Failing School Imports Smarter Students to Raise Test Scores

Merrydale Elementary School in Baton Rouge, Louisana, has a problem: its test scores were abysmal. That in and of itself isn't a unique problem - many schools have low tests scores - but Merrydale's solution on how to raise its test scores is.

See, most failing schools try to improve its teaching staff to raise test scores, but the enterprising Louisiana school decided to do something else: import smarter students!

The proposal to move 100 gifted and talented students this fall from Glen Oaks Park Elementary, a C-rated school, to nearby Merrydale Elementary, an F-rated school, generated some heat Thursday. [...]
The higher-scoring gifted students would likely increase the school performance score of Merrydale from 71.2 to an estimated 77.5 under the shift, high enough to avert a state takeover.

Charles Lussier of The Advocate has the scoop: Link

My old high school did this in backward; it "encouraged" failing students to leave in order to keep up the stats around graduation rates college bound alumni.

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If you take good students from a "good" school and put them in a "bad" school but they do just as good and raise the schools grade then doesn't that prove that the students are the reason the school gets bad grades and not necessarily the school or teachers?

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