“Hot Air: How States Inflate Their Educational Progress Under NCLB” is posted by Education Sector.
States are using the flexibility they have to set their own standards for meeting the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act to inflate data on student achievement, graduation rates, school safety, and teacher quality, concludes a report by Education Sector, a Washington-based research organization.
The report, which analyzes information states submitted to the U.S. Department of Education in March, notes that 44 states concluded that zero percent of their schools were “persistently dangerous,” a designation that can open the door for students to choose to attend other schools in their districts. Other states reported that 80 percent to 90 percent of their students were proficient in reading and mathematics.