There Oughta Be A Law...
Oh, those legislators!
Get this: There is a new bill now in the Senate Appropriations Committee that, if enacted, would "request the University of California to conduct a study to research the meaning of the term 'proficiency' in California and other states and recommend a definition of the term to the Legislature, the state Board of Education and the superintendent of public instruction ...," according to the California School Boards Association's latest newsletter.
Further, the state board "would be required to consider adopting the definition of proficiency recommended by the University of California ... and to report the accountability data to the U.S. Department of Education by Jan. 1, 2010."
The No Child Left Behind Act already appeared to be pretty well-loathed, in its existing form anyway, but really, if our politicians are considering drafting entire laws to define what even the word 'proficiency' means in the Golden State, it must be even worse than I thought!