Editor's Note: A new federal study shows that nearly one-third of states may have lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years – a move that helps schools stay immune from sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. The Department of Education study found that 15 states lowered their proficiency standards at the middle school level in basic subjects from 2005 to 2007. Were schools allowed to lower standards? And why? Randi Kaye is keeping them honest tonight. AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute

The tests that states use to measure academic progress under the No Child Left Behind Act are creating a false impression of success, especially in reading and especially in the early grades.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute did an evaluation of the tests.

Take a look at a few sample questions from Wisconsin and Massachusetts here.

Editor's Note: A new federal study shows that nearly one-third of states may have lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years – a move that helps schools stay immune from sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. The Department of Education study found that 15 states lowered their proficiency standards at the middle school level in basic subjects from 2005 to 2007. Were schools allowed to lower standards? And why? Randi Kaye is keeping them honest tonight. AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

The National Center for Education Statistics
U.S. Department of Education

Since 2003, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has compared each state’s standard for proficient performance in reading and mathematics by placing the state standards onto the NAEP scale.

The procedure, “mapping,” allows the level of achievement required for proficient performance in one state to be compared with the level of achievement required in another state. The mapping procedure offers an approximate way to assess the relative rigor of the states’ standards for proficient performance.

Take a look at the full report here...

Program Note: Don't miss Randi Kaye’s full report tonight on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

Randi Kaye| BIO
AC360° Correspondent

So let me get this straight!

Schools across the country are lowering standards – actually dumbing down lesson plans – to avoid sanctions under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

That act was President George W. Bush’s signature education reform. It mandates that every child in school must be “proficient” in reading and math by 2014 and schools that fall short are subject to sanctions.

Now a new federal study shows that nearly a third of the states lowered academic standards in recent years. Fifteen states in all lowered proficiency standards in fourth and eighth-grade reading or math from 2005 to 2007. Three states – Maine, Oklahoma, and Wyoming – lowered standards in both subjects at both grade levels. Yikes!

On a positive note, though, the study found eight states actually raised their standards even though their funding was threatened.

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Editor's Note: A new federal study shows that nearly one-third of states may have lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years – a move that helps schools stay immune from sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. The Department of Education study found that 15 states lowered their proficiency standards at the middle school level in basic subjects from 2005 to 2007. Were schools allowed to lower standards? And why? Randi Kaye is keeping them honest tonight. AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute

The tests that states use to measure academic progress under the No Child Left Behind Act are creating a false impression of success, especially in reading and especially in the early grades.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute did an evaluation of the tests.

Take a look at a few sample questions from Wisconsin and Massachusetts here.

Editor's Note: A new federal study shows that nearly one-third of states may have lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years – a move that helps schools stay immune from sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. The Department of Education study found that 15 states lowered their proficiency standards at the middle school level in basic subjects from 2005 to 2007. Were schools allowed to lower standards? And why? Randi Kaye is keeping them honest tonight. AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

The National Center for Education Statistics
U.S. Department of Education

Since 2003, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has compared each state’s standard for proficient performance in reading and mathematics by placing the state standards onto the NAEP scale.

The procedure, “mapping,” allows the level of achievement required for proficient performance in one state to be compared with the level of achievement required in another state. The mapping procedure offers an approximate way to assess the relative rigor of the states’ standards for proficient performance.

Take a look at the full report here...

John King
CNN

Program Note: Tune in tonight to hear more from Steve Perry. AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

Police say a student at Richmond High School was gang raped outside during a homecoming dance.

Steve Perry
CNN Education Contributor

Our kids are subjected to environments and images of violence on a level never seen before. They are numbed. I asked a group of girls about why listening to Chris Brown was wrong and I was not prepared to be blown away by their twisted perception of what is reasonable behavior.

If you have not been in a school lately you ought to be afraid, very afraid. The highest rates of violence are directly related to what is considered acceptable.

From the streets of Chicago – where children watched and an adult taped a child be beaten to death – to Richmond High School where children watched a child's innocence ripped from her soul, we have seen what happens when children lose respect for life.

This is the direct result of kids feeling unraised and unloved. It is also the result of kids growing up without adult structure and high expectations. Communities can become Lord of the Flies environments in which the kids make adult decisions and they decide wrong every single time.

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Education Secretary Arne Duncan, second from right, listens to Obama's speech Tuesday.

Sam Chaltain
Forum for Education and Democracy, National Director

Today, as young people across the country head back to school, the rest of us would be wise to heed the words of our former president by asking ourselves, our neighbors and our elected officials a simple question:

“Is our children learning?”

The answer, of course, may depend largely on where you live. But what troubles me more than that basic lack of fairness is that our entire public education system isn’t even being asked to measure whether or not young people are learning – only whether they are demonstrating progress on basic-skills standardized tests in 3rd and 8th grade reading and math.

As everyone knows, learning involves more than basic skills and regurgitating information. It requires higher-order skills and the capacity to digest, make sense of, and apply what we’ve been taught.

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AC360°

The White House released the text of a controversial back-to-school speech to students from President Obama that has angered some conservative parents and pundits.

The speech was posted to the White House website.

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Read the rest of the speech here and tell us what you think.

Editor’s note: At 12:00pm  ET tomorrow, President Obama will go to a high school in Arlington, Va., to deliver a back-to-school speech to the nation’s students. The White House plans to release the speech online today.

Dave Schechter
CNN Senior National Editor

You frequently hear claims that the United States has the best health care system in the world, despite data that suggest otherwise.

You never hear claims that the United States has the best school system in the world, because of data that suggest otherwise.

In fact, you never (okay, almost never) hear anything good about public education in this country, at least not until the subject is college or university.

Have the public schools been talked down to the point where broad-based success (rather than the individual student, school or district) is impossible – a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy?

Americans often say they distrust Congress and the whole lot of them should be thrown out – but then go ahead and re-elect their own representative.

Well, something like that goes on when the topic is public education.

In the most recent edition of an annual poll by the educators association Phi Delta Kappa International and Gallup more than half of those responding graded their local schools with an A or a B but gave the nation’s schools overall significantly lower marks, with fewer than one in five awarding an A or B. "This continues a long-standing difference, suggesting that Americans like the schools they know but are much less positive about public education in general," a review of the poll observed.

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