No Child Left Behind Flogs the Wrong Horse
A couple weeks back, the Washington Post ran one of those holier-than-thou editorials about the sad state of primary education.
A couple weeks back, the Washington Post ran one of those holier-than-thou editorials about the sad state of primary education.
They opened with
EDUCATORS who are successful in turning around troubled schools say the first step is collecting reliable data. A true measure of performance is the only way to identify problems and map improvement. Yet, five years into the No Child Left Behind Act and its mandate for accountability, too many states are still gaming the system by administering weak tests. They boast about high scores, but their claims are as phony as the performance of their students.
Scores. You don’t need a scorecard to know that a losing team has taken the field. In the half century since I left high school, it’s been hard to hear past the constant flushing of the toilet that has become our schools. A teacher from the majority of our urban school sys…