Failing Students, Rising Profits

<>by ANNETTE FUENTES [from the September 19, 2005 issue of The Nation]

Read this. through NCLB schools all over the country are dumping their lowest performing students on one particular for profit school that does not have to show AYP. the results are good profits for the company. The schools do better on the tests and the lowest performing students are still the lowest performing student. As usual with NCLB, everyone's a winner but the kids.

CEP's Richardson says the proof of his company's success is that districts keep renewing their contracts. The question is how success is defined. Public schools have strong incentives to remove the lowest-performing students from their classrooms and make them CEP's problem, especially since the passage of No Child Left Behind. "CEP was a way to get around NCLB," said Mitchell. "If you move these kids from the regular school program, you automatically decrease the dropout rate and get a gain on your test scores. So you contract those kids out; they're in a separate environment, but they aren't counted in the total."