Standardized testing, itself is not racist. But I am not sure they are designed the way they should be. I believe testing should be done at least every 2 years 6th grade on.

My kids school, once in middle school, starts two separate learning tracks, Advanced and normal. The main difference is how advanced they two tracks get in Math and Science. You can't test both groups the same at the end when they are not taught the same. The testing should account for this. If a kid is not taught Calc, or Trig, they should not be tested on it.

And testing results should be looked at it like they were for advancing when I was in the Navy. 150 questions, throw out the 25 more answered wrong and 25 most answered correct and score on the remaining 100.

Originally Posted by: PackFanWithTwins 

Nearly 70 percent of Rock River Valley schools failed this year under the federal No Child Left Behind Act and its standards.

The results from the annual standardized tests, released today, are better than last year, when 73 percent of schools failed to reach Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

State officials say a new system of measuring progress is in the works, but scores may get worse before they get better because they will be based on national benchmarks, which are more rigorous than Illinois’ standards.

However, they add that students are not getting worse, but increased AYP standards are making it difficult to keep pace.

The expectation this year, according to AYP, is that 85 percent of students meet or exceed learning standards. That bar has steadily risen over the years, and by 2014, the expectation is that 100 percent of students will at least meet standards.

It’s a problem across the state, and it’s getting worse. In 2010, 51 percent of public schools were not making Adequate Yearly Progress. This year, it’s at 66 percent of schools and 82 percent of districts.

State Superintendent Christopher Koch said it’s time for a change in education and a change in how student achievement and growth are measured.

“We believe this is the last year we will be reporting (adequate yearly progress) results,” he said.

No Child Left Behind benchmarks require schools to have more students meeting standards each year. Those benchmarks have outpaced student achievement, meaning that more and more schools, each year, aren’t keeping pace.

Eliminating that measurement — and in turn, the “failing” label — is good news. This year, just 31 percent of schools are keeping pace with standardized test benchmarks.

By this time next year, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind) will be reauthorized, or Illinois will have a waiver, so AYP won’t be measured the way it is today.

I am old enough. Yes, the NAACP has been, for most of its existence, been a good, useful, and noble organization.

Liberal, yes. But liberal hasn't always been a synonym for moron. Not even the modern "statist" sort of liberal. It's only in the last twenty-five years or so that they've degenerated into their current state.

People like Jack Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Gene McCarthy -- they were neither idiots like Pelosi and Biden or cynical manipulators like Reid and Obama. Heck, even Lyndon Johnson, the ultimate in traditional bare-knuckle dealmaking politician of the era, had a kind of liberal oomph that today's liberals lack. Many of their ideas were in hindsight pretty bad ones (IMO) , but these were thoughtful, reasonable men who simply did not have enough empirical evidence of the failure of welfare statism to realize that their ideas of social democracy were bad ones. They were still in an era where the Beveridge recommendations could be seen as the height of innovation for the common good. And they would have been appalled at the people now holding the liberal torch.

I'm not a liberal, not even of the Kennedy/Humphrey/McCarthy sort. I only voted lib in one fed election. (My first, when I voted for Gene McCarthy as a 3rd party candidate after almost killing him on Minnesota highways after picking him up at the Rochester airport.)

I blame Ted Kennedy, Tip O'Neill, Christopher Dodd, and Jesse Jackson for dumbing down liberal thinking. And partly I blame Reagan, because he reduced principled conservatism to "oh shucks" and "there you go again" and did it so successfully that both parties went with superficial populism and know-nothingism. Without them, idiots such as Pelosi and lightweights like Obama, and bad thinkers like Bernanke would never have made it to the national stage.

And of course the Ted Kennedys and Tip O'Neills and Chris Dodds would not have had that influence had the evil ideas of John Dewey and Andrew Carnegie about mass education taken control of the primary/secondary ed system.

But yes, gbguy20, the NAACP was once a respectable organization.

Originally Posted by: Wade 

Porforis is right, there is absolutely no advanced math on these tests. It's just the basics.

Originally Posted by: gbguy20 

My son said the tests were easy.

Originally Posted by: zombieslayer 

My son said the tests were easy.

Originally Posted by: zombieslayer 

They were easy for me too (I think I was in the 95th+ percentile in everything but math and english for the ACTs), but I always tested well (especially with multiple choice). It was more free-form assignments and worksheets that I tended to struggle with. Some people simply do not test well, it's not necessarily indicative of a deficient level of knowledge or intelligence.

Originally Posted by: Porforis