Re:A Middle-School Cheating Scandal Raises Questions About N...
by dragonwriter on Monday July 14, 2014 @12:36PM
(#8031719)
> The NCLB gaming of standardized tests, on the other hand, forces the incompetence out into the open in the form of unmistakable undefensible clear outright fraud.
The outright fraud isn't the only thing it forces (and, really, its sort of the extreme fringe); the more routine thing it forces is reluctance of schools to promote students based on academic ability since holding advanced students back in grade level improves metrics of students that are function at or above grade level.
(Of course, its an unsustainable optimization, which also increases the rate at which advanced students with involved parents defect from the public school system entirely, but that's an effect that takes longer to materialize than the short-term effect on metrics.)
The outright fraud isn't the only thing it forces (and, really, its sort of the extreme fringe); the more routine thing it forces is reluctance of schools to promote students based on academic ability since holding advanced students back in grade level improves metrics of students that are function at or above grade level.
(Of course, its an unsustainable optimization, which also increases the rate at which advanced students with involved parents defect from the public school system entirely, but that's an effect that takes longer to materialize than the short-term effect on metrics.)