No Child (except those who are part of statistically insignificant racial groups) Left Behind

The Associated Press reported this week that the test scores of about 2 million students, mostly minorities, were not being reported under the No Child Left Behind Act. The kicker – the feds allowed states to underreport minorities on purpose.

Calling it "quite a scam," Steve Benen writes:

"The administration insists the tests will help show which students need the most help, but the administration allows 2 million minority students' results to be quietly set aside to help states avoid NCLB penalties."

The plight of... two second-graders shows how a loophole in the law is allowing schools to count fewer minorities in required racial categories.

There are about 220 students at West View Elementary School in Knoxville, Tenn., where President Bush marked the second anniversary of the law's enactment in 2004. Tennessee schools have federal permission to exclude students' scores in required racial categories if there are fewer than 45 students in a group.

There are more than 45 white students. Victoria counts.

There are fewer than 45 black students. Laquanya does not.

One of the consequences is that educators are creating a false picture of academic progress.

Silly me, but I thought the act was supposed to ensure that No Child – not even minority children – got Left Behind in their academic achievement. Right? Well apparently, it should have been called the No Child Left Behind (Unless They’re Part of a Statistically Insignificant Racial Group) Act.

Here’s more from AP...

The law requires public schools to test more than 25 million students periodically in reading and math. No scores can be excluded from a school's overall measure.

But the schools also must report scores by categories, such as race, poverty, migrant status, English proficiency and special education. Failure in any category means the whole school fails.

States are helping schools get around that second requirement by using a loophole in the law that allows them to ignore scores of racial groups that are too small to be statistically significant.

[…]

Nearly two dozen states have successfully petitioned the government for such changes in the past two years. As a result, schools can now ignore racial breakdowns even when they have 30, 40 or even 50 students of a given race in the testing population.

Minority: A group having little power or representation relative to other groups within a society.

Alright, wait, maybe I’m just misunderstanding the whole point of the NCLB Act. Let me review: According to the

U.S. Dept. of Education, Dubya asked Congress to pass his education reform bill as a way to "use the federal role in education to close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers." In that vein, the bill requires, "Statewide reports [to] include performance data disaggregated according to race, gender, and other criteria to demonstrate not only how well students are achieving overall but also progress in closing the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and other groups of students."

Okay. So, if "disadvantaged" equals racial minority, but racial minorities only get counted if they are in significant numbers… hmmm. I’m confused again! thinking... thinking…. Oh, wait! So we just want it to look like black and brown kids are doing well in school. We don’t actually care whether they pass or fail! Now I get it. (Carpetbagger)

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