Take a look at this article.
Across the nation, far more schools failed to meet the federal law’s testing targets than in any previous year, according to new state-by-state data. And in California and some other states, the problem traces in part to the fact that officials chose to require only minimal gains in the first years after the law passed and then very rapid annual gains later. One researcher likens it to the balloon payments that can sink homebuyers.
[...]A state-by-state analysis by The New York Times found that in the 40 states reporting on their compliance so far this year, on average, 4 in 10 schools fell short of the law’s testing targets, up from about 3 in 10 last year. Few schools missed targets in states with easy exams, like Wisconsin and Mississippi, but states with tough tests had a harder time. In Hawaii, Massachusetts and New Mexico, which have stringent exams, 60 to 70 percent of schools missed testing goals. And in South Carolina, which has what may be the nation’s most rigorous tests, 83 percent of schools missed targets.
“The law is diagnosing schools that just have the sniffles with having pneumonia,” said Jim Rex, the South Carolina schools superintendent.
Now, Maragret Spellings is quoted as saying congress passed the best law we could, which is utter bullshit. Let’s not forget Every Child Left Behind, Bush’s signature education law, was faulty from the beginning. It was set up for schools to fail, and fail they are.
Among that provision’s most tenacious critics has been Robert Linn, a University of Colorado professor emeritus who is one of the nation’s foremost testing experts. He argued, almost from the law’s passage, that no society anywhere has brought 100 percent of students to proficiency, and that the annual gains required to meet the goal of universal proficiency were unrealistically rapid, since even great school systems rarely sustain annual increases in the proportion of students demonstrating proficiency topping three to four percentage points.
Not addressed in this article were the drop-out rates that were reported earlier this year, and how some kids tests are/were not counted.
All of which, I believe, validates my opinion that Every Child is being left behind under this law, and it seriously needs to be addressed.
Seems like the law is working completely according to plan. Spellings et al should be patting themselves on the back and congratulating each other for achieving their goal of ruining public education in the US.