We all need to ask, "Is this okay?"

 

 

"One hundred years ago, we would teach more in an 8th grade education than kids today learn in high school"

 

Not to be cute, it does not take a rocket scientist to know how "dumbed down" our kids have become. Not all of them, just a very large and disturbing percentage of them. It seems like every month there is another finding or statistic which shows how we are failing our kids. And when we fail them, they fail school.

 

Before you consider me an alarmist, lets look at some naked facts. In November of last year, the New York Daily Post had this so say about how the kids in New York City are doing -  "Just 29% of public high school students in the city are prepared for college-level work..". That is not all - it gets worse. New York City schools are called "drop out factories". In 2011, 73,000 students dropped out of school just in New York City! Is this okay with us?

 In 2010, The National Right to Read Foundation reports the following:

 

"An incomprehensible 42 million Americans cannot read, write or perform simple math. Another 50 million Americans cannot read past the 4th grade level. 

 According to current estimates, the number of functionally illiterate adults is increasing by approximately two and one quarter million persons each year. This number includes nearly 1 million young people who drop out of school before graduation..."

If these statistics are true, the number of functionally illiterate people go up (as a percentage of our total population) by over 1/2 % a year. Is this okay with us?


The budget request for FY 2013 concerning the Department of Education is almost $80B. This includes funding for wildly unsuccessful "Race to the Top". However, when you look at the stats, most students are involved in a program called "Falling to the Bottom". What a waste of $80B! This is a broken system which continues to break our kids.

Lets look closer to home. In a September 2011 Star Tribune article, the following was reported:

"The Minneapolis School District  on-time graduation rate may appear to be 73 percent, but that is based on a formula that allows students six years or more to graduate.
Looking at the number of students who make it from freshmen to seniors in four years, the graduation rate was a much lower 49 percent for the Class of 2010."

Not bad considering we are only spending $23K per student. Only 3 out of 4 graduate in six years? Are you kidding me? Plus, what have they learned? Are they ready for college? Can they even read? We are failing our kids! Let me repeat - I don't care what race, religion or creed they are - we are failing our kids. Is that okay with us?

It is time to get mad folks. Get fired up. This is of the highest importance. We are failing our kids throughout the country and they will NOT be able to compete in a world market. By our benign neglect, we are creating a permanent underclass. This is the civil rights issue of our time. This can't be all right with us.