Today's Kids Don't Know Much about ...

Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only had an 8th-grade education? Well, check this out. Could you have passed the 8th-grade in 1895?

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas, USA. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

[Hat-tip and thanks to John C. Travis and his wonderful mother for sending this to me].

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of 'lie,''play,' and 'run.'
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold? 3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. For tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent..
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. Long at $20 per meter?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Orthography (Time, one hour) [Do we even know what this is??]
1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: tri-graph, sub-vocals, diphthong, cognate letters, lingual.
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.' (HUH?)
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla , Yukon , St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspin wall and Orinoco
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.

Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete.

Get the Horse Back in the Barn ....

The good news is that RPS Superintendent Yvonne Brandon realizes the city schools have a drop-out problem. The bad news is the plan unveiled on October 21, 2009 doesn't mention any effort to reduce Richmond's excessive use of out-of-school suspensions, a factor many education experts say is a major contributor to high drop-out rates.

Read this article posted on CNN by urban education expert Pedro Noguera to see why it is so critical that urban school systems find ways to combat the epidemic drop-out rate, more virulent and deadly than the swine flu pandemic.

In an effort to be a part of the solution and foster discussion, I ask that you check out the following links that offer insights into WHY students drop-out and how we can to get them back. Most importantly, these links also reveal proactive ways we can work together as a community to prevent students from leaving in the first place.

Overview of PBIS Maryland
universal PBIS model. Thus, the PBISplus Project was collaboratively developed by Johns Hopkins. University, the Maryland State Department of ...
www.pbismaryland.org/documents/PBISMarylandNew... - Similar
[ More results from www.pbismaryland.org ]

http://www.edutopia.org/student-dropout-retention-strategies#
Retention Research: Studies About Keeping Kids in School
The following reports provide valuable insight into the causes of and solutions for the dropout crisis plaguing many of our schools and communities:

"The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts"
This 2006 report, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is based on interviews with young men and women who dropped out of high school. The findings debunk some of the commonly held myths about why students decide to drop out of school. (For example, a majority of the young people who were interviewed had at least a C average when they dropped out, and nearly 47 percent reported that they dropped out because school was not interesting.) Embedded in these insights are useful strategies for addressing the crisis.

"What Your Community Can Do to End Its Drop-Out Crisis" Drawing on research from schools and districts throughout the country, this report provides a unique guide to tackling the issue locally. It begins with strategies for developing a deep understanding of local needs and then guides readers step by step through the creation of a comprehensive plan to assist students inside and outside of school.

http://www.maef.net/OurWork/RAMPResearchAllianceforMultiplePathways/DropoutPreventionSummit/tabid/769/Default.aspx
School-Caused Risk Factors
Ineffective discipline system
Overburdened school counselors
Negative school climate
Retention and/or suspensions used to control discipline, rather than addressing causes
Disregarding student learning styles
Passive instructional strategies
Lack of relevant curriculum
Low expectations of student achievement
Fear of school violence

Excerpted from From At Risk to Academic Excellence: What Successful Leaders Do by Franklin P. Schargel, Tony Thacker, and John S. Bell.

Still Wrong, After All These Years

Dear Dr. Brandon,

I regret that I must write to you again about the false expulsion data (still) on the Virginia Department of Education website. It is truly baffling to see RPS still claiming there were no expulsions for 2004-2005, 2005-2006 and 2006-2007. Having served on the board during those years, most recently as co-Chair of the Student Disciplinary Committee, I can state with absolute certainty that this information is false.

Documents obtained by a Freedom of Information request to the Virginia Department of Education show that you wrote to Virginia State Superintendent Dr. Patricia Wright on August 6, 2009 requesting permission to re-submit expulsion data for the 2007-2008 and the 2008-2009 school years. She responded affirmatively to your request on August 12, 2009.

Given that this data was supposed to be already compiled and, per regulations, you had signed a verification certificate, why wasn't the data re-submitted immediately, instead of waiting until August 19th and 20th respectively? Would you please provide a copy of the original data that your staff maintains was lost in "transmission" and the verification certificates for the five years in question?

I would also appreciate knowing why you have not yet requested permission to submit the accurate data for the years 2004-2007?

I read with great interest Chris Dovi's article in Style Weekly concerning this issue, your Superintendent's Update of Oct.16th, the Press Release you posted Oct. 20th on the RPS website and sent to various media outlets and, of course, the response Scott Bass, Style Weekly's editor, posted on Style's website, on behalf of Style and reporter, Chris Dovi.

Various comments you have made about this "cauldron of confusion," as you put it in your Superintendent's Update and in the Press Release, prompt me to request the following:

• A copy of the information you reference in the following statement: "January 2009 quality audit of the multiple sets of data RPS was required to send to the VDOE beginning March 31, 2009. This data audit revealed that the data entry software used in one of our departments was not interfacing with our Comprehensive Information Management System (CIMS)."


• A copy of the inaccurate and accurate data that you referenced in this statement: "We immediately rectified inaccurate data previously submitted."


• An explanation as to why the data you sent me on August 17th was inaccurate, given that you further state that " .... were able to upload additional information during the correction and verification process the state allowed after August 16, 2009."


• A copy of the data report review process for all departments responsible for submitting VDOE required statistics.

And, from your August 6, 2009 letter to Dr. Patricia Wright, the State Supt. of Public Instruction:

• What do you mean when you state: "This re-submission will in no way alter the "cautioned" status that schools were sanctioned."


• Why did you only ask to re-submit two years of data, when there were actually five years of data that needed to be corrected?


• How many schools in Richmond have been sanctioned, the names of the schools and the dates and nature of the actions taken?

Lastly, but by no means least, I must reiterate that during my six-year tenure on the Richmond School Board, we always agreed that the number one mission was student achievement. I recall the many times we discussed community concerns about RPS zero-tolerance disciplinary policies that continue to generate extraordinarily high numbers of suspensions and expulsions. I completely agree with your statement in the press release "that in order to realize progress, a student must be in school."

Similarly, if the data we collect to drive decisions is to be of good use to us in school, then it must be accurate. By allowing inaccurate data to continue to exist, the district does itself and our children harm. By not acting with dispatch to correct these errors, we run the risk of causing our children, our families and our community to distrust our information.

Your unprecedented attack on Chris Dovi and Style Weekly was particularly ill-advised, given the irrefutable facts of the matter. Dovi and Style had their facts about RPS straight -- five years of false data that no one bothered to correct until I wrote to you about it. Dovi had no reason to doubt the accuracy of the information given to him by VDOE, an honest mistake immediately corrected in a calm and measured manner the very next business-day by VDOE and Style.

As we both know all too well, Virginia's Standards of Learning (SOLs) and the requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) aren't simply about measuring how well our children, in or out of special education, do in public school. The SOLs and NCLB are supposed to help us measure how well the teacher, school, school district, Superintendent and state perform their jobs. And if a school district's problems are intentionally disguised and distorted, or if no one bothers to make sure the data is accurate, how can we ever expect to be able to use data to help fix the problems and give all our children the schools they deserve?

Sincerely,

Carol A.O. Wolf

Who Do They Think They're Foolin'?

Dear Dr. Brandon,
I regret to inform you that data on the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) website, falsely claim that there has been only one expulsion from Richmond Public Schools from 2004 to 2008.

Since one of your duties as Superintendent, according to the Code of Virginia, is to "ensure that an accurate record of all receipts and disbursements of school funds and all statistical information which may be required by the State Board is kept," it behooves you to correct this false information as soon as possible.

As a member of the Richmond Public School Board for six years and as the former co-chair of the Student Disciplinary Committee, I know beyond a shadow of doubt that RPS has expelled far more than "one" student during that time. In fact, a cursory examination of the minutes of the Student Disciplinary Committee Meetings -- where all students, parents and legal guardians have a right to appeal an expulsion -- reveals that from 2004-2008, the RPS School Board and administration expelled at least 100 students.

Mind you, this number does not even begin to speak to the total number of expulsions, only to those which were appealed to the School Board's Disciplinary Committee. Nor does it address the 18,722 short-term (less than 10 days) suspensions for 2007-2008. We have Chris Dovi of Style Weekly and John Butcher of The Cranky Taxpayer to thank for some eye-popping raw data and charts that show a dramatic increase in the number of RPS suspensions from 2002/03 through 2006/07 for elementary through high school.

As troubling as it is that RPS submitted false expulsion data to VDOE, it strains credulity and credibility when one notes that our district continues to write up more incidents of discipline and reports of bad behavior than any other district in the Commonwealth:

2004-2005 --22, 487

2005-2006 -- 21,280

2006-2007 -- 32,922

2007-2008 -- 29, 571

When I think about the time it takes away from instruction for our teachers, students and administrators to write up thousands of discipline reports, I can't help but wonder why we continue to pursue zero-tolerance discipline policies. It is obvious that the policies have little to no effect on improving behavior or improving the quality of education in our schools.

Other districts have addressed this challenge and have begun to keep their students in school and off the streets. Baltimore, Boston, Chicago have all implemented programs that focus on positive behavior and creative conflict resolution. It is time that we do so as well. We can't keep paying the price for not doing so.

"We've barely begun ..."

After he went blind, my friend and mentor, the late Oliver W. Hill let me be one of his "readers." Several times we read Richard Kluger's 798-page Simple Justice, a history of Brown vs. Board of Education.

When he asked me to read the book a third or fourth time, I asked, "Why?" "Because we are not finished yet," he said. "We've barely begun." "And," he added, "do not ever engage in a discussion of the re-segregation of Richmond's schools they've never been de-segregated."

Mr. Hill often noted that while the unanimous decision in Brown opened the front door of the schoolhouse for blacks, the 5-4 decision in Milliken -- which made cross-jurisdictional busing very difficult -- opened the back door for white flight.

Justice Thurgood Marshall's dissent noted that poor Negro children would continue to receive "the same inherently unequal education in the future as they have been unconstitutionally afforded in the past." "In the short run," wrote Marshall, "it may seem to be the easier course to allow our great metropolitan areas to be divided up each into cities -- one white, the other black -- but it is a course, I predict, our people will ultimately regret."

Notwithstanding his always cordial demeanor with Lewis Powell, the swing vote in Milliken, Mr. Hill observed that Powell did nothing to integrate Richmond's schools. When Powell stepped down as Richmond's School Board chairman in 1961, "precisely two black children" attended the city's public school with white students.

Richmond still suffers the effects of Milliken. The schools are not integrated, and more African-American males go to prison than to college. Despite real progress, we still have a shameful graduation rate, an abysmal dropout rate, and sky-rocketing suspension rates. We also have near total non-compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, thus denying "simple access" to our most vulnerable citizens.

Where do we go from here?

Before enacting NCLB sanctions and dismantling public education, we should revisit Milliken and consider what our nation might be like today had that decision gone the other way. Let us find a way to recapture that missed opportunity for equality.

We can begin by re-reading Simple Justice. As Mr. Hill said: "We are not finished yet. We've barely begun."

Beware Their Cheating Hearts ...

Time was when teachers and school administrators had to concern themselves with the possibility of children cheating on tests. Nowadays, it is the other way around.

Some teachers, parents and even retired administrators have called to say they fear state-wide “systematic cheating” is happening on the SOLs because of a dramatic increase in over-identification and misidentification of some children as “special education.”

Children deemed in need of "special education" are eligible to take less rigorous versions of the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests. Of particular concern is the way children in grades three through eight are being tested feverishly under alternative assessments for children with disabilities, but hardly at all under the high school versions of the programs.

Many of those who called suggested that by ignoring this increase in children being labeled "special education," some upper echelon state education administrators, school superintendents and members of the State Board of Education are not only quietly condoning, but actually encouraging the practice.

Have pressure to satisfy the NCLB mandate of Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) and worries of whether a school and its district will be accredited led administrators to game the system?

Since special education and the rights of children and families with disabilities have long been close to my heart, I decided to find out if what I was hearing could be true. To begin the process of sifting fact from fiction, I asked for information from the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) and Richmond Public Schools (RPS).

I have still not received any response from RPS, other than to say they need more time to provide the requested information. I have asked for a meeting with Supt. Yvonne W. Brandon to discuss why Richmond is still a third higher in learning disabilities, double the state average in emotional disturbance and triple the state average in mental retardation. When that meeting happens, I will gladly report on it.

Once the data started flowing in from VDOE, I was so stunned I had to ask my friend John Butcher, a semi-retired attorney and a former chemistry professor at Hampden-Sydney College, to help analyze and investigate. We spent the last month-plus crunching numbers and asking questions. To see his detailed charts and analysis of what we have found so far, click here.

The many who expressed their concerns are not without justification.

To be sure, the sheer volume of tests administered to children labeled “special education” was significant enough to warrant official questions from the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) in 2006-2007 concerning possible “disproportionate” identification of students with disabilities in 101 of 132 Virginia school districts.

The VDOE’s official response to USDOE was to say they “investigated” by asking each of the 101 districts to review their own data, and that each of the districts in question reported back that there was, in fact, not even one instance of disproportionate identification. Not one.

To say that this response strains one’s credulity, is an understatement.

It could be that educators across the Commonwealth and at VDOE have found a miracle cure for profound cognitive and physical disabilities or, perhaps, Virginia is concurrently experiencing an epidemic of afflictions that make it impossible for a child to take a multiple choice test, afflictions that mysteriously disappear when a child enters high school. But, I doubt it.

However, consider the following facts and decide for yourself.

Since 2004-2005 when Virginia began allowing school districts to administer the Virginia Grade Level Alternative Assessment (VGLA) -- a test designed for children who have a disability that prevents them from taking the multiple choice Standard of Learning (SOL) test – the number of VGLA tests administered to children in grades three to eight sky-rocketed, from a mere 2,031 to 35,962.

Richmond provided much of the fuel for that rocket.


During this same time, the number of tests administered to children taking the Virginia Alternate Assessment Program (VAAP) -- a test similarly designed for children in grades three through eight and 11, but for those who have cognitive disabilities that prevent them from taking the SOLs -- has more than doubled, from 11,152 to 23,747.

Simply adding the number of VAAP and VGLA tests administered to children shows that administrators claimed nearly 60,000 "alternative assessments" were necessary for children they said had disabilities significant enough to be excused from taking the regular SOLs.

Now here's where the miracle cure comes in: the number of children state-wide who took the VSEP, the high school equivalent of the VGLA was 253. No typo there, folks, two-hundred-fifty-three (253). True, there is an incredibly low 44 percent graduation rate state-wide for children with disabilities and only 32 percent in Richmond. Obviously, too many of the kids are dropping out and many (if not most) are being given inferior diplomas or "certificates of completion." As well, the VSEP is a high-labor effort requiring additional documentation and advance planning. Even so, something is seriously wrong with this picture.

On the state level, it is clear that the experts at VDOE and the State Board of Education know that certain school districts are abusing testing exemptions which allow children with disabilities to take alternative assessments to the Standards of Learning, but precious little is being done to correct the situation.

Not only are the data a damning demonstration of the power of an unfunded mandate with high demands and draconian consequences to corrupt good people, but more's the pity what data reveal happening in Virginia's urban centers, Richmond most especially. In 2007-08, Richmond administered over almost 3,500 tests under the VGLA, but not a single test under the VSEP.

We know there is no miracle happening for RPS 8th-graders, but there is no logical explanation for this utter lack of VSEP assessments for our high school children with disabilities.The very large number of disabilities reported among Richmond's schoolchildren and the very large number of alternative tests demand an explanation.

Suspicion grows when we notice that RPS -- AND every other district -- gets to grade the VGLA and VAAP tests, but the State grades the VSEP. Thus, VGLA/VAAP assessments provide a handy mechanism to evade the rigors of the SOL testing, but VSEP does not.

And Richmond appears to be using that mechanism with a vengeance: Although the division SOL score is far below average, Richmond's students with disabilities are performing well above the statewide average for students with disabilities.

Also in Richmond, it is indeed cold comfort to see that the allegations and rumors that have roiled around for years that African-American children, especially males, have been grossly over-identified as being mentally retarded or emotionally disturbed, appear to be true.

NCLB and Virginia's SOLs aren't simply about measuring how well our children, including those in special education, do in public school. The NCLB mandate (unfunded or not) and the SOLs are also supposed to measure how well the teacher, school, school district and state perform their jobs. The task becomes exponentially more complicated when attempting to determine how the children in special education are faring.

Unfortunately, any parent, taxpayer or hard-working teacher who has seriously attempted to hold the special education establishment, VDOE or the State Board of Education accountable knows full well how Hercules felt when he battled the Hydra.

Just ask a mother who is upset that her child has been declared mentally retarded, labeled as emotionally disturbed or branded learning disabled, when she knows the problem is not her child, but the teacher or the principal. Or ask a parent who wants and needs services for their child, but somehow can't make the system deliver on what has been promised.

Parents, teachers and even retired administrators have long complained about the subjectivity of the referral process in Richmond which unfairly labels way too many children "disabled." Virginia is not alone in attempting to game the system by reshaping the testing pool or by creating ways to exclude a child's scores from a district's or the state's AYP calculation.

But, the dramatic jump in the number of VGLA and VAAP tests will no doubt reap long-term negative results. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to see that being labeled as disabled profoundly affects a child's sense of self or that being misidentified as a child with a disability can create lifelong distrust and anger. Add to this, the humiliation and frustration that parents endure when they can't get the needed services for their children because administrators are too busy playing AYP games.

In the short-run, such over-identification and misidentification clearly reduces the accuracy that is supposed to derive from the SOL tests and NCLB accountability measures. Reducing that accuracy, reduces the possibility that policy makers can reach informed and wise decisions that will help improve public education. If the data are faulty, how can the conclusion be accurate? And, if the schools' problems are intentionally disguised and distorted, how can we expect to fix them?

Add to this distortion, the not insignificant problem that special education costs on average 1.6 times as much per student as regular education. That means the dramatic, and questionable, increase of children labeled with disabilities, ostensibly for the purpose of making AYP, reduces the amount of money available for the children with bonafide disabilities and for other non-disabled children.

The over-identification of minorities for special education is a national problem. It is the shame of our city, our Commonwealth and our nation.

We know that NCLB created high hurdles, imposed draconian consequences for not clearing them and then offered no tools to school systems to succeed. It is, however, not acceptable that the response has been to make liars of schools administrators at all levels, to brand children with disabilities to improve a school system's pass rate, to deprive school systems of the usefulness of true measures of performance and to skew the use of resources in public schools.

In a later entry, I will discuss what needs to happen in the long run to correct this problem. For right now, suffice to say, USDOE, VDOE, the State Board of Education and individual school districts need to stop cheating and to stop allowing cheating.

Down the Rabbit Hole

If the SOLs were just some silly children's story -- "Through the SOL-Looking Glass" -- we could all have some cheap laughs and marvel at the clever tricks and loopholes the educrats at the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) have devised to prevent the evenhanded application of SOL's as a tool to achieve accountability.

But, trying to make sense of VDOE's byzantine policies, rules and regulations concerning SOLs is no laughing matter. And, the costs -- both in terms of dollars and the common good -- are anything but cheap.

More's the pity since it appears that VDOE officials and the State Board of Education have managed to take what began as a noble effort to inject much needed transparency and accountability into Virginia's public schools, and twist it into a madding mish-mash of complicated conundrums, exemptions and waivers worthy of a "grand vizier."

A posting by "Tom" on the RVANews.com site said it best: "The purpose of publishing the collective SOL results of any given school or district is to see how that school’s students and school systems performed, not to gauge the performance of kids who happen to live in the neighborhood but chose not to attend the school. Proper measurement is a management tool and encourages accountability."

An example of just how twisted and topsy-turvy things have become in VDOE Wonderland, is revealed by the way they define what it means to be “a school.”

VDOE and the various school superintendents who constitute Maggie Walker’s Governing Board evidently see nothing wrong with refusing to recognize the Governor's Schools as official "schools," a recognition that would allow these outstanding schools to report and claim the scores their students earn on SOLS and be among those honored as “The Best Schools in America” by Newsweek and U.S World News & World Report.

Why? VDOE’s policy is that the SOL scores earned by students at the Governor's Schools are given back to the Superintendents in the various districts where the Superintendents then (incredibly) apply those scores to the public high schools nearest where the Governor's School student lives.

How is this NOT fraudulent on both a state and federal level?

Once again, "Tom" on the RVANews.com website, nailed it: “[This policy] makes about as much sense as a Chevy dealer’s reporting as revenue purchases made from Toyota because the Toyota customer lives closer to the Chevy dealership.

"VDOE’s method of measuring and reporting a school’s supposed SOL scores simply insures that the data, which all districts in Virginia spend fortunes to collect, has very little reliability or usefulness. The various superintendents contend that since they must tap their own budgets to “buy” seats at the Governor’s Schools, that they are entitled to the SOL scores of the students who are accepted to attend."

In a dizzying display of incoherence rivaling the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, VDOE’s policy makers have declared that the SOL scores earned by the children who are assigned to "disciplinary" or "alternative" schools or programs are captured in such a way that those scores do not reflect back on the school that asked that the student be sent to the disciplinary school.

Further, these “discipline” schools and programs have a different set of SOL benchmarks to meet than those administered to either students at the Governor’s Schools or to comprehensive high schools in the home districts.

Simply for discussion purposes, compare and contrast the way VDOE and the BOE view Maggie L. Walker Governor's School and the Capitol Choice Program (CCP).

The SOL scores for Maggie Walker students go back to the public high schools in those students' "home" districts. Never mind that the children at the Governor's Schools (in most cases) have never even set foot in those public high schools and will not for the four years they spend in high school. Never mind that children who attend the Governor's Schools earn diplomas from the Governor's School -- and not the school that benefits from receiving their SOL scores.

This is the place where things get even “curiouser and curiouser”.

In contrast, SOL scores for tests taken at CCP stay at CCP. Never mind that the stated goal of the CCP "program" is to return their students to their home schools. Never mind that since there are no 12th-graders officially assigned to CCP and that there has never been a formal "graduation" ceremony for CCP students, nor any diplomas given from the program.

The only sensible conclusion from this perversion of the data is that VDOE is more interested in pleasing local Superintendents than in obtaining useful -- and honest -- information from the SOL testing.