Also titled "The New Math" on their home page.
Texas Tribune 8/2/10New School Ratings Erase Failure, Inflate SuccessFriday’s news conference on the release of school performance ratings featured a bizarre dynamic in the annals of education PR: the higher the ratings, the more Education Commissioner Robert Scott and a half-dozen assembled district officials worried about taking a beating in the media.
That’s because the Texas Projection Measure, which credits schools for students who fail state tests but are projected to pass in the future, has sent the ratings soaring in the past two years — to the point where many distrust them. Playing defense, Scott and the district officials rattled off a shotgun blast of related and unrelated school data, some relevant and some not. More than one speaker admonished that the measure was "about the children." (Find audio clips of Scott’s presentation and his Q&A with reporters here.)
The state now calls three-fourths of Texas schools "exemplary" or "recognized," up from fewer than half of campuses two years ago. But a Texas Tribune analysis of data that the Texas Education Agency did not highlight on Friday shows that Texas public schools — when decoupled from the controversial projection measure — have not served children much better since 2008, the year before the new accountability formula took effect. In fact, schools may have regressed overall or, at best, stagnated, even as thousands of educators have basked in new and distinguished-sounding performance labels.
For the children - TEA and Perry's lackey Robert Scott should stop lying and embellishing their record. What kind of message is this sending to the children of Texas? Go ahead and distort the facts to make everything look better. Gloss problems over so you can get ahead. So much for the alleged "family values" crew! :grr:
Great investigative piece by the Tribune though!
:applause::applause::applause:
Sonia