Since Tony Bennett got caught fixing the grade of his favorite charter school, he has loudly defended his actions and described the claims against him as vicious and unfounded.
In this post, mathematician Jordan Ellenberg of the University of Wisconsin explains how Bennett tried to protect his favorite school and how he distorted the truth afterwards.
Ellenberg writes:
“This was an act of astonishing statistical chutzpah. Suppose the syllabus for my math class said that the final grade would be determined by averaging the homework grade and the exam grade, and that the exam grade was itself the average of the grades on the three tests I gave. Now imagine a student gets a B on the homework, gets a D-minus on the first two tests, and misses the third. She then comes to me and says, “Professor, your syllabus says the exam component of the grade is the average of my grade on the three tests—but I only took two tests, so that line of the syllabus doesn’t apply to my special case, and the only fair thing is to drop the entire exam component and give me a B for the course.”
No excuses!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am lowering my grade for Tony Bennett from an F to an F minus . . . . .
Ha! Love it! F- – – –
Actually, I had a college professor do something kind of like that. In his syllabus, he stated that the weekly essay would count just for doing it. Then there were two other essays, the midterm and the final. My friends and I figured our grades from the syllabus. I had an A, so I was fine. But my friends were surprised when their grades sank to a B- from what we figured would be a B+. When they went to the professor, he stated that he had decided that the weekly essay grade was “inflating grades,” so he didn’t use those scores, and only used scores from the two other essay and the two tests. Several of my friends lost scholarships over that grade. I encouraged my friends to go to the dean, but they wouldn’t do it, and I couldn’t, because my grade wasn’t affected. I refused to take a class from that professor again, and I discouraged others from doing so as well. He later became department head, so I guess it didn’t work.
After reading this article:
http://www.indystar.com/article/20130731/NEWS05/307310091?gcheck=1
and seeing how cold hearted and inflexible Bennett was when 2 public schools faced the same grading issue his protestations of innocence and care for children is shown to be the reformy lie it really is. He would not help 2 public schools which ended up taken over by the state but he refused to allow a charter run by a political donor to experience the same thing.
What we’ve believed and what we’ve been saying all along is true.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. These people are absolutely corrupt.
Wow..what a piece of $____!
And the comments…..they can’t stand Bennett.
the e-mails: http://transparentchristina.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/florida-chief-who-has-same-policies-as-governormarkell-resigns-in-disgrace-check-out-the-e-mails-great-job-by-ap-reporters/
Has it been announced yet what Bennett plans to do next? He should be convicted in court and for restitution, have to write apology letters to the thousands upon thousands of students and teachers that were affected by him. Surely, no state in the country is interested in having him come to work now. Of course his apologies wouldn’t be sincere, but maybe if he kept saying it, he would begin to believe it.
Michelle embraces Tony –
She’s not very intellectual and has ZERO common sense –
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/02/michelle_rhee_embraces_disgraced_charter_school_advocate/
And oddly enough, when public school teachers and administrators are caught gaming the system to keep their scores high enough to keep their schools open, they are arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, many looking at jail time. Double standards….one for public schools, one for GOP charter donors.
How does one assess nothing? If the student missed the test, you give another test to “measure understanding.” The next probelm is the problem of averaging- the most inaccurate mathematical measuring tool. Finally, why would teacher “grade” work done at home? How accurate is homework as a tool to measure student perfromance and understanding. Now the reformers use the same inaccurate measuring tools to fire teachers and close schools– that they do not like.