The Education Sector has released a new report, How States Game the No Child Left Behind Act. From the press release:

But some states changed their rank substantially. And none increased its position more than Alabama, which jumped from 22nd to 5th. Carey chronicles Alabama’s progress under NCLB and demonstrates that this didn’t happen because students in Alabama and in similar states learned much more than they did the year prior. It happened because state departments of education manipulated NCLB in such a way that no other result was possible.

In other news, some kind person came here off of a google search looking for a comparison between public schools and prison.  I didn’t remember ever making such a comparison so was curious.  The person landed on Homeschool vs. Public School, which probably didn’t help very much.

Gary Stager, in his article “What’s the difference between school and prison” might be more helpful for anyone desiring to make such a comparison.  Matthew K. Tabor had a good rebuttal of this entry awhile back.  I’ll stay out of it for the moment, but feel free to leave your thoughts on the comparative merits of either argument.

Also, the Nerd Family offers us the Thankful edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling.