Janie, don’t forget a couple of years ago when the writing test scores were so bad, education officials decided to throw them out, presumably using the stat-norming method introduced by David Mulligan.
I must confess, however, my fondness for this justification: “Tens of thousands of students are a couple of points shy of passing scores.” *Whew!* What a relief! (Let’s not take the alternative tack and see how many thousands barely passed, though.)