Well, I guess that's a good question. I'm working from personal knowledge and experience, not from scores or data. (I realize that's flawed, but that's what I'm doing anyway.
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I guess I'd argue that the focus of NCLB on raising the scores at the bottom of the class is not good for kids near the top--not even just GT kids, but anyone achieving above 50%.
I think it encourages mediocrity to base monetary rewards for teachers on scores in the bottom half of the class, especially when raising scores in that half is not always possible or teacher-dependent. You reward people for what they can control. Assuming that teachers have complete control over their students' test scores is patently ridiculous.
I think it's also pretty clear that basing so much on one test places too much emphasis on one day's (or one week's) performance. We know from IQ testing how dangerous that can be. Not to mention how much it leads to teaching to the test and effectively rewarding teachers for taking creativity and problem solving out of the classroom in favor of the "fill them with knowledge" model that just isn't what real learning--real thinking!--is.
I'd prefer that we use a system that rewards teachers for advancing students--all students, those at the top as well as those at the bottom!--for at least a year's worth of progress for every year's worth of school. And I'd like to see other methods for evaluating that progress beyond standardized testing, which is far too simplistic and superficial.
FWIW...
