Since the Associated Press informed Congress yesterday that some schools are applying affirmative action principles cheating on “No Child Left Behind” test scoring, they’ve decided they have to intervene.
Right. Wonderful. That’s how we got here in the first place.
Lawmakers who helped pass the law in 2001 said the system that [they set up] allows states to get exemptions to exclude large numbers of test scores from the required racial categories needs to be addressed.
Emphasis mine.
Former Bush Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, who now serves on a private commission studying the law, issued a joint statement with his co-leader of the commission calling the AP’s findings alarming.
“If the goal of the No Child Left Behind Act is to ensure that all children meet state standards, then allowing large numbers of the most disadvantaged children to fall between the cracks is unacceptable,” Thompson said with commission co-chairman Roy Barnes.
Tommy, you are old enough to know that the goal of the program was not to ensure any such thing, so a process that further disadvantages children should come as no surprise.
Teddy needs the money. Bush needs the statistics. The result of this wedding of state socialism with clueless compassionate conservatism was predictable.