Have No Fear, Neely Is Here
HoustonChronicle.com - Casey: Neeley still cheerleader, not sheriff
Finally, we'll get to the bottom of all this test-cheating nonsense. With a little luck, Shirley Neeley will do for HISD what she did for Galena Park ISD:
I don't know if any cheating went on in the resulting pressure cooker [at Galena Park]. I heard from students, parents and teachers, however, that the decreased performance described above was related to the single-minded focus on TAAS success.At her news conference Monday, Neeley said, "The few who would attempt to cheat on the TAKS (the test that replaced the TAAS) or other state tests shortchange students and undermine the credibility of our state's testing program."
Nicole King, who had graduated magna cum laude from Galena Park with flying TAAS scores, couldn't break a mediocre 850 on the SAT and found herself struggling in college math.
"Since the beginning, all we were trained on was the TAAS test, that's it," she said. "We had hours of classroom time devoted on strategic ways to enhance our test scores. It's ridiculous."
She wasn't shortchanged by cheating on the test.
She was shortchanged by the district's single-minded focus on it.
But Gov. Rick Perry never expressed second thoughts on his appointment.
He wanted her, he said, "to do on the state level what she has done at Galena Park."
Amazing, Rick Perry wants to make more Texas schools like Galena Parks ... he wants to make our health services like Mississippi's ... and more like Louisiana's gambling paradise. But what the hell ... look at that pretty picture on this meaningless state website. How 'bout that governor!