Domestic Roundup

Hmmm; that title sounds vaguely kinky, doesn't it?

Never mind.

Everyone else is at lunch, so I've got a few minutes (No, that is not a reference to the "kinky" comment!).

In a development that should surprise absolutely nobody, the mandatory testing requirements that are at the heart of President Bush's No Child Left Behind educational initiative are being subverted at the state and local level by the simple expedient of not reporting unfavorable test results:

States are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting the No Child Left Behind law's requirement that students of all races must show annual academic progress.

With the federal government's permission, schools deliberately aren't counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students when they report progress by racial groups, an Associated Press computer analysis found.

Minorities — who historically haven't fared as well as whites in testing — make up the vast majority of students whose scores are being excluded, AP found. And the numbers have been rising. ...

To calculate a nationwide estimate, AP analyzed the 2003-04 enrollment figures the government collected — the latest on record — and applied the current racial category exemptions the states use.

Overall, AP found that about 1.9 million students — or about 1 in every 14 test scores — aren't being counted under the law's racial categories. Minorities are seven times as likely to have their scores excluded as whites, the analysis showed. [emphasis added]

Cap'n Ed has a more detailed analysis that is well worth the read. I'll just add that I had no use for NCLB after the White House essentially let Ted Kennedy write the legislation and allowed him to purge educational vouchers completely from the fine print. All that was left was another vast increase in federal encroachment on this state/local function, in both funding and regulations, which was inevitably going to damage public education even further. What a surprise that the DOE itself is allowing states and localities to dodge the one saleable feature of NCLB - accountability.

Not to sound like Quinn Hillyer again, but how about repealing NCLB and replacing it with a nation-wide voucher program? Can it really do any worse than this?

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Speaking of Hillyer, he does provide a cogent reminder today that the reason why oil prices are skyrocketing again is not "Big Oil," but Big Government.

Whoops, looks like the crew is filing back in from lunch. And I'm rather famished myself....