Originally Posted by iccyfan 
For entertainment purposes, I took a look at the NCLB list from 05-06. There were two IC elementary schools and interesting enough, Ames Middle School as well! I don't see this as an indictment of either district; compliance with NCLB is a farce for many reasons.
EIU has a social work master's degree program and there are more social service agencies in IC than you can shake a stick at. This, of course, draws low-income families from neighboring areas. There is a direct correlation between standardized test scores and % of student population on subsidized lunch programs. There's also the fact that autistic, developmentally-disabled and behavior-discipline students from small towns take advantage of open-enrollment to enter into IC's school system (and their test scores count). Please do not use NCLB statistics as an indicator of a school district's quality!
05-06? Check for 07-08. There are no Ames Schools listed and three Iowa City schools.
Also, if you don't care for how the federal government monitors academic achievement in schools, what about the state government?
According to the Student Achievement and Teacher Quality Program of Iowa, in 2007 the Ames Community School district ranked 25th in the state while the Iowa City Community School district ranked 211th.
2005
I know bashing NCLB is a fun past time, but an accurate measure of student progress is something this country has needed for a long time. NCLB isn't perfect but it's the measuring stick that is currently used.
