Free Republic

Teachers have been complaining for years that children are forced to take an excessive number of state-mandated exams that, if failed, can prevent students from advancing a grade level or even graduating from high school. There’s a national movement afoot to reduce — or even eliminate — these state-mandated exams and go back to the days when grades and other factors were used for grade promotion. In recent months throughout Florida, the movement — once fueled solely by parents — has now reached school boards, which have even debated telling the state Department of Education it wants to opt out...

One by one, they swore to tell the truth. One by one, they sat in a witness chair and told a similar tale of suggestion, persuasion and pressure. During the first day Friday of what is expected to be a two-day tribunal, former and current teachers at Atlanta's Usher Elementary School pointed a collective finger of blame at Donald Bullock Friday as the mastermind behind test cheating at that school. Bullock's attorney, Daniel Digby, said his client did nothing wrong. Atlanta Public Schools, however, laid out a 16-point letter of charges against Bullock, who served as testing coordinator at Usher...

Candidate Kinky holds court at Bleacher's Cafe RUTH BRADLEY AVALANCHE-JOURNAL When Kinky Friedman walked into Bleacher's Sports Cafe Sunday afternoon, a cigar in his mouth, he stopped for a moment to take a picture with a constituent before taking his place on stage next to a sign reading "Keep Austin weird, make Lubbock Kinky." This is not your typical gubernatorial candidate. And that's the way Friedman wants it. "I think that most of us have come to the conclusion that we could use a non-politician to run the state of Texas," he said, a cigar in one hand and a...

SACRAMENTO – Requiring students to pass California's high school graduation exam could be postponed further at the state's lowest-performing schools under legislation by the Senate's majority leader. The measure by Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, is among dozens of bills facing tests this week in the Assembly and Senate appropriations committees. The graduation exam was part of former Gov. Gray Davis' efforts to ensure that high school graduates master math and language requirements. Originally, students were supposed to have passed the test to graduate in 2004, but the state Board of Education pushed the requirement back two years, making the...

Richards delivers dynamite talk at TAMIU BY TRICIA CORTEZ Times staff writer Former Texas Governor Ann Richards delivered a scathing indictment of the Texas public education system Tuesday night, focusing on its accountability and high-stakes testing system that is now being implemented nationally under the No Child Left Behind Act. "The current No Child Left Behind is a lie. It is a total lie. We are leaving children behind right and left," Richards told a packed house of the Fine and Performing Arts Center at Texas A&M International University. "Do you know what the current education system is in the...