[skip2myloo]

Yes, but without regard for the rest of your argument I'd like to mention one other bill wending its way through the Virginia legislature.

As you know, to graduate HS, students must pass a comprehensive Standards of Learning (SOL) test.

And under the No Child Left Behind Act -- schools also are "graded."

The bill proposed suggests that a student attending a "failed" school, who also fails his/her SOL test, be given a diploma anyway.

Now, isn't that the limit of irony (stupidity) -- the state (commonwealth) sends a kid to a failing school, doesn't teach him adequately to pass the SOL, and then they send out the door into a cruel world with a diploma that is meaningless.

Maybe, instead they ought to use these metrics to identify a kid who has been shortchanged and needs remedial education, until he can pass the SOL, and then send him into the world with a credential that truly means he really can read, write and cipher at some minimal level.

[kegler4]

"The bill proposed suggests that a student attending a "failed" school, who also fails his/her SOL test, be given a diploma anyway."

That bill was killed easily yesterday.

One thing the Virginia system does appear to be showing -- money seems to be make a difference. Most of the more affluent school systems (which also spend more per pupil) are passing with no problem, while systems with higher rates of low-income families -- urban AND rural -- have the lowest scores. There are exceptions, of course, but the general trend holds true.