AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ At two separate events, Texas’ top two gubernatorial candidates portrayed the state of Texas education quite differently.
While Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, touted the state’s education progress Saturday, Democrat Bill White said too many children are not graduating from high school and that state leaders have been downplaying the problem.
The Austin American-Statesman reports that Perry told a roomful of middle school students competing to represent the state in a national math competition that they, and the state’s recent dominance in that competition, were evidence that the state is moving in the right direction.
White, meanwhile, called for a dose of “realism and honesty” about the state’s education system in his address to the Association of Texas Professional Educators.