What I'm about to tell you will blow your mind. In Internet-speak, you'll bang you head on the table. It's a true story about public education in Texas, a system managed by Republican Governor Rick Perry and a Board of Education dominated until recently by vile Creationists promoted by Perry.
Perry is a Confederate and Secessionist by nature, and he has a problem. He has a formidable Democratic opponent, ex-Houston Mayor Bill White. And, of course, he has a mediocre public education system in Texas, and it's failings are on Perry's account.
His solution will blow your mind, more than once.
Perry's Education Commissioner Robert Scott simply added points to the scores on the TAKS Test,
the complex formula allows schools to count as passing some students who actually fail the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills if the projection measure shows they are likely to pass in a future year (note: from Dallas Morning News article cited below)
incresing the passing rate on the test to the target. The details can be found in many newspaper stories and, succinctly, in this column:
http://www.chron.com/...
Caught with his hand in the political cookie jar, Scott backpedalled:
http://www.dallasnews.com/...
Let me add I'm not necessarily endorsing the notion of standarized tests as the measure of school performance. But, I have a question:
If a Democratic Governor running for re-election had falsified student test scores to make the public schools look better under his watch, would O'Reilly, Hannity and FoxNews have ignored the story? Would Breitbart and Drudge?
I think you know the answer.