Transfer credits.

• Author: Porter, Gene
• Position: Letters

Thad Hall's article faulting George W. Bush's education plan for not excluding mobile students from the scoring system was a curiously timid step in the right direction ("Student Movement," September 2001). Certainly teachers and principals should not be held accountable for the test performance of students who arrived in their schools only a few days, or weeks, before the tests. The principals and teachers in such disadvantaged schools should also not be judged by comparing their test scores with those of other schools. Instead, they should be judged on how well each of their students has progressed during the school year--that is, to what extent did each student advance from start to finish of the year.

Surely a teacher who advances a classroom of disadvantaged kids by more than one grade level in a year is...