As I was leaving town for Texas I caught a story in the Strib. It was in the DTrib too. It suggested that because Minnesota allows schools not to count the test scores of lower performing special education students when they number fewer than 40 to a school the NCLB cops would come in and clean house. As a result Minnesota (and possibly Duluth) will likely see a lot more of its schools labeled as “underperformers.”
NCLB (No Child Left Behind) is the Bush brainchild based on his Texas education reforms. The NCLBÂ has irritated his Republican base which has balked at having the Federal Government to override state standards. Utah is among the more resistant.
On the plus side NCLB pushes states to pay attention to the academic progress of their poor children. On the minus side there is nothing in NCLB which requires states to equalize funding for impoverished school districts. Rather, it pushes state’s to implement cheap mind deadening “drill and kill” rote memorization and expensive mass testing.
Bush’s Texas miracle has led a lot of desperate school districts in that state to cheat. That’s not very encouraging.
