The Choice Channel

“Well, whup-de-doo. 4th and 8th grade math scores are up two points, according to the National Assessment on Educational Progress, a venture of the U.S. Department of Education’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ program. Nevermind that they’re still scoring well below 300 on a test scale that goes to 500. I wonder if the Education folks can do the math? A national score of 240 out of 500 means that even with the increase kids are getting 52% of the answers wrong. I believe that under traditional scoring that score counts as an F. But that’s only a small piece of the picture. There’s actually a bigger question here: What does testing actually tell us? And whose needs are being met by testing: the educators’ needs, the politicians’ needs, the parents’ needs…. or the students’ needs? Most people assume that all those needs are synonymous, but they’re not.” (09/26/07)