How bad are New York City public schools? A report filed by CBS New York provides a frank and sobering answer to that question.
According to the report, nearly 80 percent of high school graduates need to “relearn” basic skills in core subjects — reading, writing and math — before they can be considered for admission to the City University’s community college system.
In raw numbers, these findings mean that roughly 11,000 recipients of diplomas from city high schools require remedial help to get into programs that in some cases historically admit 100 percent of all applicants.
As James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal noted on Friday, the use of the verb relearn is rather interesting, implying as it does that the students learned the the necessary skills in the first place and then forgot them.
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Best evidence yet that any exceptional America comeback is decades away? more later
My guess is that the students “feel” really great about themselves, though.
Back in 1968/69 my father opened my 4th grade math book. My teacher (one of my favorites – tough tough tough…) used it for problems but eschewed the explanations of the book for her own and her own lessons. My old man wanted to know why, so he read the book. He was astounded. The material “doesn’t teach any skills”. There were too many problems instead of good quality problems that built and maintained skills, and the methods for explaining the work. Well he went ballistic. He also kept going ballistic over the subject until the day he passed away.
I should mention that he became a public middle school math teacher after he was medically retired from the Army. He wanted to contribute to a solution, but sadly he would never really get the chance. The cancer spread, and took him from us, and those kids that he was teaching.
His premise was that public schools were “striving for mediocrity”. That instead of teaching children to be the absolute best that was possible, that the schools were pulling the excellent students down to an average while just pulling along less proficient students who should be taught at a slower pace.
To him it was all institutionalized failure. Public schools were failing the intelligent by not challenging them and celebrating excellence; failing the average for not demanding that they work to become more than average; and in particular failing those kids who were less proficient for not finding methods that allowed them to learn functional and life skills.
Remember, this was 1968 … He saw where it all was headed. Everyone gets an A… Everyone feels so good about themselves, but reading and understanding “Huckleberry Finn” (with the exception of PC fretting about its use of 19th century Missouri vernacular) is beyond most students’ capabilities. They can read, “See Spot run. Run, Spot. Run, Spot.” but understanding why Spotty might want to run, is beyond them.
Frankly, it’s all become meaningless, and stunningly “mediocre”.
r/John – The Mighty Fahvaag
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