Gary Palmer: Personal attacks don’t change Alabama’s education facts

  On October 4, the Mobile Press-Register published an opinion article by Alabama State Superintendent of Education Dr. Joe Morton disparaging a column that I wrote concerning the academic outcomes for Alabama school children as reported by the Alabama State Department of Education.

  In August, I pointed out that there is a significant gap between what the Alabama State Department of Education reports for proficiency results for Alabama school children and what other national tests such as the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) report. That was not my first article on this topic. In November 2007, I wrote about a report entitled The Pangloss Index: How States Game the No Child Left Behind Act. According to that report, states were lowering standards to improve education results in order to comply with the No Child Left Behind law (NCLB.)