Almost at the end of today’s letters to the editor is this one from Terry Abbott, HISD’s press secretary, with some surprising information:
THE Houston Independent School District is very serious about maintaining academic integrity throughout the district.
When a Dallas Morning News reporter contacted HISD officials with the results of the newspaper’s analysis of test scores of one small group of fifth-graders at one HISD elementary school, the district immediately reported itself to the Texas Education Agency and asked for a full-blown state investigation. HISD also immediately gave a detailed statement to the Houston Chronicle and released details of the findings of its preliminary investigation to the Chronicle within hours of its completion. Even before the Dallas Morning News published its story, HISD had contacted the Chronicle and given details of that internal investigation.
HISD could not possibly have acted any faster or more thoroughly in its response to even a hint of impropriety in its test scores.
The Chronicle’s decision to rip HISD in its Dec. 23 editorial was off base. The editorial failed to acknowledge HISD’s quick action and commitment to integrity.
TERRY ABBOTT
press secretary,
Houston Independent School District
Wow! The Chronicle had a heads up on the TAKS cheating story unearthed by the Dallas Morning News and still, still that paper had to use an AP story that soon changed into an AP-inspired, Chronicle-authored story? And that AP-inspired story ran for two days, online!
That should be downright embarrassing for Jeff Cohen.
