The Data War in Local Schools

The federal government demands that more and more kids at Edison Elementary School in San Diego score "proficient" on state tests every year. It sounds good to politicians and the press, but the teachers know it isn't that simple.The problem: The tests don't track how much each child improves. Instead, they measure how each group of children scores compared to the last group. So Edison is actually trying to get a whole new set of third graders to do better than the last crop of third graders. Emily Alpert, Voice of San Diego, Oct. 3, 2010