Free Republic

California schools posted standardized test scores Wednesday for the first time in two years, and the results were not stellar. Just one-third of the state’s public-school students were tested as proficient for their grade level in math and only 44 percent in English, state education officials said. Under the old test in 2013, 51 percent of students were proficient in math and 56 percent in English.

A gathering at an Atlanta elementary school last summer planted the seeds for a cheating scandal. Fifth-graders from five public schools had attended summer classes together at Deerwood Academy in southwestern Atlanta. Then they all had retaken the standardized test each had failed in the spring: the math portion of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, or CRCT. Officials from the five schools came to Deerwood to collect answer sheets from their respective students and send them off for automated grading. But state investigators say the test papers from one group of students apparently took a detour. When the results came back,...

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The United States may have come a long way in the fight against institutionalized racism but in California, black children are still being denied access to an important educational tool. Excerpt

Letter to the Editor, Laredo Morning Times: If Daniella Morin, the senior high school student who oppses state testing, decides to run for political office, she should run as a liberal Democrat. She fits right into the "look for the easy way out" or "run and hide" philosophy that liberals use when faced with a challenge. Once in office, she then could take money earned from her fellow students that decided to work hard to graduate and give it to her friends who decided to drop out. I will agree with Daniuella that the TAKS is unfair. But life is...