80 Percent Of Recent NYC High School Graduates Cannot Read

[BKKMAN]

You May Want to Consider Homeschooling if You Live in NY

Nearly 80 percent of New York City high school graduates need to relearn basic skills before they can enter the City University’s community college system.

In its defense, the NYC Department of Education said it has raised high school graduation rates by 40 percent over the last seven years. And that the number of students needing remedial courses to do college work has declined slightly — by half a percentage point overall.

Seems like Mayor Bloomberg should quit worrying about the size of drinks and focus on education...fat and smart has to be better than skinny and dumb...

[GratefulCitizen]

Schools made sense back when the distribution of information was difficult.
Technology has changed.

Assembling students into simultaneous schedules at central locations, taking homogenized/standardized coursework at uniform pacing is inefficient compared to the modern alternatives.
The lack of effectiveness speaks for itself.

The only reason this is still done is to avoid overturning apple carts.
Too many people are too heavily invested in the existing model.

It will take another 25 years for the dinosaurs to lose their influence.
Alternatives will be attacked in the meanwhile.

[Remington Raidr]

Skul been berry berry good to me.

"Officials told CBS 2′s Kramer that nearly 80 percent of those who graduate from city high schools arrived at City University’s community college system without having mastered the skills to do college-level work"


How does that equate to "80% of Recent NYC High School Graduates Cannot Read"? Fuzzy math!


How about those who graduate NYC schools and are accepted into colleges and universities higher in the food chain than NYC's community college system? How about those who choose other paths in life (skilled trades, military, etc)?

[BOfH]

Lower the standards and you'll pad the graduation statistics, it all looks good on paper, until it doesn't. This issue isn't new either.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/ed...erip.html?_r=0

By MICHAEL WINERIP
Published: October 23, 2011

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.
Related

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).

...

Ms. Washington, 18, said that in high school, a lot of time was spent gaming the system. “The big thing they cared about was keeping the graduation rate up,” she said. “Whatever they had to do to get you to graduate — if it means like a little trick to get you out, tell you to do this, do that and you’re out.”

snip

I doubt this issue is exclusive to NYC either, though it definitely is an eye opener on Bloomberg's supposed record on education.

My .02

[Team Sergeant]

No problems, the socialist "teachers union" says there is nothing, nothing to see here just move along.

NYC socialists doing their jobs!

[Richard]

Language is difficult, and brain research over the last couple of decades has shown us just how difficult it is and how it is is continuously developed at differing cognitive rates throughout one's lifetime. Establishing "proficiency in literacy" (speaking, reading, and writing) within a given language is even more difficult, especially when the standards of proficiency being demanded vary greatly among communities, career paths, etc., and are constantly changing.

Review these forums and look at the number of members who are very successful within a variety of endeavors and, based upon their demonstrated writing skills, still struggle with language proficiency in their native language.

Additionally, language proficiency does not exactly equate to lower intelligence, and based upon what I've seen with community or junior colleges in Texas and California, and know of NYC, I wonder how many of those entering the CCNY system are marginally proficient ESL speakers from immigrant families? I would suspect a pretty high percentage of them and would laud them on trying to improve their chances of becoming a more productive citizen in a nation where education remains important to our individual and collective futures.

I agree with WCH.

And so it goes...

Richard

[Pete]

Which is why they have pictures on the cans down at Food Lion.

Don't need to read when you can just look at the pictures.

Don't need to be able to do math. The lady at checkout let's you know how much you have remaining on your EBT card.

NYC schools are really terrible

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVTXwmF1Fxg

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by WCH

NYC schools are really terrible

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVTXwmF1Fxg

The majority are.

Some are not.

I'd say it is safe to say that this one was not graduating ignoramuses.

TR

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by GratefulCitizen

Schools made sense back when the distribution of information was difficult.
Technology has changed.

Assembling students into simultaneous schedules at central locations, taking homogenized/standardized coursework at uniform pacing is inefficient compared to the modern alternatives.
The lack of effectiveness speaks for itself.

The only reason this is still done is to avoid overturning apple carts.
Too many people are too heavily invested in the existing model.

It will take another 25 years for the dinosaurs to lose their influence.
Alternatives will be attacked in the meanwhile.

Our kids go to a local public school. And for a socialist leaning country it's not too bad actually....the political correctness takes a back seat to education.

But we also supplement our kids school education with some pretty cool online learning aids.

I wonder if high quality and mass customized online learning aids could effectively replace a healthy chunk of school......and effectively leave "school" and group activities for the sole purpose of developing social interaction and team building skills.

[GratefulCitizen]

Originally Posted by Flagg

Our kids go to a local public school. And for a socialist leaning country it's not too bad actually....the political correctness takes a back seat to education.

But we also supplement our kids school education with some pretty cool online learning aids.

I wonder if high quality and mass customized online learning aids could effectively replace a healthy chunk of school......and effectively leave "school" and group activities for the sole purpose of developing social interaction and team building skills.

Learning won't be top-down designed.
The kids will largely figure it out for themselves.

My 10 and 12 year olds are homeschooled.
They spend about 2-3 hrs/day, 4 days/week doing "school".

The learning is mostly self-directed with only minor supervision.
They did previously attend private school where the primary focus was reading.

My sister homeschooled her kids using a similar system.
The first two were done with high school by age 16 and are doing well in college.

Kids are natural learners.
Removing obstacles will do more good than adding programs.

Originally Posted by The Reaper

The majority are.

Some are not.

I'd say it is safe to say that this one was not graduating ignoramuses.

TR

I began my public school education in that school 65 years ago.