The Atlanta government schools are not worrying about the ObamaMedia pressing too hard on this test score cheating scandal. They are more worried about Casey Anthony. Instead, they are using the usual dumbed down talking points for the ignorant drones: blame Bush. It’s Bush’s fault! Wow, WHAT A REVELATION!!!! Blame Bush for the cheating in Atlanta’s government schools.
Not surprising … they are pushing this tired old regurgitated talking point that if it wasn’t for No Child Left Behind, this cheating scandal would not have escalated (or even happened).
ABC correspondent Steve Osunami said during a report:
Everyone here is pointing the finger at No Child Left Behind, the federal policy that made test scores king , closing schools with low scores, and rewarding schools with high ones. This former superintendent is accused of encouraging the cheating. She received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses tied to improved test scores. I’m personally friends with a good number of teachers in this community who tell me that they’re under tremendous pressure. They say that the same parents who are angry about all the cheating would be even more furious if the schools started reporting lower test scores …
Pay close attention to: “Parents would be even more angry is the schools had reported lower test scores?” Test scores, which by the way shows three things:
1) the incompetence of government schools (federal government policies and regulations rather than the states’ and local governments that are more accountable to the local people).
2) the detrimental effects of special interest unions which at heart are not “about the children” but about advancing their own power.
3) the inability to get rid of unionized teachers and administrators that are simply not doing (or can’t do) their job.
These parents should be concerned about whether or not their children are learning. Period. To falsify these test scores meant cheating many struggling students out of education they otherwise needed. Of course, the looters will come up with the same excuses – MORE MONEY….. and the ignorant drones will take up the chant.
It is time for the media to do their jobs and return to their ethical standards rather than support their ideological comrades.
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Nothing to see here, people – let’s just move on:
Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin called the state investigative report into widespread cheating on standardized tests in Atlanta Public Schools “pretty scary.”
However, she said, former Atlanta School Superintendent Dr. Beverly Hall deserves credit for her successes…
She’s a liberal, you see?, so her heart must have been in the right place…
Update: Award-winning gains by Atlanta students were based on widespread cheating by 178 named teachers and principals, said Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (a Republican) on Tuesday. His office released a report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that names 178 teachers and principals – 82 of whom confessed – in what’s likely the biggest cheating scandal in US history. The cheating has been going on for 10 YEARS!
The Criterion-Referenced Competency Test was instituted in the SPRING OF 2000! Gee, long before the passage of NCLB and the election of George Bush!!!
http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/ci_testing.aspx?PageReq=CI_TESTING_CRCT
Note: There is no mention of NCLB nor did (or could) the 82 confessors blame Bush for their cheating. The mindless drones would have you believe otherwise.
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