You’ll have to pardon me for not getting too worked up over this Chronicle headline: Test scores fall sharply at scrutinized schools.
First, the story is by Jason Spencer. Second, it’s in the Chronicle. Third, HISD superintendent Abe Saavedra has already offered strong reform ideas to improve HISD schools, and has taken steps to investigate and prevent cheating. Fourth, the Chronicle continues to run stories on a non-controversy, which undoubtedly makes Dr. Saavedra’s efforts to bring change to HISD nearly impossible. Fifth, the TAKS test was harder this year.
Plus, we’ve seen the Chronicle hyperventilate before, only to find out later that the Chronicle wasn’t giving us all available information; and when we DID get the rest of the information, it pretty much decimated the Chronicle‘s point.
When it comes to those entities — and people — that haven’t attained the Chronicle‘s “most favored status” (like Metro has), I think the Chronicle has cried wolf too many times to be taken seriously. That’s a big loss for Houston-area residents who only have one major newspaper to rely on.
