Do Away With Underperforming Public Schools
June 12th, 2007 by Xander ZebroseJonah Goldberg has written a good piece on why we need vouchers for public education. He cites the DC school system as a prime example of why the school system needs drastic reform.
Out of the 100 largest school districts, according to the Washington Post, D.C. ranks third in spending for each pupil  $12,979  but last in spending on instruction. Fifty-six cents out of every dollar goes to administrators who, it’s no secret, do a miserable job administrating…More than half of the District of Columbia’s kids spend their days in “persistently dangerous” schools, with an average of nine violent incidents a day in a system with 135 schools. “Principals reporting dangerous conditions or urgently needed repairs in their buildings wait, on average, 379 days … for the problems to be fixed,” according to the Post. But hey, at least the kids are getting a lousy education. A mere 19 schools managed to get “proficient” scores or better for a majority of students on the district’s Comprehensive Assessment Test.
January 21st, 2008 at 11:19 pm
I have the luxury of being in a very good school district, thanks to my parents’ choice. I admit, being sheltered as I am, I have never much on the fact that there are schools that are that perform so inadequately. The really sad thing is, if the districts “comprehensive assessment test” is anything like the Ohio Graduation Test(OGT) (a test generally taken in the 10th grade, and passing all parts is required for graduation) and these schools cannot get “proficient” better…well that is just pathetic! My school has a 95-98% pass rate on the Ohio Graduation Test. I personally found the OGT to be a very simplistic test, and passed with flying colors as they say. So, to the moral of the story, I find it saddening that some schools perform so badly and something should be done to increase the quality of education in America!