Nice, huh?
Many school districts have decided to drive a truck through a loophole in “No Child Left Behind” using a test for special needs students in order to artificially inflate their test scores.
Even the Sacramento Bee couldn’t help themselves – they wrote a long story about it.
Here are some of the money quotes from this linked story:
The federal government issued guidelines to the state saying the new test should be given to no more than 2 percent of students in those grades – about 100,000 children.
Four years later, almost 200,000 students are taking the test – a number that will likely grow as the CMA gains momentum.
Nice, Huh?
CMA scores are tallied separately from scores on the regular test, the STAR California Standards Test. By removing failing students from the pool of kids taking the regular test, districts end up with a greater proportion of high-scoring students.
The CMA has inflated gains on the regular STAR test by about 25 percent statewide since 2007, according to a Bee analysis.