PRETTY STUNNING, AND AT A COST OF BILLIONS – AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  How do we manage to spend so much on education, and get so little?  We were alerted to this by reader Joseph J. Gallick.  From The Wall Street Journal:

New data show that fewer than 25% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT college-entrance exam possessed the academic skills necessary to pass entry-level courses, despite modest gains in college-readiness among U.S high-school students in the last few years.

The results raise questions about how well the nation's high schools are preparing students for college, and show the challenge facing the Obama administration in its effort to raise educational standards. The administration won bipartisan support for its education policies early on, but faces a tough fight in the fall over the rewrite and reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind program.

While elementary schools have shown progress on national achievement exams, high-school results have stayed perniciously low. Some experts say the lack of rigor in high-school courses is partly to blame.

What?  Lack of rigor?  You mean courses like "Race, gender and ethnicity in the history of American oppression, as seen by Oprah Winfrey" isn't a rigorous course?  Who is this reporter?  Some egghead?

"High schools are the downfall of American school reform," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington. "We haven't figured out how to improve them on a broad scope and if our kids aren't dropping out physically, they are dropping out mentally."

Gee, how do we do it?  Guess we never educated anyone?  How about tough courses on important subjects, subjecting students to high standards and insisting that they meet them?  That might be a start.  And ridding schools of political correctness, which just dumbs them down, might be a good finish.

August 21, 2010