It comes down to the Districts wanting more money. In Texas, more money is rewarded to those Districts that do good on the test. Those who do poorly get less money. Seems like it should be the other way around, but then, like I said, I can see districts trying to do poorly to get more money (When I was teaching in Houston, I remember the school getting excited because they had a high number of pregnancies, which meant more money- that is how money hungry they are).

We have gotten away from the Teachers deciding who passes and who fails. Teachers used to fail students, but then they started getting into trouble for failing students (I good teacher shouldn’t have any failing students was the attitude). So then teachers started passing students who should have failed. The next thing you know we have high school kids who can’t graduate because they didn’t learn what they should have back in elementary school.

Let the teachers pass or fail students and use the achievement test to see how well the students are doing- and that’s it- no money- no failing- just use it to see how they are doing and where they need to improve.

And award money equally to every school based on per student.