4 Comments
User's avatar
Richard Bicker's avatar

Actually the problem doesn't start in kindergarten, it starts about 5 years + 9 months earlier.

Chien Kwok's avatar

No, the left will never acknowledge & address the racial disparities in chronic absenteeism of black & Hispanic students. The same way they refuse to acknowledge blacks and Hispanics are disparately large percentage of the school discipline cases. President Obama threatened schools with federal prosecution if principals did their job and disciplined students for bad behavior and it only got worse since.

Patrick Trombly's avatar

The headlines are obnoxious. They should congratulate the 8th graders who read and do math at an 11th grade level.

Blaming the test is ridiculous. There aren't enough G&T programs, and the squeaky wheel gets the grease, meaning that all the "teach to the middle and don't separate by ability" administrators rule the roost and get their way in low income neighborhoods. THAT is systemic racism and THAT is what needs to change.

Modifying admissions to schools with college level STEM programs and prep school level humanities programs will result in a lot of dropouts or a watering down of the programs. And the gap between the prepapred and unprepared students is three or more YEARS, not three months. Summer enrichment won't close that.

Fix K-5, add more G&T, and more screened / magnet middle schools in lower income districts.

Also, new SHSs that emphasized foreign language or other academic areas would be a positive change.

Mike Theobald's avatar

Very true. I asked a DOE official a few years ago 'how many SHS graduates are at Binghamton?" and they replied 'more than 1,500'.

What we do not do is ask how many of these students get a bachelor's degree.