Bush's Big Government School Reform Encourage Test Score Deception

Interesting article about how one of the all too many big government reforms implemented by Bush, the "No Child Left Behind" act encourages schools to lie about the progress they are required to make.

While American conservatives have traditionally opposed federal involvement in education and called for the abolition of the Department of Education, Bush have done the exact opposite and sharply increased federal education spending and increased the role of the federal government in education. This was made in the so-called "No Child Left Behind" act which sharply increased federal spending on and control over education.

One element in this law is that all schools must every year demonstrate improved test scores for students of all races or face penalties. But as the article showed, this have only encouraged schools to exclude students with dismal test scores. An estimated 2 million students -mostly non-white- have been deliberately excluded to deceive the Department of Education and therefore escape penalties.

It also seems likely -although no direct proof of this is available yet- that many schools are directly faking test scores in order to escape penalties.