Here's a phrase I'm retiring from my lexicon: "There are no stupid questions."

As Alice Ginsberg reveals in her recent commentary "No Child Left Behind" in Urban Education: Solving a Crisis or Creating One? in Perspectives on Urban Education, there are in fact stupid questions. You can find some on the tests states are having our kids take to determine winners and losers in the annual yearly progress sweepstakes mandated by No Child Left Behind.

Pity the California 3rd graders faced with this puzzler:

1) Is a raindrop hitting one's head more like the hit in:

A) a dart hitting a target

B) a storm hitting a region

This is the kind of multiple-choice question that leads to all kinds of unproductive woolgathering about the twisted mind that would come up with such a meaningless measuring stick. I'm guessing the answer is probably A, but if my 3rd grader knew that, I'd be more worried than proud.

Some tests include "open-ended" essay questions to allow their students to stretch their writing muscles and show that they can do more than fill in the bubbles on an answer sheet. Here's a question faced by Delaware fifth graders: Presented with a recipe for making Bacon-Tomato Sandwiches, they were told that the recipe indicates the need for a serrated knife and a table knife, and are asked to write an account explaining why two different knives are used.

Now that's certainly going to get the creative juices flowing.(On the other hand, I do know some kids who get excited about, say, the difference between a battle ax and a broadsword when attacked by an Orc.)

While I'm taking cheap shots here, Ginsberg's commentary is a serious critique of the price our kids are paying to dance to NCLB's "If I Can't Measure It, It Doesn't Matter" tune.

In the same issue of the journal, Paul Socolar takes on another little-understood aspect of NCLB. In Education Law is Tougher on Diverse Schools Socolar looks at the evidence that measures of adequate yearly progress stack the deck against large urban "melting pot" schools. In order to "make AYP", schools receiving federal funds must meet all of their targets for test scores and test participation for the overall student population and for demographic subgroups -- such as racial and ethnic groups, students with limited English skills, economically disadvantaged student, and special education students.

Socolar looked at AYP results for schools in Pennsylvania. While some schools had no subgroups at all -- in part because in Pennsylvania a school must have 40 students in a particular group before being required to break out the results for that group -- several large Philadelphia schools had six or seven subgroups. Any school with four or more subgroups would have to meet all of 21 or more targets to "make AYP", while a school with one or none would have nine or fewer targets to hit.

Out of 25 Philadelphia schools with one or no subgroups, 24 made adequate yearly progress. Out of 20 with four or more subgroups, only four made all of their targets.

As Socolar points out, this gives school administrators powerful incentives to juggle their student populations in order to stay below the threshold for a particular subgroup. That might mean discouraging a borderline student from receiving special education services, for instance.

I'm not convinced that NCLB is without merit -- it's had a huge impact on our understanding of, and sense of urgency about, racial achievement gaps. But it may be time to start requiring NCLB to make adequate yearly progress too -- towards correcting serious problems that undermine its mission.