Looking over the Oak Ridge Schools state report card again, I noticed some good news: even with our demographics growing more challenging each year (as noted on Friday), we’re making significant gains in the percentage of students in the "proficient or advanced" category.

Looking at the columns outlined in red, note that there was an 11% increase in the number of African-American students testing proficient and advanced last year in high school math.

That’s significant.

There was a 10% gain in the Hispanic population, with 100% of that subgroup testing proficient and advanced in math.

Among the economically disadvantaged — the fastest-growing subgroup in our school system — there was a 10% gain in those testing proficient and advanced.

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Now, for the not-so-good news: look at the columns just to the left of the one outlined in red. The percentages of students earning an "advanced" designation have fallen in every category except for Asian/Pacific Islanders, who made a 1% gain to achieve 100% advanced.

Is this the beginning of the effect that I’ve long feared? In our push to meet the mandates of No Child Left Behind, are our schools focusing time and resources on the lowest-performing students — bringing them up to proficiency — so much so that we’re neglecting the rest?

The numbers appear to indicate as much.

No, we’re not neglecting the top performers. Most educators would tell you that there are a few students who could learn math from a history book, who will outperform the rest no matter what. The source of concern for me is those students in the middle, who with just a little help would be in the "advanced" group, but are now having to settle for "proficient."

And, as has been widely publicized, Tennessee’s standard for proficiency isn’t very high. That’s why, beginning next year, the test will be harder and the standards will be higher. And that could cause a problem with the numbers.

Don’t get me wrong: testing is very important. The problem is that the punitive nature of NCLB, focused on the lowest end, is damaging to our real mission of bringing all children to the limits of their potential.