E-mails link Jeb Bush foundation, corporations and education officials writing state laws

[quaker bill]

1. I do not know if grading schools was good for education

However, the fact that I live in the districts for three Jeb Bush "A" graded schools has done great things for the value of my house. I moved here because they were understood as being the best public schools in town, well before school grades were invented. However, more broadly publishing their status improved property values. The increase was larger during the bubble and the decline was smaller than average after it popped.

Interestingly, after all the expense and the testing, the best schools before are still the best schools, and the worst schools are still the worst. The grades suggest the worst schools have improved some, but since they change the grading scale every year or two, who can tell if any of it is real.

I did find it interesting when in the first year none of the locals schools got an F, they promptly changed the standards. The standards were set to get a result of 10% "F" schools, because the law only triggered vouchers an charters if there were "F" schools in the District. So the test had to produce "F" schools for the experiment to proceed and it was revised to do just that. It has since been revised upward over and over since then to maintain a necessary minimum level of failure.