Posts Tagged Bell Curve

No Child Left Behind and Discipline

The follow-up to the original 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, now referred to as “No Child Left Behind,” will rank as one of the most poorly constructed laws to improve education.

The approaches to increase low academic performance (which always concerns behavior and how schools handle discipline challenges) are narrowly drawn and rigid and in many ways counterproductive for improving education. In addition, there is an overreliance on test scores to measure academic quality. Standardized test scores are poor measures of academic progress. The purpose of standardized tests is to achieve a bell-shaped curve. If more than 50 per cent of a question is answered correctly, the question is eliminated because it does not add to the goal of … >>>

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