Finally Media Reports Success from No Child Left Behind

By Tim Grubbs
July 25, 2008
Lifestyle

While critics across the country, from school administrators to presidential hopeful Barack Hussein Obama, complain that President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind initiative has been an epic blunder of ineffective and inefficient governmental policy, Libby Quaid of the Associated Press reported Thursday a success of epic proportion. As she puts it, “Sixteen years after Barbie dolls declared, ‘Math class is tough!’ girls are proving that when it comes to math they are just as tough as boys.”

Janet Hyde, Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin, headed the study in which the group of five female researchers have stumbled upon an elusive outcome - a study that might suggest girls are as good at math as boys. According to Janet, “Girls have now achieved gender parity in performance on standardized math tests.”

Janet points to research performed by her and four other female researchers, which, according to Libby’s article, was conducted on incomplete statistical information from ten states who submitted just enough reviewable information about a 2002 annual math test required by No Child Left Behind.

In the face of conflicting complete national statistics such as those from ACT and SAT, which show boys average 533 in math, and girls 499, Libby says that Janet dispels these facts by assuming that “more girls lower on the achievement scale take [the SAT]” than boys, which skews the statistics.

The five ladies contributing to the Gender Similarities Characterize Math Performance study are Janet Hyde, Sara Lindberg, Marcia Linn, Amy Ellis, and Caroline Williams.