“These findings are concerning.”-Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) has published the results of their investigation into standardized test scores across the United States.

Sompin’ fishy in Denmark! The chilins ain’t gettin’ an edjumacation!

Scores from 69,000 public schools, in 49 states, were compared.  Standardized test scores should not vary greatly from year to year.  The norm is considered 5%.  Yet the AJC found percentages in variation as great as 29.17% (a school district in Rhode Island)!

In many cases, students who scored well one year absolutely crashed and burned the very next year!  If teaching was consistent from grade level to grade level, and the students are answering the questions honestly, something like that shouldn’t happen.

Such high variance suggests the test result were falsified, although the AJC is not going so far as to make that claim.  Investigators are asking the U.S. Department of Education to look into it.