cburnett's blog

As the Southeast cluster prepares for their 15 minutes of community involvement, take a moment to inform yourselves about one of the key players in this back-handed sham of a process. I speak of Portland Public School's Chief Operations Officer, Cathy Minceberg.

Minceberg was the COO in Houston under Rodney Paige and helped to orchestrate the "Texas Miracle", a period of time when the Houston schools made unbelievable advances in raising test scores, cutting the drop-out rate and virtually eliminating school related crime and violence. Riding the wave of this success, Bush appointed Paige to be his Education Secretary and champion of No Child Left Behind. (Paige is also fondly remembered for his quote that the teacher's union is a terrorist organization.) Soon after that appointment it became clear that the Houston Schools had taken great liberties with the facts of their school's performance. Test scores rose by holding back 9th grade students who were not likely to test well. Then they simply advanced them to 11th grade. School suspensions dropped by having students arrested instead. That way they were not "suspended" they were sentenced. Minceberg was a part of it all and when the chickens came home to roost, she and many others jumped ship. Now she is here to bring the same miracle to Portland.
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