Yesterday the governors of 45 states agreed to adopt a common formula to calculate high school graduation rates. Three of our country's most populous states -- California, Texas, Florida -- along with Maryland and Wyoming have not agreed to the common formula.
This common formula is significant. In 45 states it will prohibit the sleight-of-hand statistical fudging that created an illusion of success at the Houston Idependent School District when Rod Paige was Superintendant. Paige brought his "No Child Left Behind" program to Washington when he became the U.S. Secretary of Education during George W. Bush's first term.
Today the "Houston miracle" is known to have been a fraud, Paige is no longer Secretary of Education, and the unrealistic, unfunded mandate of "No Child Left Behind" legislation is still the law of the land.
We would do much better job educating children if we made the governor's common formula the law of the land and scrapped Bush's "No Child Left Behind" legislation.
1 comment:
Notice how the states that didn't join the agreement are the worst offenders.
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