In last week's Recommended Reading Dangerously confusing (September 10, 2009), we blamed the disingenuous school report cards issued by New York City on the poor psychometrics of the state Regents tests. In reality, the report cards referenced in that piece were for elementary and middle schools and based on NCLB-mandated grades-three-through-eight state tests, while the Regents are a selection of high-school subject tests. Those elementary and middle-school tests, however, suffer from a similar case of score inflation and low quality that plagues their high-school counterpart.
