Being a history teacher was very liberating. Virtually every teacher in the school (with the exception of music, art, and gym) had to sweat the yearly tests. But I didn’t. Because it took so long to score and return the results, the kids were off to high school before we knew how they did. They suffered no ill consequences for low scores, only their teachers—but not me.
Because of ‘No Child Left Behind’, every three years the number of kids who had to score ‘proficient’ or better kept increasing to ridiculous levels—before it was abandoned it was going to be 100%!
Of course anyone who knew anything about anything knew that through the tyranny of the Bell Shaped Curve, 50% were going to be ‘below average’. Only way to alter that was to keep dumbing down the tests until they measured nothing, or cheat.
Michigan ties funding to year over year improvements on the ACT. All seniors must take it. (or the MEAP for younger students. If there is no improvement, you get less funding.
(I have never understood this.) My wife works in one of the better districts in the state, so it is incredibly hard to show improvement every year.
She is only a couple of years from retirement and the kids are almost through high school, so hopefully it wont be an immediate problem for us for too much longer.