This is especially alarming since this public high school is purported to be a selective premier school. Sadly staggering numbers of urban public high school graduates are functionally illiterate and are incapable of basic math skills. This occurs despite that in most urban locales over $30,000 per sudent per year are spent on their education while they attend. Can’t imagine what basic skills those who drop out prior to high school graduation have attained.Urban public education is despite the spin a colossal failure.
My grandma taught in NYC Public for 55 years.
Her two most durable comments on what can and cannot be done by the teachers were:
“You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”, and “well, somebody has to clean the subways”.
At her funeral (she was 96) people in their 70s that she taught as children on the Lower East Side came to express their gratitude for how she “made them Americans”.