Today's Schools: Promoting education or money?

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I recently found out that schools get more federal money for better Tcap scores. I also found out the they get more federal funding when more children pass on to the next grade level. Our daughter passed the third grade when she didn't do hardly any of her school work or homework because her Tcap scores were so high. I felt this was wrong and brought it up to the administration! But they still passed her on to the next grade because as long as they know 70% of the curriculem, the state guidelines say they can pass. My son has been having problems in 1st grade now, and I mentioned to his teacher that if he doesn't do better, that I want to hold him back a year because I don't want him struggling from grade to grade. I thought she was going to pass out! I didn't realize you could hold your children back from going to kindergarten until they were 6 or even 7. I started him at 5 and most of the kids were already 6 yrs. old. I told her I thought he would mature a little more over the summer, and it would help him to not be behind the other kids. She said even though his grades were low, she felt he might still be able to do second grade. I'm starting to think they are more worried about the amount of money they can get the school district and not about the education of the child. Has anyone else ran into this?