In 1940 the top offenses in public schools were chewing gum, talking in class, unfinished homework, and running in the halls. Today the top offenses are drugs, drunkenness, assault, murder and rape.
Criminality has increased enormously in 60 years; no doubt about that. It is not the fault of public schools, however, that they are forced to retain students who are also criminals. Time and again *courts* have ruled *against* school districts, forcing them to keep extremely disruptive students.
From 1963, Scholastic Aptitude Test scores dropped consistently each year.
Exactly - because far more students *take* the SAT now than they did in 1963. In the 1960s, it was still relatively rare for high school students to go to college at all. When the Vietnam War escalation began, college students were offered *exemptions* from the draft. College enrollments soared over the next 10-15 years, and SAT scores dropped accordingly. You also saw far more women entering college than previously; many of them had lower overall combined SAT scores because their math scores were lower.
Most newspapers and magazines are written at about a sixth grade level which is now the reading level of the average American (of which I'm one).
Most newspapers *worth reading* - the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the London Telegraph, are NOT written at a "sixth grade level."
Take for example, the young man who graduated as valedictorian from his Washington, DC high school yet was refused admission to George Washington University because his SAT scores were so low. Due to his excellent grades, in high school, he considered himself a superior student. However, in the words of the dean of admissions of George Washington University, "He's been deluded into thinking he's gotten an education."
This is an *affirmative action issue,* most likely. Affirmative action has been imposed on both public schools *and* colleges *by the courts.*
Washington, DC schools spend more than $10,000 per student, but is near the bottom of all cities nationally in academics. Increased spending is on the way, yet with all this spending educational skills have decreased.
That's because Washington DC's school population is composed largely of students with extremely poor backgrounds and many problems of language, readiness, learning disabilities, etc. It's no secret that illegitimate children exposed to crack cocaine in the womb have severe troubles learning. What the writer fails to point out is that *most school districts don't have that population.* In previous generations most of those children would not be in school at all; they would have been "excused" by the superintendent long ago (which technically is still legal under most states' compulsory attendance laws.)