It also would point out those that are underperforming. Because they now largely escape notice, underperforming schools, and their high-scoring students, may be hurt just as much as those at the bottom, said Bruce Fuller, a UC Berkeley associate professor of education. Without a method for factoring in demographics, Fuller points out, the district cannot evaluate the effectiveness of presumably high-performance schools and search out those that are underachieving. A nationwide movement to enhance accountability in public education has given new urgency to the issue. The stakes are high for schools and their staffs, who are increasingly competing for rewards when they do well and face penalties, including losing their jobs, when they fail.
Opinions are deeply divided.
Others contend that it is unfair to poor students to use a measure that does not hold their schools to a single academic standard. As yet, there are no definitive answers to those questions anywhere in America. But some school systems are far ahead of Los Angeles and California in untangling the knot of educational assessment. The prime examples are Dallas and the state of Tennessee, which use complex computer models to level the test score playing field by taking into account demographic influences. The architects of these statistical models promote them as the answer to the inherent tyranny of ranking schools by their students' scores.