Fast Report - NCLB supports 'educational traige,' study finds
0707 -- A study by University of Chicago economists Derek A. Neal and Diane Whitmore lends support to the idea that the students in the middle benefit the most from the No Child Left Behind Act.
According to Left by Design: Proficiency Counts and Test-Based Accountability, teachers in Chicago under pressure to raise test scores tended to neglect the highest and lowest-performing students and instead concentrated on the “bubble students,” those with the best chance of improving enough to pass the exams.
The report questions the basic premise of NCLB: that accountability systems that reward schools for “crossing a fixed proficiency threshold” will result in raising the achievement levels of all students.