Reply #14: All sorts of built-in trapdoors like this

[MountainLaurel]

In my area, ESL students and learning disabled students are a huge "problem" within the current testing structure. Theoretically, ESL students can get a bye for a couple years after entering the U.S. (even though it should be at least five based on current research knowledge about how long it takes non-English speakers to learn the language so that they're on an equivalent level as natives speakers on standardized tests). HOWEVER, NCLB also has regs about the percentage of students that can be absent on the day of the test before a school is penalized -- I think 95 percent of students have to take the test. This rule stemmed from a problem seen in earlier state efforts at standardized tests where middle- and upper-class parents who realized what a bullshit racket these tests are would keep their kids home from school on the day of the tests. So, if you're in a school where 30 percent of students should be exempt from taking the tests because they're ESL or learning disabled under IDEA, because of the attendance rule, they usually have to take the tests anyway, bringing overall scores down. In the school where my friend taught last year, they were giving the tests to kids who literally had arrived in the U.S. the week before and had no functional English skills, because of this attendance rule: They told the kids to just fill in the bubbles.