Can New York Clean Up the Testing Mess? Two top education officials tackle rampant score inflation
…the Obama administration has launched the most expansive (and expensive) federal school-reform initiative in American history…But testing could be the Achilles’ heel of Obama’s reform agenda unless states like New York, where sudden student improvements strain all credulity, shape up
…when school districts, prompted by systems like NCLB, offer teachers and administrators substantial incentives to raise students’ test scores, the teachers and administrators will be tempted to find extraordinary means—but not always ethical ones—to get the test scores up.