Sebanyak 99,48% siswa sekolah menengah atas (SMA) sederajat atau 1.573.036 siswa  dinyatakan lulus Ujian Nasional (UN) untuk tahun ajaran 2012/2013, sedangkan yang tidak lulus sebanyak 8.260 siswa atau 0,52 persen. Adapun total seluruh peserta UN SMA sederajat 1.581.286 siswa.

“Hasil kelulusan dan dan tidak lulusnya siswa ditentukan dari kombinasi hasil nilai UN sebanyak 60 persen dan 40 persen dari nilai sekolah,” kata Mendikbud M Nuh pada konferensi pers pengumuman hasil UN Tahun Ajaran 2012/2013 SMA/MA/SMK sederajat di Jakarta, Kamis (23/5).Turut hadir Ketua Badan Standar Nasional Pendidikan (BSNP) Aman Wirakartakusumah dan anggota Jemari Mardapi.

Menurut Nuh, dibandingkan tahun lalu prosentase kelulusan 99.50 persen, sehingga terjadi penurunan 0,02 persen pada tahun ini.”Terjadinya penurunan kelulusan dimungkinkan karena adanya variasi soal tahun ini menjadi 20 soal UN dan tingkat kerumitan soal,” ungkapnya.
Adapun peserta UN yang paling banyak tidak lulus adalah pertama,Nanggro Aceh Darussalam (NAD) dengan 3,11 persen atau 1.754 siswa dari 65 ribu peserta UN. “Kedua, Papua dan ketiga Sulawesi Tengah (Sulteng),” kata M Nuh.

Sedangkan Provinsi Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) tidak lagi menjadi provinsi yang tingkat ketidaklulusannya tertinggi. “Hal ini karena Kemendikbud melakukan intervensi terhadap provinsi itu berupa penambahan guru serta perbaikan sarana dan prasarana,” ujar mantan Rektor ITS Surabaya itu.

Dijelaskan, untuk tahun ini masih ada sekolah dengan angka ketidaklulusan sebesar 100 persen. Tercatat, sebanyak 24 sekolah atau sebesar 0,16 persen dengan tingkat ketidaklulusan 100 persen dengan jumlah 899 siswa.Namun lebih banyak sekolah yang 100 persen lulus, yaitu 15.476 sekolah atau sebesar 87 persen dengan jumlah 1,3 juta siswa.

Sementara provinsi dengan tingkat kelulusan 100 persen adalah Jawa Barat. Secara nasional, tambah Nuh, nilai UN tingkat SMA sederajat tahun ini juga mengalami penurunan dibandingkan tahun sebelumnya. Jika tahun lalu rata-rata nilai UN 7,7, tahun ini hanya mencapai 6,35.

“Untuk rata-rata nilai UN tertinggi tahun ini 9,87 dan yang terendah 0,33,” ungkap Nuh. Yang menarik,lanjut dia, dalam hasil evaluasi UN 2013 di sejumlah sekolah, rata-rata nilai UN lebih tinggi dibandingkan dengan rata rata nilai Ujian Sekolah.(Bangkit wibisono)

From sea to shining sea, or at least from one side of the Hudson to the other, politicians you have barely heard of are being accused of wrongdoing. There were so many court proceedings involving public officials on Monday that it was hard to keep up.

In Newark, two underlings of Gov. Chris Christie were arraigned on charges that they were in on the truly deranged plot to block traffic leading onto the George Washington Bridge.

Ten miles away, in Lower Manhattan, Dean G. Skelos, the leader of the New York State Senate, and his son, Adam B. Skelos, were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on accusations of far more conventional political larceny, involving a job with a sewer company for the son and commissions on title insurance and bond work.

The younger man managed to receive a 150 percent pay increase from the sewer company even though, as he said on tape, he “literally knew nothing about water or, you know, any of that stuff,” according to a criminal complaint the United States attorney’s office filed.

The success of Adam Skelos, 32, was attributed by prosecutors to his father’s influence as the leader of the Senate and as a potentate among state Republicans. The indictment can also be read as one of those unfailingly sad tales of a father who cannot stop indulging a grown son. The senator himself is not alleged to have profited from the schemes, except by being relieved of the burden of underwriting Adam.

The bridge traffic caper is its own species of crazy; what distinguishes the charges against the two Skeloses is the apparent absence of a survival instinct. It is one thing not to know anything about water or that stuff. More remarkable, if true, is the fact that the sewer machinations continued even after the former New York Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, was charged in January with taking bribes disguised as fees.

It was by then common gossip in political and news media circles that Senator Skelos, a Republican, the counterpart in the Senate to Mr. Silver, a Democrat, in the Assembly, could be next in line for the criminal dock. “Stay tuned,” the United States attorney, Preet Bharara said, leaving not much to the imagination.

Even though the cat had been unmistakably belled, Skelos father and son continued to talk about how to advance the interests of the sewer company, though the son did begin to use a burner cellphone, the kind people pay for in cash, with no traceable contracts.

That was indeed prudent, as prosecutors had been wiretapping the cellphones of both men. But it would seem that the burner was of limited value, because by then the prosecutors had managed to secure the help of a business executive who agreed to record calls with the Skeloses. It would further seem that the business executive was more attentive to the perils of pending investigations than the politician.

Through the end of the New York State budget negotiations in March, the hopes of the younger Skelos rested on his father’s ability to devise legislation that would benefit the sewer company. That did not pan out. But Senator Skelos did boast that he had haggled with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, in a successful effort to raise a $150 million allocation for Long Island to $550 million, for what the budget called “transformative economic development projects.” It included money for the kind of work done by the sewer company.

The lawyer for Adam Skelos said he was not guilty and would win in court. Senator Skelos issued a ringing declaration that he was unequivocally innocent.

THIS was also the approach taken in New Jersey by Bill Baroni, a man of great presence and eloquence who stopped outside the federal courthouse to note that he had taken risks as a Republican by bucking his party to support paid family leave, medical marijuana and marriage equality. “I would never risk my career, my job, my reputation for something like this,” Mr. Baroni said. “I am an innocent man.”

The lawyer for his co-defendant, Bridget Anne Kelly, the former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, a Republican, said that she would strongly rebut the charges.

Perhaps they had nothing to do with the lane closings. But neither Mr. Baroni nor Ms. Kelly addressed the question of why they did not return repeated calls from the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., begging them to stop the traffic tie-ups, over three days.

That silence was a low moment. But perhaps New York hit bottom faster. Senator Skelos, the prosecutors charged, arranged to meet Long Island politicians at the wake of Wenjian Liu, a New York City police officer shot dead in December, to press for payments to the company employing his son.

Sometimes it seems as though for some people, the only thing to be ashamed of is shame itself.