American high schools have been terrible for more than 100 years... Just ask Harvard or the 'experts'
[Editor's Note: The following, titled "Our history of dissing high school grads" was sent to the New York Post, Jan 23, 2012. It is followed by the latest from the Post on how terrible our high schools are...].
New York Governor Scott Cuomo, er, Andre Cuomo, above, has joined the neoliberal attack on public school teachers and teacher unions. Cuomo, above, has joined the ranks of those claiming that all it will take to make schools "better" is firing "bad teachers." The Post reports that nearly 80% of city high school grads are not prepared for college work (“Make-believe grads,” Jan. 22). Colleges have been complaining about the low quality of incoming students for over 100 years in the United States.
In the 1880’s Harvard introduced remedial writing classes because so many entering students failed the new entrance exams. In 1894, Harvard criticized high school writing teachers for the poor performance of students entering college. Note that these were the best students in the country attending the best university of its time.
In 1930, Thomas Biggs of Teachers College found that only half of the high school students he studied could find the area of a circle, after a year of ancient history students did not know who Solon was, after a year of American history students could not describe the Monroe Doctrine, and students’ written English was “shocking” and “inadequate.”
Either high schools have always been terrible or we have always been expecting too much.
Stephen Krashen
Original article: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/make_believe_grads_ZyIynJbktxBaANFE3wcV5N#ixzz1kJV3Z7PN
Make-believe grads. New York Post editorial. Last Updated: 1:58 AM, January 22, 2012. Posted: January 22, 2012
Any lingering doubts about why it’s so critical to identify and boot ineffective teachers — as Gov. Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg are so loudly demanding — were removed by The Post’s Yoav Gonen Friday.
As Gonen reported, nearly eight out of 10 city high-school “graduates” who enrolled at CUNY community colleges last fall were deemed unable to do college-level work and required to take remedial classes.
Eight out of 10.
That’s almost everyone!
That should set sirens a-blasting through every borough of the city: Why are the schools certifying so many kids as ready for college — when they aren’t?
City Hall boasts about a 65 percent graduation rate. But it acknowledges that nearly two-thirds of those handed diplomas aren’t prepared for college-level work.
Overall, three out of four kids in city high schools — 75.3 percent — aren’t college-ready within four years. Three out of four.
The pathetic result: Each year, tens of thousands of kids walk away with diplomas but unfit for college work — benefiting from scams like “credit recovery,” where they earn points to graduate through sham make-up work.
And nearly 11,000 land in CUNY’s community colleges needing remedial classes.
CUNY winds up doubling as a do-over high school.
Meanwhile, it often seems like a kindergartner can reach adulthood and leave the schools before a rotten teacher can be removed. A key part of the problem: a lack of serious teacher evaluations — thanks to resistance from teachers unions.
No wonder the governor this month promised to push his own teacher-rating plan into law if the unions can’t reach an agreement with school officials within a month on a meaningful evaluation system.
And Bloomberg has long demanded real teacher evaluations.
(On Friday, state Education Commissioner John King and the head of the state’s biggest teachers union, Richard Iannuzzi, jointly cited “significant progress” in their negotiations toward a deal.)
No, setting up sound rules for measuring teacher performance won’t, by itself, ensure that every student is suddenly capable of university-level courses after four years of high school.
But if poor-performing teachers can’t be identified and removed, what hope is there for the city’s kids?
Something’s got to give.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/make_believe_grads_ZyIynJbktxBaANFE3wcV5N#ixzz1kMyh8rrT
