Methods used to calculate state's public schools' performance seem dubious, at best.

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When it comes to measuring the performance of Texas public schools, there shouldn't be any room for funny business. Or funny numbers. This is our state's future we're talking about. Parents, taxpayers and other stakeholders deserve to hear it straight — whether the news is good, bad or somewhere in between.

We're not so sure we're getting it straight. The system being used to measure the performance of the state's 1,000-plus districts, known as the Texas Projection Measure, gives us pause. As the name indicates, it uses projections of individual student performance, rather than proven past performance, to grade the districts and individual schools.

The method is getting a closer look from skeptics because it has meant a significant boost in the number of districts receiving "exemplary" or "recognized" ratings. For example, the number of exemplary districts rose this year to 239, or 19 percent of the state total - up dramatically from 2004, when only 19 school districts, or 1.9 percent, achieved the distinction.

Some of the skeptics detect the whiff of gubernatorial politics in this process. Word of the improvements comes barely three months shy of a governor's race between the incumbent, Rick Perry, and former Houston Mayor Bill White.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/7144051.html

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1. Good for the Houston Chronicle Ed Board!

Call out Robert Scott Perry's lackey Texas Education "Czar", the TEA, and Perry's whole crew trying to bring Enron style performance measures into our schools.

Texas Projection Measure (TPM) is nothing more than stretching the truth beyond belief to make Perry look good.

Count us among the skeptics. Politics aside, there is a make-believe feel to these ratings, as Robert Sanborn, head of the advocacy group Children at Risk, told the Chronicle's Jennifer Radcliffe last week. Sanborn called the ratings "absolutely meaningless."

This is a continuation of the discussion New School Ratings Erase Failure, Inflate Success earlier.

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