Remember
this?
Black and Latino students have trailed their white counterparts in reading and math scores for at least 30 years, but a broad new survey of academic performance shows the gap has lessened dramatically. [emphasis mine]
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings knew just where to place the credit:
But the overall test-score news was encouraging, and Spelling and other proponents credited No Child Left Behind -- the federal Education Act of 2001 -- even though the law was in effect for only two of the years covered by the report.
"It is not a coincidence," Spelling said, that "more than half of the progress in reading for 9-year-olds during the Report Card's entire history has been made in the last five years." [emphasis mine]
Turns out, we find out today, that it's all a load of crap. ...SURPRISE!
The results we saw a year ago astounding. Look at how well minority students were doing under George W. Bush!!
But... then the truth came out today.
Uh oh.
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 aren't counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students when they report progress by racial groups. [emphasis mine]
Who in the Federal Government is granting them permission? Certainly not the Education Secretary - her response shows she's clearly concerned about this outright flaunting of the law.
"Is it too many? You bet," Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said in an interview. "Are there things we need to do to look at that, batten down the hatches, make sure those kids are part of the system? You bet."
Yeah, you bet.
"They're asking the question, not how do we generate statistically reliable results, but how do we generate politically palatable results"
Same old story.
[UPDATE: This is the cover story on MSNBC.com.]