Honesty Breaks Out

Former Assistant Education Secretary Diane Ravitch has changed her tune on No Child Left Behind. She began looking at the facts after advocating the program for years and broke out in a fit of honesty.

'The basic strategy is measuring and punishing,' Ravitch says of No Child Left Behind. 'And it turns out as a result of putting so much emphasis on the test scores, there's a lot of cheating going on, there's a lot of gaming the system. Instead of raising standards it's actually lowered standards because many states have 'dumbed down' their tests or changed the scoring of their tests to say that more kids are passing than actually are.'

The program isn't working and something better is needed.