Learning to read in South Carolina

Townhall.com ^ | 2/1/2006 | John Stossel

[cinives]

With public schools spending more than $100,000 per student on K-12 education, you'd think they could teach students how to read and write.

South Carolina is one of many states to have trouble with this. It spends $9,000 per student per year, and its state school superintendent told me South Carolina has been "ranked as having some of the highest standards of learning in the entire country." So let's ask the infamous question, "Is our children learning?"

Dorian Cain told me he wants to learn to read. He's 18 years old and in 12th grade, but when I asked him to read from a first-grade level book, he struggled with it.

"Did they try to teach you to read?" I asked him.

"From time to time."

His mom, Gena Cain, has been trying to get him help for years. If Dorian were in private school, or if South Carolina allowed parents to choose schools the way we choose other products and services in life, Dorian and Gena would be "customers" and able to go elsewhere -- if any school were dumb enough to serve a customer as poorly as Dorian has been served. But since Gena is merely a taxpayer, forced to pay for the public schools whether they do her any good or not, she can't even demand a better education for her son. "You have to beg," she said. "Whatever you ask for, you're begging. Because they have the power." They do. What are you going to do -- go elsewhere? Gena can't afford that.

[cinives]

Actually, I do throw it back in the face of homeschool detractors repeatedly. It's the best argument to use FOR homeschooling, closely followed by academic achievement.

[Racehorse]

We all know that state exams are not rigorous - there's been a lot of press in particular about the problems with the exams in Texas. Additionally, the SATs have been consistently dumbed-down over the years, most recently this year, so they may be performing well at a level relative to this dumbed-down yardstick.

Interesting post.

Before I go to all the trouble of following your kind suggestions, are there any American public schools which you recognize as excellent?  Which and why, please?

[cowboyway]

He's 18 years old and in 12th grade, but when I asked him to read from a first-grade level book, he struggled with it.

Learning is unimportant as long as they bolstered his self-esteem. If they failed in that area, then we have a problem.

[Law is not justice but process]

Here is another truism for you: You have to work awfully hard in America today to avoid a high school education. Sadly, all too many are willing to work that hard. There is blame to go around to the teachers and bureaucracy of government schools, no doubt, but the primary problem is unmotivated students. I would not send my kids to a public school not because they could not learn there, but because of what they would learn from all the other students.

Here is a third truism for you: I learned a lot more in high school than my teachers ever taught me.

[FreeKeys]

A new addition to this ongoing series of articles is here: School Competition Remains "Unproven" (sarcasm)

[FreeKeys]

Oops. Make that http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1574374/posts