Saturday, May 18, 2013

Alberta Darling: Voucher School Drop Out

You wouldn't smile either
if you just got caught in
yet another lie.
This past Wednesday, State Senator Alberta "I ain't no" Darling went on the Charlie Sykes show to peddle Scott Walker's budget and agenda to drive this state further into the ground.

One of the myriad of turds she was trying to polish was the one of voucher schools.  Starting at about the 11:30 mark, you can hear Darling trying to justify selling out the education and the future of the state's children with this statement (emphasis mine):
“Well you know, if you look at two of the areas the Governor targeted – Beloit and Green Bay – most people will say, ‘No, Green Bay doesn’t have a problem like Milwaukee.’ Well, the graduation rate is the same as or similar to Beloit – like 40%. So there are a lot of ah school districts around the state that are not far behind Milwaukee in terms of need of great improvement and need of the state’s attention. So we’re gonna see a compromise on the voucher program and it’s gonna be a good one.”
So Darling is saying that the graduation rate in Green Bay is around 40%.

As the PolitiFarce guys would say, let's check those numbers.

The DPI issued their numbers, and as the gentle reader can plainly see, the graduation rate for the Green Bay School District in the 2011-12 school year is 80%, up two points from the previous year:


And for kids that stay at the same high school for all four years, the graduation rate jumps up to 95%.

That's a far cry from the 40% that Darling is claiming.

Now, it could be that Darling, who is an avid golfer, has been spending too much time on the links.  More likely, she's been spending too much time at the 19th hole.

But no matter how you look at it, Darling's accuracy was grossly sub par.

We rate Darling as golfing knickers on fire.

5 comments:

  1. If you hate education, you have no business running education policy. If you hate government, you have no business running that, either.

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  2. Numbers and facts mean nothing to her.

    As she put it when discussing enforcement of truck weight limits, “Someone could think that they are within the boundaries of the weight and then find out they’re not and then get slapped with a terrible fine. We think sometimes there has to be more consideration and flexibility.”

    Maybe we should ask her about marijuana laws. Does weight matter?

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  3. I am so tired of the lies that the Republicans not just in our state but all across the 50 states. They believe that if they go back to the earth is flat, it should be fact. I live in Green Bay and have 2 daughters that graduated from Prebble High School. I know that the graduation rate is a lot higher than 40%. What is she smoking along with the 19th Hole? Maybe we should stop worrying about being nice to trucking companies that have too much weight in their trucks and start worrying about the tax payers who pay to fix those same roads.

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  4. Thank you CD, for setting the record straight. You are absolutely right about your numbers. Alberta needs a good ass whooping for telling those lies.

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  5. CD, you aren't the only one rightfully setting Alberta Darling straight. Tom Johnson, the principal of Beloit Memorial High School, took great issue with Senator Darling and sent her (and the Beloit Daily News) a letter giving her accurate figures. The 4 year graduation rate of BMHS is actually 83.6%.
    http://www.beloitdailynews.com/opinion/guest-commentary-misrepresenting-beloit-s-schools/article_9c30d6d2-c4e0-11e2-a114-0019bb2963f4.html?TNNoMobile

    ReplyDelete