http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14117-2003Nov7.htmlFirst they change the drop out rate by saying kids are transferring to private schools:
Sharpstown administrators had changed the withdrawal codes for at least 30 students to make it appear that no one had dropped out in the 2001-2002 school year. The television station tracked down one such student, Juana Juarez, behind the counter of a local Wendy's. Juarez had informed Sharpstown officials that she was leaving school to find work, but they changed her record to show she had transferred to a private school.
Then reward as President the Houston School Superintendent con man, Paige, who found a way to move test scores - In 1995, at the end of the first year of Paige's tenure as superintendent, only 26 percent of Austin's 10th-grade students passed the Texas math test. By 2000-2001, the year Paige retired, 99 percent of 10th-graders were passing.
And the way to do this is not to teach better - just do not let kids that may not pass take the test - all in the name of avoiding "social promotion".
..the Texas test is administered in the sophomore year - Austin High, had 1,160 students in the ninth grade and 281 in the 10th grade. In the 2001-2002 school year, the size of the ninth-grade class in Texas was 1.6 times the size of the 12th-grade class. In Houston (Bush buddy Paige's district) - there were 21/2 times as many ninth-graders as 12th-graders. The alternative, said district spokesman Terry Abbott, is the discredited system of "social promotion" that pushes students "through a pipeline until they fall out the other end."