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acroyearPharyngula: Michael Egnor, Paleyist surgeon: Comment written by "QrazyQat" in reply to a subthread I started on No Child Left Behind (well, "No Child Gets Ahead" as I worded it there) --
There was a very interesting Daily Howler some time back which pointed to a good point he'd seen about what happens under the NCLB. His entry had more details (I can't find it with a quick search) but the bottom line is that under NCLB, there is a tremendous incentive to work hardest on those kids who are just barely below whatever the cutoff point is, so both the brightest kids and those kids who need help the most will naturally tend to get shortchanged. This is because -- well, assume a level of 70 is where you want kids to get to for funding to not be cut off. The school then gets no credit for taking a kid who's at 90 and getting them to 99 (which would be terrific) or for taking a kid who's struggling at 20 and getting them to 50 (which would be fantastic and a really huge help for that kid, and society at large once the kid is out of school). Instead the school gets credit for taking a kid from 68 to 70 and no credit for either of the others.
