A mere trifle, I'm sure, in comparison to the civil war declared by Rove last night. But
this is important too, in many, many ways:
Most states are reporting lofty high school graduation rates that far exceed reality and mislead the public about how schools are performing, a private analysis found.
The majority of states - 36 of them - say 80 percent to 97 percent of their high school students graduate on time, according to state figures provided to the Education Department.
Those numbers show "rampant dishonesty," said Kati Haycock, director of The Education Trust, an advocacy organization for poor and minority students. The Trust reviewed the 2002-03 graduation rates that states had to provide this year.
The states are so desprate for that Federal funding, that they are willing to blatantly misrepresent key data components regarding their public school systems.
This fits perfectly into the Bush/Right Wing plan to destroy public education. One of the unstated intents of NCLB is to discredit the public school system so as to make replacement of that system with private schools funded by federal school vouchers that much easier. This is the canary in the coal mine folks. The state education departments are like junkies on the federal crack, willing to withstand any amount of humiliation to stay hooked up to that mainline. Only Utah has so far said
NO.
Even the conservatives agree.