The Choice Channel

“You think you hate your job? Imagine working for the National Assessment of Educational Progress at the U.S. Department of Education, which releases periodic reports on the state of education in the U.S. Another day, another statistic — and not just any statistic but another sad, despair-inducing statistic, the kind that, piled one on top of another, might make you double-check whether you still qualify for that last slot on the road kill detail at the highway department. Last week the NAEP released a pair of reports that at first blush seemed not nearly as sad and despair-inducing as usual. They suggested that the nationwide mania for higher standards in education, begun in 1983 with the famous blue-ribbon study ‘A Nation at Risk,’ might at last be showing positive effects among high school seniors.” (02/27/07)