Schools can slip through 'No Child Left Behind' loopholes

A loophole in the No Child Left Behind education law allows schools to ignore scores of racial groups that are too small to be statistically significant -- groups with fewer than 30 students, in Indiana's case.\nIn Indiana, test scores of 21,650 children -- including a third of the state's Hispanic students -- were not reported at the school level under that clause. Overall, an Associated Press analysis of 2003-04 enrollment figures found that about 1.9 million students -- or about one in every 14 test scores -- aren't being counted under the law's racial categories. Minorities were seven times as likely to have their scores excluded as whites, the analysis showed.\nSome education experts fear that the exclusions undermine No Child's original goal of making schools accountable for student performance.\nJonathan Plucker, director of the Center on Evaluation and Education Policy at IU, said many analysts warned from the outset that the exclusion clause would be ripe for potential abuse because it allows schools to "hide students."\n"Just by its mere existence, it creates pressure to weaken the accountability system to sort of this minimal level," he said.\nIn Indiana, Hispanics comprised the largest subgroup among the 21,650 students excluded under the clause. The test scores of about 34 percent of the 8,793 Hispanic students enrolled in Indiana schools in 2003-04 were excluded from ISTEP test scores reported at the school level.\nBlacks represented the second-largest group excluded with 5,812 scores -- about 8 percent of black enrollment -- not reported.\nNationally, the AP found that Hispanics and blacks have roughly 10 percent of their scores excluded. More than one-third of Asian scores and nearly half of American Indian scores aren't shown, the AP found.\nLess than 2 percent of white children's scores aren't being counted as a separate category.\nState officials contend the exclusion clause has no effect on students' education.