Florida’s Education Chief Quits Amid Report That He Changed a School’s Rating.

[elleng]

Source: nyt

Florida’s commissioner of education, a rising star in a national movement pushing for test-based accountability in public schools, resigned on Thursday after just seven months in office, after news reports surfaced that he had changed the grade of an Indiana charter school founded by a prominent campaign donor while he was the superintendent of schools there.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/education/floridas-education-chief-quits-amid-report-that-he-changed-a-schools-rating.html?hp

[pscot]

1. Best news all day

[rdharma]

2. Grumpy the Cat is clearly overwhelmed with emotion! And says........

[elleng]

3. Glad to see him smiling!

[VADem1980]

4. Perfect Example-

for the need for federal funding and control of schools, and a national law ELIMINATING private schools and homeschooling. We cannot trust these right-wing cretins to control something as vital as education. Bonus points for teachers to use it as a platform to show the evils of corporatism and the Rethuglicans.

[DirkGently]

5. What? A school "rating system" works to reward a wealthy charter school?

A fairly perfect illustration of how the whole scheme to use testing to "rate" schools is just cover to divert resources from public and poorer schools and send them to private or for-profit outfits. Even if god-forbid a well-heeled schools scores poorly, clearly a mistake has been made. A mistake that can be corrected by a rich donor picking up the phone.

This isn't one case of one corrupt official and one pushy, wealthy school. This is exactly the way this is supposed to work. Cash for testing companies. Tax dollars taken from poor schools and given to rich ones. Because we already know who is "supposed" to get the good ratings, don't we? Winky-wink.

And hey, what do you know, Jeb Bush is a big fan.

Anybody who follows education policy knows how influential Jeb Bush has been in states well beyond Florida, where, as governor from 1999-2007, he launched school reforms –

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush. (By Sue Ogrocki – AP)

including standardized test-based accountability for students and schools, the expansion of charter schools and vouchers, and a letter-grade (A-F) rating system for schools that has served as a model around the country. Nowhere has the Bush influence been as strong as in Indiana, where the superintendent of public instruction, Tony Bennett, has looked on Bush as his guru.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/26/who-does-jeb-bush-think-hes-kidding/

[DonCoquixote]

6. Just when you thingk the Rick Scott era cannot get worse

It does, and keeps going down down down, until you need to look up to get a glimpse of Hell.