Arizona Education System is Completely Broken

Citizens in the state of Arizona should be going ballistic. I certainly would be. The overseers and administrators of the public school system have to be criminally incompetent. While spending millions of taxpayer dollars and promising to increase standards, the incompetents are lowering the minimum requirements for a passing test grade to the point where there is an offhand chance that a student flipping a coin would answer enough questions to pass. From The Arizona Republic:

This year's junior class is the first that must pass the reading, writing and math high school AIMS test to get a diploma. They got a considerable break Thursday after state officials reviewed their spring test results and then officially lowered the score needed to pass the exit exam, whose full name is Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards.

With the help of the new, lowered passing scores, and after taking a third crack at the high school AIMS test, an estimated 61 percent of the Class of 2006 passed. That's up from the 43 percent passing rate for the fall 2004 tests.

On Thursday, after two days of deliberations and on the advice of a teacher committee and testing experts, the Arizona State Board of Education reduced the passing score for math to 60 percent correct from 71 percent. It also reduced the passing score for reading to 59 percent correct from 72 percent.

So, they dropped the requirements from about 70% to 60% or less and they still can't get but a lousy 61% to pass.

Most Arizona State Board of Education members said lowering the scores would look as if they were lowering the bar and backing off high standards for high school graduates, but still they voted 9-1 to do it.

It would look like they're lowering the bar and backing off high standards! They are! There's no look like here. And not only that, but the students are taking the test three times to achieve the reduced minimum test scores. This whole situation is absolutely sickening.

Two words. Private School.