Chapter 2
The Chain of Imperfection
On October 19, 2009, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution broke a story with the provocative title “Are Drastic Swings in CRCT Scores Valid?”1 The CRCT acronym referred to the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, which were, as the article specified, “Georgia’s main measure of academic ability through eighth grade.” The article questioned the spectacular improvement in the student CRCT scores at a number of Atlanta-area schools, showing that the likelihood of such marked improvement was less than one in a billion.
The scores were a big deal. As the state’s proxy for educational attainment under the previously discussed No Child Left Behind Act, CRCT scores represented both a stick and a carrot. It was a stick ...
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