A Little Ignorance: How Statistics Rescued a Damsel in Distress

摘要

Since the passage of No Child Left Behind, the role of standardized test scores in contemporary education hasgrown. Students have been tested and teachers, schools,districts, and states have been judged. The pressure to gethigh scores has increased, and concern about cheating hasincreased apace. School officials desperately want high scores,but simultaneously do not want even the appearance of mal-feasance. Thus, it was not entirely a surprise that a preliminaryinvestigation took place after 16 of the 25 students in JennyJones' third-grade class at Squire Allworthy Elementary Schoolobtained perfect scores on the state's math test.