Agreed. I think the merits of NCLB can be discussed separately from the cheating scandal and that you can criticize NCLB without giving the teachers and administrators who cheated a free pass, which is what some people appear to think you're doing if you dare to criticize the law.
In education, its called the “growth model”. It’s been the focus of nearly all standardized testing since the 1990s.
And somebody received a Ed.D for coming up with the idea, followed by many other Ed.D's awarded for commenting on and tweaking the idea, which, outside of the Ed.D world people would have understood wasn't sustainable from the beginning. They probably find you a delight in faculty meetings, don't they, when you try to bring rational thought to the table?
Teachers or administrators who falsify results in my state are actually breaking the state’s law if they do, and get what they deserve accordingly.
“They probably find you a delight in faculty meetings, don’t they, when you try to bring rational thought to the table?”
Actually, its a common complaint among teachers that if something is logical, then it won’t be done that way. The faculty at my school has no voice in a lot of things, the testing regimens come from the state and the Federal turds, and we get assaulted by whatever new fads come up that are supposed to fix everything and never does. A common thought would be “Just leave me alone and I’ll teach.” I am at least fortunate in that I teach in a conservative school in a rural area, so I am not subject to the persecution that I might be elsewhere.