Their reasons are malformed whatever they happen to be. My argument is merely that they chose this malformed option over other more obviously malformed options because they hoped it would better disguise their malfeasance. If they had grouped students by performance instead it would amount to saying nothing: poor performing students continue to perform poorly, and good ones well, and excellent ones excellently.
Of course as you say, a better way to actually hide poor teacher performance would be to group everything together, which is probably what the other 49 states did and why we are not discussing them today but instead talking about Virginia. They certainly didn't choose to do something so obviously and outrageously stupid as to segregate the students by race, statistically or not.
Of course as you say, a better way to actually hide poor teacher performance would be to group everything together, which is probably what the other 49 states did and why we are not discussing them today but instead talking about Virginia. They certainly didn't choose to do something so obviously and outrageously stupid as to segregate the students by race, statistically or not.