Saturday, September 23, 2006
The truth about Paron
Ouch! This hurts. One of Coach Ron Crawford's favorite venues for the "zero remediation" yarn, used as absolute proof as to the superiority of public education in tiny - and now extinct - Paron, was my show. Well, what can you say when confronted with a STATISTIC?
The editorial writers at the Democrat-Gazette hit a home run with a bit of investigative reporting which is to be commended. This is a very very important piece, and I am fully aware that Max and Warwick have already hit it on the Arkansas Times blog, but this is IMPORTANT. Arkansas has made some very real and EXPENSIVE strides to improve public schools and they should not be sabotaged by the likes of Jim Holt.
It turns out that the academic performance of Paron grads ain't as good as previously advertised. This is really important. Sadly, Jim Holt's well meaning supporters probably don't care about anything as troublesome as facts, but you should know.
You must read the entire thing in the NWANews.com.
So it looks like Jim Argue had it right after all. Some of us always knew it would end up this way.
I am frequently in disagreement with the newspaper's editorials, but today I am so proud I can hardly stand it.
The editorial writers at the Democrat-Gazette hit a home run with a bit of investigative reporting which is to be commended. This is a very very important piece, and I am fully aware that Max and Warwick have already hit it on the Arkansas Times blog, but this is IMPORTANT. Arkansas has made some very real and EXPENSIVE strides to improve public schools and they should not be sabotaged by the likes of Jim Holt.
It turns out that the academic performance of Paron grads ain't as good as previously advertised. This is really important. Sadly, Jim Holt's well meaning supporters probably don't care about anything as troublesome as facts, but you should know.
You must read the entire thing in the NWANews.com.
A little digging produced the real story behind the remediation rates. Our thanks go to (deep breath ) the National Office for Research Measurement and Evaluation Systems at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. NORMES did the heavy number-lifting. It's the outfit that collects all the numbers used by the state's Department of Education.
You can try this at home. To begin with, here are the number of graduates that Paron produced in recent years:
2001-02: 20 graduates.
2002-03: 13 graduates.
2003-04: 14 graduates.
Now for the remediation rates for those years:
2001-02: 57 percent.
2002-03: 71 percent.
2003-04: 56 percent.
So it looks like Jim Argue had it right after all. Some of us always knew it would end up this way.
I am frequently in disagreement with the newspaper's editorials, but today I am so proud I can hardly stand it.
