Louisiana Education Superintendent John White addresses inflated test scores before Senate panel
Lauren McGaughy, NOLA.com | The Times Picayune By
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on May 30, 2013 at 12:57 PM, updated May 30, 2013 at 1:43 PM
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on May 30, 2013 at 12:57 PM, updated May 30, 2013 at 1:43 PM
Louisiana's top education official on Thursday denied allegations that his department intentionally inflated high school test scores and then covered up that inflation, after a high school teacher lobbed accusations during a Senate committee meeting earlier this month.
"There wasn't any intent to cover anything up," State Superintendent of Education John White told the Senate Committee on Education Thursday morning.
White was responding to accusations by a high school band and math teacher from Caldwell Parish, Herb Bassett, who said during a May 1 committee meeting that the Department of Education improperly inflated high school exit numbers and end of course test scores and then concealed it.
The accusations were extensively documented on LouisianaVoice, a blog operated by former Capitol News Service head Tom Aswell, and thoroughly discussed in the halls of the Capitol.
Bassett, who had been charged by his school principal to look into his students' test scores and how to improve them, said his research "revealed deceit, distortion, manipulation of scores and data