'No Child Left Behind' Improved Test Results, Study Finds

[StateBoiler]

I'd be more than happy to design a test for children of different grade levels that requires critical thinking.

I suppose this could be given to a sixth grader. What percentage would get it right?:

"You go to a gas station with $40 in your pocket. Due to excessive driveoffs, you're now required to go inside and pay first. You decide when you go in you want to buy a Pepsi. When the cashier rings it up, it costs $1.37. Not wanting to receive back any change, you want the total cost of your gas and the Pepsi to be exactly $40. How much money should you tell the cashier you want to pump in gas?"

No multiple choice. They have a brain, they should be able to subtract.

(Although it pisses me off when I do this and the 22-year-old cashier gives me this odd look of why I want such an odd number for gasoline. Then she rings it up and goes "OHHH!")

[StateBoiler]

Minnesota is so anti-NCLB that it's considering simply not complying and forgetting the federal subsidies since the government is considering that its education system might be better non-NCLB without the subsidies than complying with that pile of crap than with it.

If President Obama can't get it repealed he better simply effectively block its enforcement.

Minnesota doesn't like it because it requires separate performance measurement of Blacks, Hmongs, and American Indians.  They prefer using just a single aggregate measure that really is more a measure of how Nordic they are.

Isn't that actually a good thing on Minnesota's part, not pushing for racial division and treating everyone as equal?