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Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub

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August 15, 2003

Schools chief lauds test results as sign of progress

California's annual school test scores have just been released, and Supt. Jack O'Connell is spinning them as good news. Of course that's always the case. We will take a look and report back our own conclusions. In the meantime, expect Davis to jump all over this story. Education reform is the one place the gov focused early and often and produced results. He embraced and expanded reforms put in place by Pete Wilson, and kept California on track to a standards-based public school system with testing and accountability. Still a long way to go, but if Gray had used his approach to education policy as a model for the rest of his administration, he wouldn't be facing a recall election today.

UPDATE: Here is an AP story on the scores, from SFGATE, concluding that they are a mixed bag. Making progress but still far short of federal (and state) goals.

Here is the state's press release.

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