Posted on 10/24/2011 7:20:15 AM PDT by reaganaut1
In June, Desiree Smith was graduated from Murry Bergtraum High. Her grades were in the 90s, she said, and she had passed the four state Regents exams. Since enrolling last month at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, Ms. Smith, 19, has come to realize that graduating from a New York City public high school is not the same as learning.
She failed all three placement tests for LaGuardia and is now taking remediation in reading, writing and math. So are Nikita Thomas, of Bedford Stuyvesant Prep; Sade Washington, of the Young Women’s Leadership School in East Harlem; Stacey Sumulong, of Queens Vocational and Technical; Lucrecia Woolford of John Adams High; and Juan Rodriguez of Grover Cleveland High. “Passing the Regents don’t mean nothing,” Ms. Thomas said. “The main focus in high school is to get you to graduate; it makes the school look good. They get you in and get you out.”
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has made the rising graduation rate — to 61 percent in June, from 46.5 percent in 2005 — the No. 1 symbol of his educational accomplishments. But that rate is less impressive when paired with the percentage of graduates who need remediation in all three subjects when they enter LaGuardia or other City University of New York community colleges: 22.6 percent in 2010 (2,812 students), up from 15.4 percent in 2005 (1,085).
“A few years ago, we noticed the numbers really jump,” said John Mogulescu, the senior university dean for CUNY. Over all, 74 percent of city high school graduates enrolled at the system’s six community colleges take remediation in at least one subject, but those needing all three are at the highest risk of dropping out.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I am liberal. And I’m three steps to the right of any Democrat in the country.”””
You might be more Libertarian than you realize.
What never ceases to amaze me is that so many of today's urban youth have no interest in education at all when by historical standards they are given so much. Kansas City's schools spent billions by court order to "desegregate" and built stupendous magnet schools, only to end up closing half of everything while losing all accreditations. Contrast that to slaves who learned to read and write in the dirt behind the barn under penalty of a beating if caught. I fear this is the decline leading to our fall as a nation.
I do consider giving math another shot sometimes. Maybe with a better attitude... ;^)
No—your nephew was one of the participants of the ‘conveyor belt method’ of Unionized teaching. Giving him good grades kept the stats of the school up where they powers that be in Washington DC require. They hope to never see him again.
Here’s something you might not have thought of. I got good grades in high school. I was on the honor roll most of my 4 years there. I found out by accident that MY TRANSCRIPTS were sent to a local Vocational School—alledgely at my request. I wasn’t even living in the state when that happened, & the closest I got to any Vocation school was when I took classes to learn how to be a grocery checker- said classes were run by & subsidized by the local grocery chain stores—in the new state where I was living. I NEVER requested any transcripts to the local Vocational school near my high school. Someone rode my academic coattails & I never knew about it until much later. The high school could NOT tell me who had processed that request. I went to a small high school in a small town. Everyone knew everyone & my no longer living in the state was well known.
Just keep putting them on the conveyor belt in Kindergarten & drop them off the conveyor belt at the end of high school.
I think one of the worst parts of today’s ‘education’ system is that there is far too much emphasis put upon ‘going to college’.
There are many kids who do not belong anywhere near a college seat.
They make great carpenters-heating installers-auto mechanics- sheet metal fabricators, etc. They can focus on the demands of that job- but they don’t need to have any kind of college degree.
The whole subject needs to be reviewed in the light of reason & experience--as opposed to cloudborne theory.
See Public Schools: Issues & Reality; Education & Politics.
Unless intelligent Americans are willing to challenge the Egalitarian/Collectivists, the future of our educational institutions will continue to become increasingly bleak.
William Flax
It`s called FRAUD perpetrated by CHARLATANS using public funds.
Sad but true. I teach 7th-8th grade English, but sometimes a simple math problem will come up in a story and I'll get a shock. Example: from the ghost story we're reading, Jade Green. Uncle Geoffrey has changed his will such that 10% of his money goes to the housekeeper and the remainder is split between his son and niece. Son is furious and storms out. This is a plot point, but by the way, then, how much is the son getting? He expected 100% but he's only getting... how much? And the kids sit there, stupified. Only about 4 kids in 30 can figure it out. Of course, this is inner city. But it freaks me out every time.
It’s psychological. When schools are free and mandatory, they are not valued. I’ve often secretly thought that the best way to raise the education level of any underclass is to flatly prohibit them from learning anything. Forbidden fruit, you know?
You seem pretty confindent...without even knowing the kid.
I know he's a smart kid. I know he did a lot of work. I helped him with his calculus and advanced stats work at times. Still, the level of work I saw him doing would have been ~3.5 GPA when I was in HS (late 80s).
It was the kind of work that allowed me to jump right into real college classes and get very good grades.
Yes have an acquaintance who teaches at college level and she has said that the biggest reason college now takes 5 years instead of 6 is that the first year is trying to get them up to par to go to college....I agree not everyone’s little darling is smart enough to go.
Colleges and universities are covering for the failing public school system and at great cost. Send them back to the school system and make them to their job.
We have twice as many remedial writing classes as basic comp classes now.
Well, Ms Thomas, it looks like you went through 12 years of school and are still ignorant of English grammar. The reason is likely due to the push to have the teacher in front of you "look like you" and thus talk like you as well.
Passing the NY State Regents exam USED TO mean something decades ago. I guess it's been gutted in order to have an "adequate" minority pass rate.
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