How Many Schools Are “Out-of-control” ?
This is a very disturbing picture — just from the bits and pieces in this story forwarded to ECC (Education Consumers Clearinghouse). A group of people who come under an umbrella of a “consumers’ clearinghouse on education” SHOULD welcome such reports, YES, be disturbed, analyze, and try and be helpful.
We need to ask: How could schools become so dysfunctional in the midst of a Western rich country, so favored and privileged?
“Every year kids reach the 12th grade with elementary-level reading skills”, so says the news story. That one sentence alone provides a BIG CLUE to some of the problem. Regardless of the poverty, the racial mix, immigrants unable to understand or speak the language, etc. NO-ONE should still be unable to read in High School !
The international organization, OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) is determined to help all lagging nations in the world to reach UNIVERSAL BASIC SKILLS in the next 15 years. That is: “ . . . every student reaches at least the baseline level 1 of performance on the PISA scale — where students demonstrate elementary skills to read and understand simple texts and master basic mathematical and scientific concepts and procedures.” Access to schooling is not enough; the schools are expected to concentrate on “at least” these Universal Basic Skills to be acquired.
Universal Basic Skills — 116 pg — http://hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Universal_Basic_Skills_WEF.pdf
This Citizen’s Group, BETTER ED, is right to promote the idea of releasing state funds directly to parents so they can find suitable schools for their children in their lifetimes. It seems the system, with all its knowledge of what effective schools do, has seriously defaulted.
[See story — http://www.citypages.com/news/distrust-and-disorder-a-racial-equity-policy-summons-chaos-in-the-st-paul-schools-7394479 Poster Time to Intervene Dec 12 '15 email]