on AALL0932

* Note: B-LLy patients are not eligible for AALL08B1, and can enroll directly onto AALL0932
* B-ALL patients must have an initial white blood cell count < 50,000/uL
* Patients must have newly diagnosed National Cancer Institute (NCI) Standard Risk B-ALL or B-LLy Murphy stages I or II; patients with Down syndrome are also eligible

* Note: for B-LLy patients with tissue available for flow cytometry, the criterion for diagnosis should be analogous to B-ALL; for tissue processed by other means (i.e. paraffin blocks), the methodology and criteria for immunophenotypic analysis to establish the diagnosis of B-LLy defined by the submitting institution will be accepted
* All patients and/or their parents or legal guardians must sign a written informed consent
* All institutional, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and NCI requirements for human studies must be met

Exclusion Criteria:

* With the exception of steroid pretreatment (defined below) or the administration of intrathecal cytarabine, patients must not have received any prior cytotoxic chemotherapy for either the current diagnosis of B-ALL or B-LLy or for any cancer diagnosed prior to initiation of protocol therapy on AALL0932

* Patients receiving prior steroid therapy may be eligible for AALL0932
* Patients with central nervous system 3 (CNS3) leukemia

* CNS status must be known prior to enrollment; (Note: the CNS status must be determined based on a sample obtained prior to administration of any systemic or intrathecal chemotherapy, except for steroid pretreatment); B-LLy patients with CNS3 disease are not eligible for this protocol or the COG HR ALL protocol; it is recommended that intrathecal cytarabine be administered at the time of the diagnostic lumbar puncture; this is usually done at the time of the diagnostic bone marrow or venous line placement to avoid a second lumbar puncture; this is allowed prior to registration; systemic chemotherapy must begin within 72 hours of the first dose of intrathecal therapy
* B-ALL patients with testicular leukemia are not eligible for AALL0932
* For B-LLy patients the following additional exclusion criteria apply:

* T-lymphoblastic lymphoma
* Morphologically unclassifiable lymphoma
* Absence of both B-cell and T-cell phenotype markers in a case submitted as lymphoblastic lymphoma
* CNS3-positive disease or testicular involvement
* M2 (5% - 25% blasts) or M3 (> 25% blasts) marrow
* Female patients who are pregnant are ineligible
* Lactating females are not eligible unless they have agreed not to breastfeed their infants
* Female patients of childbearing potential are not eligible unless a negative pregnancy test result has been obtained
* Sexually active patients of reproductive potential are not eligible unless they have agreed to use an effective contraceptive method for the duration of their study participation