"academic performance increased overall and test scores were up in kindergarten through fifth grade."

How's that when kindergartners are not tested?

"The problem, Lairon said, is that those targets rise every year."

Targets rise every year because if they didn't, schools and the students wouldn't actually be catching up as the students move through the grades. In fact, in some instances as students improve slightly in one grade, the slight improvement would be negated by a slide backward in the next grade with higher academic expectations. I can't understand what how that is so difficult to comprehend.

"For Olson, the irony lay in the fact that the 62 students that left those two schools were likely the most mobile and most socio-economically advantaged."

The real irony is that boardmember Olson is admitting that economically advantaged student keep scores high and that is why the district has been shuffling those same kids around the district for so many years to give the illusion of high scoring schools.