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Jumping off the college track


Noor Siddiqui doesn’t want to go to college yet. She seems the very model of a college-bound student. The Clifton resident graduated from Robinson Secondary School in June with a stellar grade-point average of 4.5, the Washington Post. She helped start a nonprofit organization that coordinates fundraisers and volunteers with various charities, as well as a scholarship for Afghan girls that funds schooling for a 13-year-old in a Kabul suburb. For three years, 50 percent of the evaluations of many D.C. public school teachers were based on students’ standardized test scores, a key part of the IMPACT assessment system introduced by Michelle Rhee. Her successor has decided 50 percent is too much and 35 percent is better. Is it really? The federally funded program generates debate among city leaders and those on Capitol Hill. Siddiqui, 18, was accepted to several universities. But she turned them all down. Siddiqui is a Thiel Fellow…

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