Posted 2:26 PM by Floyd

Just in case there weren't enough disgraceful examples of media malfeasance in my previous post, here's another (courtesy of Joanne Jacobs):

Florida third graders who fail the state's reading exam must repeat the grade, according to Michael Winerip's New York Times' column.

Florida has set a national precedent, giving the adults who know these third graders best -- their teachers and principals -- absolutely no say in who will be kept back.

The column, datelined Orlando, features a poor little boy who's vomiting in misery and a girl who maybe didn't take her medication for Attention Deficit Disorder on test day. So it sounds like the whole thing rests on one application of a single exam, with no chance to catch up in summer school or try a second time.

A quick google tells a different story. The Orlando Sentinel reports third graders who flunk the exam can pass to fourth grade if the principal and teacher say the student can read at grade level.

(I hope the kid wasn't vomiting because he got recipes from Ray's Place.)