Loopholes Seen at Schools in Obama Get-Tough Policy
Jessica Koscielniak for The New York Times
Freeda Pirillis, a first-grade teacher in Chicago, said educators and students needed more support to meet new goals.
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: October 5, 2012
With an agenda that Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, has described as a “quiet revolution,” the Obama administration has pushed rigorous new standards for a majority of the nation’s public schools as well as requirements that states and districts evaluate not just schools but individual teachers, in part by assessing their ability to improve student scores on standardized tests.
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But some critics suggest that at the same time the administration has gotten tough on teachers and set higher standards, it could be allowing states to set new, unambitious goals for how quickly students must reach