So Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has problems with the Texas public school system and will reportedly make his negative comments this weekend in a televised interview. However, as Time columnist Andrew Rotherham writes here, Duncan is unable to explain why he’s so down on Texas, and that has Rotherham wondering.
Confused? Me too, and I do this for a living. Overall, Texas students scored right around the national averages in reading and math on the NAEP. And according to an Aug. 17 report by the group that administers the ACT college-admissions exam, Texas high school graduates only narrowly trail national averages for college readiness. True, the national averages aren’t great, but Texas is right there with the pack. So why is Duncan dissing the Lone Star State? Its minority students outperform minority students in Chicago, albeit by smaller margins. And with a high school graduation rate of about 73%, Texas may be slightly below the national average, but it’s doing a lot better than Chicago, which only graduates about 56% of its students.
Oh, I think we know why Duncan has decided to diss Texas.
