This is absolutely not a bogus criticism, and saying “sure, but” doesn’t make it so. The way the law is structured right now guarantees that teachers of poor kids will be punished, and teachers of rich kids will get bonuses and job security. That fact didn’t even need a mathematical foundation - but now it has one anyway.
There is no more powerful predictor of academic achievement than poverty. This has been demonstrated in many, many studies. Until the 1980s, America had programs in place to fight this trend and give kids a more level playing field.
But beginning with Reagan, those programs were dismantled, because they were “big government interfering in our communities.” That trend culminated in No Child Left Behind, and the cult of standardized testing.
The result today is that inner-city schools are crumbling, and being closed, and tax dollars are being shifted to for-profit “charter” schools that, overall, have demonstrably worse performance than public schools. But the profits they turn can buy plenty of friends in high places. And so we continue down the road to inequality in education - which, for some, is a feature, not a bug.
