Respected Conservative Columnist crits Trump

[Cuddles]

Let's also take a look at the education "miracle" in Washington D.C.

All the “success” of the D.C. school system was a complete fraud…

DC's public schools go from success story to cautionary tale
https://www.boston.com/news/politic...ools-go-from-success-story-to-cautionary-tale

As recently as a year ago, the public school system in the nation's capital was being hailed as a shining example of successful urban education reform and a template for districts across the country.

Now the situation in the District of Columbia could not be more different. After a series of rapid-fire scandals, including one about rigged graduation rates, Washington's school system has gone from a point of pride to perhaps the largest public embarrassment of Mayor Muriel Bowser's tenure.

This stunning reversal has left school administrators and city officials scrambling for answers and pledging to regain the public's trust.

A decade after a restructuring that stripped the decision-making powers of the board of education and placed the system under mayoral control, city schools in 2017 were boasting rising test scores and a record graduation rate for high schools of 73 percent, compared with 53 percent in 2011. Glowing news articles cited examples such as Ballou High School, a campus in a low-income neighborhood where the entire 2017 graduating class applied for college.

Then everything unraveled.

An investigation by WAMU, the local NPR station, revealed that about half of those Ballou graduates had missed more than three months of school and should not have graduated due to chronic truancy. A subsequent inquiry revealed a systemwide culture that pressured teachers to favor graduation rates over all else — with salaries and job security tied to specific metrics.

The internal investigation concluded that more than one-third of the 2017 graduating class should not have received diplomas due to truancy or improper steps taken by teachers or administrators to cover the absences. In one egregious example, investigators found that attendance records at Dunbar High School had been altered 4,000 times to mark absent students as present. The school system is now being investigated by both the FBI and the U.S. Education Department, while the D.C. Council has repeatedly called for answers and accountability.

"We've seen a lot of dishonesty and a lot of people fudging the numbers," said Council member David Grosso, head of the education committee, during a hearing last week. "Was it completely make-believe last year?"

School Superintendent Hanseul Kang promised Grosso a "new accountability system" to prevent these kinds of abuses. The interim chancellor, Amanda Alexander, told the committee the estimated graduation rate for 2018 would end up just over 60 percent, a drop of more than 10 percentage points now that the attendance rules are being properly enforced. The chancellor's office runs the public school system while the Office of the State Superintendent of Education oversees both the public schools and Washington's robust charter school system.

Repeated efforts to interview both Kang and Alexander for this story were unsuccessful.

While the attendance scandal was still fresh, a new controversy engulfed the top public school official. Chancellor Antwan Wilson was forced to resign in February after revelations that he skirted his own rules to place his daughter in a prestigious high school while skipping a 600-student waiting list.

The Wilson scandal speaks to some of the unique dynamics and pressures of the D.C. school system. Parents who don't like their local "in-bound" school can apply to any public school in the city through a complex and highly competitive lottery process. One local columnist dubbed the school lottery system "an academic Hunger Games."

Most recently in the headlines has been one of the jewels of the school system, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, alma mater of comedian Dave Chappelle and musician Me'Shell Ndegéocello. In May, an internal audit alleged that more than one-quarter of Ellington students were fraudulently coming in from neighboring Maryland or Virginia.

Students from outside Washington can attend city schools if they pay tuition, but the investigation alleges widespread residency fraud with parents faking Washington addresses to avoid those fees. Ellington parents have sued, claiming they're being railroaded by an administration eager to prove strong oversight and repair its reputation. The issue is working its way through courts.

The brutal year for Washington schools doesn't seem to have hurt Mayor Bowser as she runs for re-election. Bowser, campaigning on the improved economy in the capital, has no significant opposition in the all-important Democratic primary Tuesday as she seeks a second term.

The issue of the school system was the only down note in Bowser's otherwise triumphant State of the District speech in March. Bowser could only acknowledge "significant bumps in the road," and promise rapid changes.

Defenders of the school system point out that independent measurements such as the National Association of Educational Progress test have shown consistent improvement that shouldn't be lost in the controversy over graduation rates.

Critics view the problems, particularly the attendance issue, as an indictment of the entire data-driven evaluation system instituted a more than a decade ago when then-Mayor Adrian Fenty took over the school system and appointed Michelle Rhee as the first chancellor. Rhee's ambitious plan to clear out dead wood and focus on accountability for teachers and administrators landed her on the cover of Time magazine holding a broom. But now analysts question whether Rhee's emphasis on performance metrics has created a monster.

yeah, nice try (lighter=worse)

Color (2012 presidential voting, study on 2016), no distinction made for swing states.
States Ranked by Average SAT Scores, Adjusted

Rank State Average SAT Score, Adjusted Average New SAT Score, Adjusted Raw Average SAT Score Participation Rate
1 Massachusetts 1694 1130 1556 84%
2 Connecticut 1690 1126 1525 88%
3 Minnesota 1660 1107 1786 6%
4 New Jersey 1655 1104 1526 79%
5 Illinois 1652 1101 1802 5%
6 New Hampshire 1651 1101 1566 70%
7 North Dakota 1649 1099 1816 2%
8 Virginia 1648 1099 1530 73%
9 South Dakota 1648 1099 1792 3%
10 Iowa 1648 1098 1794 3%
11 Wisconsin 1644 1096 1782 4%
12 Vermont 1640 1093 1554 63%
13 Colorado 1635 1090 1735 14%
14 Missouri 1633 1089 1771 4%
15 Michigan 1628 1086 1784 4%
16 Kansas 1621 1081 1753 5%
17 Georgia 1620 1080 1445 77%
18 Indiana 1612 1075 1474 71%
19 Florida 1609 1073 1448 72%
20 Nebraska 1604 1070 1745 4%
21 Wyoming 1600 1067 1762 3%
22 Kentucky 1596 1064 1746 5%
23 New York 1593 1062 1468 76%
24 North Carolina 1592 1062 1483 64%
25 Oregon 1587 1058 1544 48%
26 Maryland 1586 1057 1468 78%
27 Washington 1585 1057 1519 63%
28 Idaho 1585 1056 1364 100%
29 South Carolina 1584 1056 1443 65%
30 Hawaii 1584 1056 1460 63%
31 Tennessee 1581 1054 1714 8%
32 California 1579 1053 1504 60%
33 Ohio 1577 1051 1652 15%
34 Arizona 1568 1045 1547 36%
35 Pennsylvania 1567 1044 1481 71%
36 Oklahoma 1565 1043 1697 5%
37 Rhode Island 1563 1042 1480 73%
38 Montana 1558 1039 1637 18%
39 Alaska 1555 1037 1485 54%
40 Mississippi 1552 1035 1714 3%
41 Arkansas 1551 1034 1698 4%
42 Utah 1540 1027 1690 5%
43 Texas 1539 1026 1432 62%
44 Nevada 1526 1017 1458 54%
45 New Mexico 1524 1016 1617 12%
46 Delaware 1522 1015 1359 100%
47 District of Columbia 1518 1012 1309 100%
48 Louisiana 1517 1011 1667 5%
49 Maine 1511 1008 1387 96%
50 Alabama 1496 998 1617 7%
51 West Virginia 1444 963 1522 15%

Each state is listed with its SAT score adjusted for (controlled for) participation rate. Other columns include the rank of the normed SAT score, the new SAT conversion, the raw SAT score, and the participation rate.

Rank State Average ACT Score, Adjusted Raw Average ACT Score Participation Rate
1 Minnesota 23.04 22.9 76%
2 Connecticut 22.93 24.2 29%
3 Massachusetts 22.72 24.3 23%
4 New Hampshire 22.63 24.2 20%
5 Ohio 22.47 22 72%
6 Montana 22.42 20.5 100%
7 Vermont 22.32 23.2 29%
8 Colorado 22.31 20.6 100%
9 New York 22.27 23.4 27%
10 Nebraska 22.20 21.7 86%
11 Wisconsin 22.04 22.2 73%
12 Kansas 22.02 22 75%
13 Utah 21.97 20.8 100%
14 South Dakota 21.93 21.9 78%
15 Illinois 21.87 20.7 100%
16 Missouri 21.80 21.8 76%
17 North Carolina 21.79 18.9 100%
18 Virginia 21.79 22.8 28%
19 New Jersey 21.78 23.1 25%
20 Indiana 21.73 21.9 40%
21 Idaho 21.71 22.4 45%
22 Florida 21.66 19.6 81%
23 Washington 21.60 23 22%
24 North Dakota 21.57 20.6 100%
25 Iowa 21.49 22 68%
26 California 21.41 22.3 29%
27 South Carolina 21.37 20.4 58%
28 Georgia 21.34 20.8 53%
29 Arkansas 21.21 20.4 93%
30 Michigan 21.21 20.1 100%
31 Tennessee 21.16 19.8 100%
32 Wyoming 21.14 20.1 100%
33 Maryland 21.07 22.6 22%
34 Kentucky 21.07 19.9 100%
35 Pennsylvania 21.04 22.7 19%
36 Alabama 21.01 20.6 80%
37 Rhode Island 20.99 22.9 16%
38 Oregon 20.88 21.4 36%
39 Texas 20.78 20.9 40%
40 Nevada 20.76 21.2 36%
41 Hawaii 20.73 18.2 90%
42 Oklahoma 20.72 20.7 75%
43 Delaware 20.69 23.2 18%
44 West Virginia 20.69 20.6 65%
45 Alaska 20.63 21 37%
46 Maine 20.56 23.6 9%
47 District of Columbia 20.41 21.6 37%
48 Louisiana 20.37 19.2 100%
49 Arizona 20.12 19.7 55%
50 Mississippi 20.04 19 100%
51 New Mexico 20.04 19.9 69%

Each state is listed with its ACT score adjusted for (controlled for) participation rate. Other columns include the rank of the normed ACT score, the raw average ACT score, and the participation rate.

I won't even bother listing by bachelor degrees or graduate degrees because you guys will just dismiss it as "indoctrination" schools which are biased.

HS Graduation ranking by state (worse to best, no adjustment for non-native population)

California 81.80% 50
Texas 81.90% 49
Mississippi 82.30% 48
Louisiana 83.40% 47
New Mexico 84.20% 45
Kentucky 84.20% 45
Alabama 84.30% 44
Arkansas 84.80% 43
West Virginia 85.00% 42
Nevada 85.10% 41
Georgia 85.40% 40
Tennessee 85.50% 39
New York 85.60% 37
South Carolina 85.60% 37
North Carolina 85.80% 36
Arizona 86.00% 35
Rhode Island 86.20% 34
Florida 86.90% 32
Oklahoma 86.90% 32
Indiana 87.80% 31
Illinois 87.90% 30
Virginia 88.30% 29
Delaware 88.40% 27
Missouri 88.40% 27
New Jersey 88.60% 26
Ohio 89.10% 25
Pennsylvania 89.20% 24
Maryland 89.40% 23
Idaho 89.50% 22
Michigan 89.60% 21
Massachusetts 89.80% 19
Oregon 89.80% 19
Connecticut 89.90% 18
Kansas 90.20% 17
Washington 90.40% 16
Colorado 90.70% 14
Nebraska 90.70% 14
South Dakota 90.90% 13
Hawaii 91.00% 11
Wisconsin 91.00% 11
Utah 91.20% 10
Iowa 91.50% 9
Maine 91.60% 8
North Dakota 91.70% 7
Vermont 91.80% 6
Alaska 92.10% 5
New Hampshire 92.00% 3
Wyoming 92.30% 3
Minnesota 92.40% 2
Montana 91.80% 1