http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D88VQ9GO1.htmlThe Texas education commissioner has decided to take full control of the beleaguered Wilmer-Hutchins school district following a report confirming extensive cheating on the state's standardized tests.
The impoverished North Texas district's school board will be replaced by a board of managers, and its academic accountability rating is being lowered from academically acceptable to academically unacceptable, according to a report and letter released Monday by the Texas Education Agency.
In a Monday letter to the district, Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley criticizes "the district's extensive history of deficiencies, its recent significant problems, and its current failure to consistently work cooperatively with the assigned management team."
In recent months, the Texas Rangers, two grand juries, the FBI and others have opened multiple criminal investigations on alleged misappropriation of funds and other accusations. Wilmer-Hutchins went from having a $1.6 million fund balance to a deficit in just more than a year, and the district failed to make payroll twice last year. According to the preliminary state report, two-thirds of educators involved in giving the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills last year were involved in "testing irregularities."
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1999 article <under shrub regime>
http://www.austinreview.com/articles/39.htmlFuzzier Math - How Texas Computes School Dropouts
Texas' public school accountability system is based on three performance standards: daily attendance, TAAS test scores, and dropout rates. The system was supposed to prod the education bureaucracy to respond to legislative demands for higher standards.
Well-publicized cases of TAAS test-cheating have now surfaced in Houston, Dallas, and Austin. In Austin, a Travis County grand jury continues its investigation into the matter. A Houston Press exposé by Shaila Dewan, entitled "The Fix is In," led to the firing of one teacher and the disciplining of a principal. The Houston TAAS situation is also still under investigation.
Now the dropout-rates section of the accountability system has come under a cloud. More serious controversies than TAAS cheating may lie ahead.
Gov. Bush is touting his education record as a central theme in his White House bid, and allegations of fudged numbers by the TEA couldn't come at a worse time. So far, says Garcia, "the silence has been deafening" from the governor's office regarding the under-counting of dropouts. edited for extra link