Math Wars, Nothing But Math Wars

So: the state math scores. I'm surprised more people aren't asking if the tests weren't just easier this year. How exactly are they determining that the tests are equivalent?

Also: there is no easy way to compare special needs performance across school districts. It's possible to find out about an individual district's disaggregated data, but there doesn't seem to be a published format that looks at how special needs students are doing by district. Given the fact that policy decisions and Board of Ed seats are made or broken, won or lost, by the scores, you'd think they'd try to give as much context as possible.

It would be nice if they'd just put this stuff in a damn Excel sheet so we could do a real analysis.