Pop Quiz!

Emily Heffter's reporter's notebook on the SB races has a quiz to help you figure out which candidates align with your views. I wish it had been out sooner because I think it's a good basic guide to picking a candidate (albeit in a more shallow way than you might want).

Comments

Anonymous said…
Emily Heffter could have done a much greater service over this campaign by doing truth squad work on candidates' claims instead of simply reporting them as if they were facts.

How exactly did the current or prior board (prior meaning that with Kumasaka and Lilly) "balance the budget"?

Re Darlene Flynn's claims - what numbers support "over 50% increase in academic scores in reading, writing, and math" - what, WASL? 4th grade? 7th grade? 10th grade?

And pick some of the challengers' claims, too, to be fair.

Or how about exploring what the issue with large campaign donations is - really (I'd like to know.)

What *isn't* a service or news (or even interesting) is regurgitation of someone's press releases.

Ho hum.

Jessica Blanchard and the PI haven't said much through this campaign - but I think I prefer that to the superficial reporting of the Times.
11/5/07, 5:55 PM
Anonymous said…
Darlene has a lot of nerve citing WASL increases on her watch when in private with district staff she is anything but complimentary about the work that has been done to address increasing student achievement. She can't have it both ways - we are either making progress or we are not. She is as much a politician as the next candidate who has failed to live up to his or her previous campaign promises.
11/6/07, 8:59 AM
Anonymous said…
I also heard that one of the factors contributing to "academic gains" was the reclassifying of ~800 sophomores to freshman status based on their not having enough credits to be sophomores.

Guess who fought it? (And now is taking credit for said gains)

Darlene Flynn.
11/6/07, 10:56 AM
Jet City mom said…
ha ha!
just took the quiz- I have the most agreement with Peter Maier?
That I would not have predicted.
11/7/07, 7:54 AM
Anonymous said…
Anon at 10:56 AM.

2006 WASL grade 10 math scores rose 15% from 2005 as 18 fewer kids passed the Math WASL.

Our district is smart enough to know when you can't make the numerator bigger, it is time to shrink that denominator.

Darlene said that WASL scores in Reading, Writing, and Math were up over 50% in each area during her tenure.

Not true at grades 4 and 7 for any area.

Now if we can remove Dr. Bergeson next November it will be a great step forward for truth in reporting of data.

We need a lot more fact checkers to stop these folks from hornswaggling the public.
11/8/07, 8:49 PM
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