By Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee

The opening lyrics of a popular song during the 1940s advised listeners, “You’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative (and) don’t mess with Mister In-Between.”

Dan Walters

It may be state schools Superintendent Tom Torlakson’s favorite ditty, because he certainly adopted its upbeat credo last week in announcing results of the state’s latest series of academic achievement tests.

Torlakson trumpeted “significant progress” in the scores of the 3.2 million California students in grades three to eight and 11 who were tested on how well they are performing vis-à-vis the state’s new Common Core standards.

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