The NY Times picks up the NCLB threadtoday, with a close study of a solid California school that's shown steady, upward growth -- although not at the rapid rate NCLB and state planners agreed as targets when the law was written. Notably, state planners bet on the likelihood that the law would be changed in 2007 -- naievete or denial, up for debate -- which, they say prompted them to set outsize, hyper-ambitious Annual Yearly Progress targets. The story also identifies a troubling trend: Schools in states with the hardest tests are having the greatest difficulty making AYP, so much so that 4 in 10 risk being labeled as failing, whether they fall short in one testing category or across the board. In the states with the toughest tests, 60-83% of schools failed to make sufficient progress, while states with easier tests show much greater 'success.'

In an uncanny juxtaposition, an Editorial Observer's brief today describes a Rutgers study of student cheating which shows, surprise!, a steady rise in cheatingamong high school students: More than 90% surveyed admit to cheating on exams. Both the Rutgers researchers and the Times endorse honor codes, which foster candor and personal integrity. But one has to wonder if there's any connection between more testing and more cheating -- and about the possible cynicism of students who, faced with steady barrages of standardized exams, just might not take each and every measure with the gravity the test-makers desire.

Frequency of testing doesn't excuse cheating -- nothing does, in fact -- but whether test-saturation undermines student behavior on exams surely seems well worth asking.