Blog or Not?



A statistically improbable polymath's views on politics and culture.

Friday, December 05, 2003
Maureen (and, okay, CNN as well) Gets Results
 
Here I noted a CNN story about how special ed students were being factored into the test scores under No Child Left Behind. Now the Department of Education has caved in, admitting, in so many words, "Yeah, it's kind of retarded to try to make severely retarded seven-year-olds take the regular achievement tests." So they're giving severely disabled students alternative tests that would more accurately describe their improvement over time. It's going to affect about 1% of students*.

*CNN notes that this equals "about 10 percent of all special education students", but "special education" in this case probably includes kids with dyslexia, ADD, and the kids in remedial reading--or at least that's the only way I can figure that 10% of public schoolchildren are "differently abled". This may reflect an anti-testing bias on the part of CNN--a bias I don't agree with, because I want people to realize just how much worse the, say, Melrose Park, IL school system is compared to Evanston's.


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