Testing in Public Schools (Lesson Plans)

IT has long been known that some administrators find pretexts for eliminating students on the margins — those with learning disabilities or in danger of being held back. Walter Haney, a testing expert at Boston College, said Texas doubled the number of special education students who were exempted from 1994 to 1998, a move that he said accounted for spectacular gains — gains which, incidentally, contributed to calls for nationwide testing that culminated in the federal No Child Left Behind Law.

For several years until the federal government banned it, New York State exempted immigrant students who had been in the school system for less than three years. This year, only those in the country for less than a year were exempted, and the declining scores in Grades 3 and 4 were attributed to the large share of immigrants those grades absorbed.

Read the complete story in The New York Times. Then go here for lesson plans.