No Child isn't 'hiding' children

Finally someone else calls foul on the Ap article listed below. This editorial is from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

It is unarguably unwieldy, invasive, even bossy. But flawed as it is, No Child Left Behind is not quite the devil-in-data that its critics make it out to be.

Such is the case with a widely circulated wire service story that accuses NCLB of "hiding" minority students scores and thus, in essence, leaving those students behind.

The "loophole" the story refers to is a widely known and regularly explained provision that allows schools to not publicly disseminate scores when a small number of students fall into a sub-group. That provision can be used for minority students, students with disabilities and students with limited English proficiency.

It's not that the scores aren't "reported," as the wire stories have said. They are indeed reported to the state and to the schools and, in individual student report cards, to parents as well.

But they aren't disbursed to the general public for a justifiable reason. With a small group of children, it would be easy for community members or even classmates to make assumptions about how individual students scored.

Had NCLB not had that provision, and had the above scenario actually played out, the U.S. Department of Education would be dealing with far greater outrage.

...

States have set their own limits on how few minority, disabled or limited English-speaking students a school must have to be exempt from public reporting. Those arbitrary numbers may be cause for legitimate debate.

...

The article then goes to praise NCLB, showing that even supporters of this awful law can see through the ruse that thios article is. Also be sure to check here for Jim Horn's take on this as well as some background.
anti nclb