Cash for transparency

No Child Left Behind is creating transparency, if not proficiency, writes Greg Forster of the Friedman Foundation on Pajamas Media.

When you set aside all the implausible multi-year plans, toothless sanctions, easily evaded school choice requirements, and other window dressing, NCLB boils down to one simple commercial transaction: the system got a big cash payoff, in exchange for which it agreed to give standardized tests and release up-to-date information on how students are performing.

. . . some mandate for standardized testing as the price of getting federal subsidies is indispensable. If the feds are going to subsidize education — and it seems that no force on earth can stop them – they might as well demand transparency in return.

The information NCLB is generating is vital to useful education research, Forster argues.