For months, those who would like to water down the new accountability law, which stipulates rigorous testing of students, have been haggling over how many categories there should be above and below standards set for each grade. They wanted more categories below the standards. Those holding out for tougher action wanted more categories above standards. The get-tough advocates seem to have won the skirmish. They can be expected to lobby for leniency when the committee makes recommendations to the state Department of Education about what is a passing score on the tests.
Compassion is nice.
Achievement is better. The flap about whether Delaware and several other states really scored better on the National Assessment of Education Progress tests is drawing a lot of attention. It may well be that some of the improved fourth-grade reading results stemmed from a larger exclusion of special education students. For Delaware at least, the exclusion of only 1 percent more special education students in 1998 than in 1994 would not be significant. In other states, the differences might be statistically important.