Free Republic

Against the flower police For those worried that tests around the country are systematically being watered down in a backlash against standards and accountability, there is good news and bad news out of Louisiana. The good news is that the Bayou State is maintaining the strictest possible standards and routinely handing out failing marks. The bad news is that it is doing so on a state-mandated floral exam that is so absurd it's like something out of "Monty Python's Flying Circus." You can't become a florist in Louisiana without passing a ridiculously difficult and subjective state-licensing exam, which is a...

'There's something that's not quite right' Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The former teaching assistant who has made allegations of possible academic fraud among Ohio State football players says she did so in hopes the program would be investigated.Norma McGill says that she, in her words, "just knew there's something that's not quite right" with the Ohio State program.McGill told The Columbus Dispatch in a story the newspaper published today that she was an unnamed source referred to in a New York Times last Sunday.The story reported that running back Maurice Clarett received assistance from a professor who allowed...

<p>Caddo Parish classroom paraprofessionals and their colleagues across the nation face their own version of high-stakes testing.</p> <p>Paraprofessionals, also known as teacher aides, or simply "paras," must demonstrate that they are qualified, either by earning 48 hours of college credit in specified courses, gaining a two-year college degree or passing a state-approved competency test.</p>

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - Lawyers for six students who failed an exam required for high school graduation sued the state Thursday, claiming the test discriminates against minorities and the poor. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Springfield, also claims the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System is unreliable and unfair. The six students are in the Class of 2003, the first required to pass the exam's English and math portions to graduate. Students have five chances to pass, beginning in their sophomore year. Half of Hispanic and 44 percent of black high school seniors had not passed after three tries,...

With a No. 2 Pencil, Delete The destruction of literature in the name of children NEWSWEEK June 17 issue — You can imagine how honored I was to learn that my work was going to be mangled for the sake of standardized testing just after a vigilant parent had discovered that statewide English tests in New York had included excerpts from literary writers edited so nonsensically that the work had essentially lost all meaning. Isaac Bashevis Singer, Annie Dillard, even Chekhov—the pool of those singled out for red-penciling by bureaucrats was a distinguished one, and I found myself a little...