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States are racing to the bottom. As federal “proficiency requirements” approach 100% in 2014, the correct number of questions required to score proficient on state education tests like AIMS is getting lower and lower. In the process, we are losing transparency in public schools. This phenomenon can be seen in the birthplace of NCLB: Texas. Below are the scores on the Texas version of AIMS, TAKS, from Bridge Point Elementary near Austin. The results are similar to other reasonably high-performing elementary schools across the state, that is student passing rates cluster near 100%. Can Bridgepoint administrators use this information to...

There's a big change coming for pregnant women: Down syndrome testing no longer hinges on whether they're older or younger than 35. This week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists begins recommending that every pregnant woman, regardless of age, be offered a choice of tests for this common birth defect. The main reason: Tests far less invasive than the long-used amniocentesis are now widely available, some that can tell in the first trimester the risk of a fetus having Down syndrome or other chromosomal defects. It's a change that promises to decrease unnecessary amnios - giving mothers-to-be peace of...

WASHINGTON - Republicans decided long ago their party won't pay a significant price at the polls for the scandal spawned by lobbyist Jack Abramoff. It's a proposition likely to be tested anew in the aftermath of Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record)'s agreement to plead guilty to corruption charges. Within minutes of the disclosure of Ney's signed plea bargain papers on Friday, House Democrats circulated a list meant to suggest guilt by association. It highlighted the names of more than 60 Republican incumbents who have accepted political donations from the six-term lawmaker. "Americans are ready for a new direction...

A MEDICAL journal in March published a study suggesting that drinking coffee can raise the risk of heart attack, but only for people with a gene that makes them slow metabolizers of caffeine. Experts called the finding intriguing, but said it needed to be validated by others and its health implications better understood. Still, Consumer Genetics, a company formed only a month earlier, is already advertising a genetic test that purports to tell consumers whether they can continue to enjoy their morning jolt. That is how fast things can move in the rapidly expanding, chaotic and largely unregulated world of...

There is no drug-testing policy on the PGA Tour, and when Tiger Woods called for one this week at the Bridgestone Invitational, no one should have been surprised, according to Woods' agent, Mark Steinberg of IMG. "There's a lot out there right now, with BALCO, the cycling and the sprinters, so what he's saying is, 'Start with golf, start with me. I'm clean and I think the sport's clean,' " Steinberg said Friday. " 'If people are speculating about golf, let's get it over now.' "

Average composite scores on the exam, which measures students' readiness for college-level work, rose to 21.1 from 20.9 last year. Both boys and girls posted gains, as did all racial groups except Hispanics, whose scores held steady. ACT scores range from 1 to 36. Officials at the independent, nonprofit ACT said an increase of 0.2 points is significant when considered across a record 1.2 million test-takers nationwide, or 40 percent of graduating seniors. "It takes an enormous amount of change for that large a group to move even a little bit, particularly when that group is changing and we're seeing...

WASHINGTON -- Fourth graders in traditional public schools are doing better in both reading and math than students in charter schools, the government says in a report fueling fresh debate over school choice. Tuesday's report said fourth graders in regular public schools scored an average of 5.2 points better in reading than students in charter schools on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress test. Students in traditional schools scored an average of 5.8 points better in math.

More than a decade after the city created a special institute to prepare black and Hispanic students for the mind-bendingly difficult test that determines who gets into New York’s three most elite specialized high schools, the percentage of such students has not only failed to rise, it has declined. The drop at Stuyvesant High School, the Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School mirrors a trend recently reported at three of the City University of New York’s five most prestigious colleges, where the proportion of black students has dropped significantly in the six years since rigorous admissions...

Former President Ford was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., on Tuesday for "testing and evaluation," his office said in a statement. The statement gave no further details on why the 93-year-old former chief executive went to the clinic. "No further releases or updates are anticipated prior to early next week," said the statement issued from his office in Beaver Creek, Colo. Ford also has a home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. No other information was released by the clinic. "I can verify that the statement is correct and I have no other additional information," said John Murphy, the...

Ordered by the federal government to improve its testing of students who speak limited English, New York State said yesterday that all children enrolled in school in the United States for at least a year would be required to take the state’s regular English Language Arts exam. The test is given annually in the third through eighth grades. State officials said the decision would require about 90,000 children who speak limited English to take the regular exam in January. Students will continue to take the state’s math, social studies and science tests in a variety of foreign languages, officials said....

The trial of a new drug in a London hospital that nearly killed six men three months ago and left them in intensive care for weeks has prompted numerous reports and recommendations that will change the way drugs are tested. But the six men, who were all young and healthy just months ago, now suffer from serious medical problems, and they have been unable to get any of the drug companies involved in the trial to cover their medical expenses, or provide compensation — other than a one-time payment of under $20,000 apiece. In recent weeks, lab tests and medical...

The Agriculture Department said yesterday that it would scale back testing for mad cow disease by about 90 percent, saying the number of infected animals was far too low to justify the current level of surveillance. “It’s time that our surveillance efforts reflect what we now know is a very, very low level of B.S.E. in the United States,” Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said as he announced the new testing program for the disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy. After the disease was found in a Canadian-born dairy cow in Washington in December 2003, the department tested more than 759,000 animals over...

Flight Lessons ON June 11, 1957, the Atlas, America's first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, took its inaugural flight from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It lasted 24 seconds. The missile roared off the launching pad and soared to about 10,000 feet before its engines failed. Tumbling out of control, the rocket fell through its own trail of fire before the safety officer on the ground sent a radio signal that told the wayward rocket to blow itself up. The rocket's designers, though disappointed, learned a lot. It was clear that, despite the pummeling the Atlas took as it careered out of control,...

Crouching down to take a closer look, Rossi inspects the dropping left by the large sea duck and then carefully dabs at the greenish mound with a swab before breaking off the tip into a plastic vial. "He laid a fresh one there. We really want the freshest stuff," said Rossi, Alaska district supervisor for the USDA's wildlife services. The swab of eider dropping is one of 50,000 such field samples from wild birds that federal and local agencies aim to collect in America this year and test for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. Officials also want another...

Colleges across the country are reporting a drop in SAT scores this year. I've been tutoring students in New York City for the SAT since 1989, and I have watched the numbers rise and fall. This year, though, the scores of my best students dropped about 50 points total in the math and verbal portions of the test (each on a scale of 200 to 800). Colleges and parents are wondering: Is there something wrong with the new test? Or are our children not being taught what they should know? Before 1994, the verbal section of the SAT was about...

Calif. Supreme Court reinstates exit exam By DAVID KRAVETS, Associated Press Writer 25 minutes ago The California Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated the state's high school exit exam as a graduation requirement, but it was not immediately clear whether the decision means tens of thousands of high school seniors who failed the test won't graduate this year. The high court ordered a state appeals court to hold hearings in the case. This year's class was the first in which passing the test of 10th grade English and eighth grade math and algebra was required for graduation. A group of students...

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2006 – More than 5,000 U.S. and Canadian servicemembers are working with authorities in five U.S. states and two Canadian provinces to test their response capabilities to crises ranging from a major hurricane to a terrorist attack to a pandemic flu outbreak. Ardent Sentry 2006, a two-week U.S. Northern Command exercise, kicked off May 8 to test military support to federal, provincial, state and local authorities while continuing to support the Defense Department's homeland defense mission, according to Air Force Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh, a NORTHCOM and North American Aerospace Defense Command spokesman. The Canadian part of...

“Teaching to the test” is a common complaint of public school teachers whose students have an increasingly difficult time passing such examinations with the passage of every school year. “Teach to the test, please,” Richard Ferguson of the ACT advises, “because the skills we are measuring are the skills that are needed.” Ferguson spoke at a conference at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel here in which the ACT released its new report, which is entitled “Ready to Succeed: All Students Prepared for College and Work.” The ACT that Ferguson heads administers one of the two most widely-used college entrance exams in...

ATLANTA (AP) - Testing for the AIDS virus could become part of routine physical exams for adults and teens if doctors follow new U.S. guidelines expected to be issued by this summer. Federal health officials say they'd like HIV testing to be as common as a cholesterol check. The guidelines for voluntary testing would apply to every American ages 13 to 64, according to the proposed plan by the U.S. Centers for Disease control and Prevention. One-quarter of the 1 million Americans with the AIDS virus don't know they are infected, and that group is most responsible for HIV's spread,...

It’s Prom season, when many parents worry about drinking and driving. But one school is taking a proactive approach to keep its students safe. Elkhart Central High School recently started giving random alcohol breath tests to prom-goers. Roughly, 10-20% of the students will be given the tests, for prom next week, as they drive up to the event. The school says in two years that they have done it, no students have tested positive. “I feel that kids need to be aware that this is going on, so that there’s no drunk driving on prom night,” senior Sarah Fischer told...