Friday, 26 December 2003

When all else fails, lower your standards

The Mississippi Board of Education is considering making a change to its math requirements in order to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act.

It seems that the NCLBA requires states to test students on the highest level of math required by the curriculum. Currently, Mississippi requires geometry, but only gives standardized tests on Algebra I.

So rather than comply with federal law by giving standardized tests on geometry, the Mississippi Board of Education is considering dropping the geometry requirement.

Yet another illustration of the law of unintended consequences.