Barb’s Blog

“This campaign to equalize test scores among unequal students is utopian and unattainable, and amounts to a scam by the education industry.” ~ Pat Buchanan

We pour all kinds of money into education, but is it working? Are the young people learning?

Pat Buchanan says…

In a ranking of 50 states and D.C. by how much each spent per pupil in public schools in 2005, New York ranked first; D.C. third. The state spent $14,100, and New York City just a tad less.
And the bountiful fruits of this massive transfer of taxpayers’ wealth?

In D.C., nearly half of all black and Latino students drop out. Of those who graduate, nearly half are reading and doing math at seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade levels. D.C. academic achievement ranks 51st, last in the U.S.

Yet last week came a report from New York that makes D.C look like M.I.T. Some 200 students, in their first math class at City University of New York, were tested on their basic math skills.

Ninety percent could not do basic algebra. One-third could not convert a decimal into a fraction.

If this was a representative sampling, nine in 10 CUNY students not only do not belong in college, they do not qualify for their high school diplomas. As for that third who can’t do decimals and fractions, they should not have been allowed into high school until they could do sixth-grade math.

As 70 percent of all CUNY students are graduates of city schools, a question arises: What are the taxpayers of New York getting for the highest tax rates in the nation?

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