The high school graduation rate in Washington D.C. has officially been almost twenty percent lower than in cities just a stone’s throw away, but this already low figure may have been overestimated by a whopping twenty percent because of an overly generous formula used by D.C. education officials.
Enter D.C. City Council, who have collectively decided that it’s time to aim higher:
D.C. students would be required to apply to college or trade school and take the SAT or ACT under the most sweeping education legislation passed by the D.C. Council since a 2007 law set the stage for former Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s aggressive reforms. Under the Raising the Expectations for Education Outcomes Omnibus Act of 2012, the District is set to become the first “state” in the nation to require students to apply to a postsecondary institution, according to council staff.
Kwame Brown, the main mover and shaker behind the legislation, can already see the results in his rear-view mirror: “This is a historic moment. It probably won’t be felt for another two or three years, but we’ll look back on this moment.” Marion Barry, the four-time mayor, crack head, and current Ward 9 Councilman, supports the “landmark” and “trailblazing” bill, because —
“The problem we have is so massive. It is so massive.”
Required to apply? Under what supposed authority?
The same authority that requires Ontario high school students to “volunteer”.
And they’re doing this because teaching the kids to read and count is just so -hard-.
There just aren’t enough semi-literates taking on massive student loan debt. Thank you, Kwame Brown!
So most US School Administrations has been fudging the numbers for years to inflate graduation rates. Perhaps to justify and enhance there ever increasing salary and bonuses. They practice the same Mannian methodology used in Climate Science. Hide the Decline.
I hope this doesn’t become more common. Otherwise who will I buy my cannabis from?
“Otherwise who will I buy my cannabis from?”
Someone with a M.A. in Joey from Friends.
I suppose it would be cruel to make the applications public.
What would happen if these students don’t qualify?
Osumashi, D.C. high school students will be required to apply to a post-secondary institution. The majority of these new forced-applicants won’t qualify, and will be turned down, so the college acceptance stats for particular….erm, identity groups will go down (as a percentage of that group), which in turn will fuel a call for more affirmative action.
Think of it as a “make stats project.”
Requiring college education? What would be the results?
First- increasing the taxpayer burden, as the cost of hiring more faculty to ‘teach’ these students would be enormous.
Second – increasing the taxpayer burden, as most of these students would take out student loans which would take years to pay off, thus reducing the amount of ‘free money’ in the market.
Third – it would keep these young people out of the jobs market for several more years, kicking the can down the road so to speak, before they can start to look for non-existent jobs.
A major problem, as I see it, is that the costs of this system would remove enormous amounts of money (via taxes) from the private sector. This money is then unavailable for the vital phases of the economy: Investment and Production. It’s only being used for the last phase: Consumption.
This will greatly weaken the US economy. We can’t pretend that this education is necessary for a job, but, the money being wasted in this area, IS necessary to the private sector for the creation of jobs.
Further insight:
Even the leftist Washington Post had to sum up Michelle Rhee this way: “The Post sums up Rhee’s goals as “higher student achievement, better teachers, and greater accountability for their classroom performance,” and in pursuing them she fired hundreds of teachers, shut more than two dozen schools, gave principals more say in hiring, and created a pay system that rewards improved test scores.” (Serious whizz in the union cornflakes.)
One term mayor Adrian Fenty (D) Made her chancellor. This is why he was a one term, he actually won Republican endorsement for a second term but declined as the fix was in… That mess is still unraveling. Rhee resigned after the election.
The aforementioned Kwame Brown removed most of the Qualifying distinctions for “highly effective” teachers while keeping the $10,000 incentive to move to a poor scoring district school.
(this article is a prelude to the one posted)
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2011/10/examiner-local-editorial-impact-implodes-rhees-legacy-unravels/41266
While Rhee’s legacy is up for statistical assassination readers should be aware that she was a ball buster of the best kind, and she is missed by many.
In her defense, I have seen no analysis suggesting that her data massage (right or not) was out of step with what other city schools are doing.
EBD, I thought it was an affirmative action program for post-secondary education. Make the students go even if they can’t write their own names. That sort of thing.
Osumashi, students are only required to apply.
[…]
Think of it as a “make stats project.”
~EBD
I think of it as a “training to fill out a voter registration form so we can use you to vote for Obama+lesser Dems” project.
You might be amazed at how many votes the Dems have to forgo simply because a large portion of their core constituency is functionally illiterate and have to have Dem Shock Troops register them the first time.
People die and need to be replaced.
(Yeah i know dead folks vote dem)
EBD @ 11:27 nails it! Cooking the stats to increase school subsidies and “teacher” paychecks.
And, the inevitable under-performance of these high school “graduates” on the SAT’s will be used to force further dumbing-down of those tests, as well as further reductions in whatever qualifications for college they cannot meet. English competency? Racist! White man’s arithmetic?
Time to shut down public education.
I’m trying out for the Yankees!!!!!
Whoa…step back there…before you call me a racist for implying that these (presumed) minority city students don’t have a chance in hell of getting accepted into secondary institutions regardless of the draconian and tyranical mandatory application, let me tell you…I’m pretty good…and…you know…ummm…quotas.
Carry on,
The Worm