I’ve written in the past that our public schools aren’t getting the job done and that’s why Parents should have choices in directing their childrens’ education. Our tax dollars should be following the child and not a zip code. This snippet from RedState puts the “evolving” notion of a school, thanks to the Left’s notion that EVERYTHING must be involved in “social justice” (that malleable phrase that can be morphed into any sector of our lives according to what the Left’s “agenda du jour” needs):
How about we get all that academic stuff figured out before try to work other magic with the educational system? As I’ve mentioned many times, I don’t understand the current idea of “school,” which appears to be an institution dealing with social issues that also happens to offer classes (here).
And you should realize that when govt starts taking on more and more, you can usually be sure that it isn’t being successful at its actual mission. Baby sitting centers, food pantries, clothes washing, health clinics, social wellness and more; yet, schools are meeting their first mandate and for what we pay our employees. But I rant a bit. Back to being on track: her high school failed her (reformatted, emphasis mine):
She’s scheduled office visits with her professor. She’s asked the teaching assistants for help. She’s dropped into the math learning centers. But still, despite excelling in her other classes, Marqell McClendon has struggled in the low-level math class she’s taking during her first semester at Michigan State University. “Sometimes when I’m in class and I’m learning, some things start to feel familiar from high school and I’m kind of like, ‘I learned this already but I don’t really understand it.’ And I don’t know why I don’t understand it because it looks familiar.”
So she’s finding help any way she can — watching educational videos online and, when the work seems impossible, approaching strangers in her dorm and asking them for help.
It’s an unfamiliar scene for McClendon, the valedictorian of her graduating class at Detroit’s Cody High School who’s used to students coming to her for help. Now, the tables are turned. She describes it as “bittersweet.”
Marqell is among a group of recent Detroit high school graduates Chalkbeat is following through their first year of college, for a series highlighting the complex dynamics that make it difficult for students from disadvantaged communities like Detroit to complete college.
Detroit is functionally illiterate. Not just the school system – the city. Calling it disadvantaged is a canard – it is that way because the Democrats have controlled it for decades. You can blame their governance for that yet the citizens keep plugging corrupt politicians back into those “leadership” seats.
I do feel sorry for McClendon – it certainly is clear from this write up from Chalkbeat that she’s got the motivation and drive to succeed but it is also clear her High School (and the city) failed her. The fact that she’s in a remedial class says that her schools didn’t prepare her with the basics – and she was the smartest one in her school? What about the others? Oh, yeah:
Closer to home, nearly half of graduates from Detroit’s main district who make it to college must take remedial courses. For charter schools in the city, it ranges from 32% to 75%. Taking remedial classes comes with another set of challenges. It can be discouraging, particularly for students used to excelling in high school. But it can also be costly, given the students often are paying for classes that don’t count toward college graduation.
Remedial course that students have to pay for. You know what that is? Incompetence by her teachers / school administration. They are making her pay for knowledge and skills to her college that THEY were supposed to be imparting while on the government dime. They failed. And from reading the whole Chalkbeat piece, the word that comes to mind is “utterly”. And as the RedState post pointed out, her college is lowering its standards, I believe, to “fit reality”:
[MSU] has revised its general-education math requirement so that algebra is no longer required of all students. The revision reflects an increasing view on college campuses that there is no one-size-fits-all math curriculum — and that math is often best studied in connection with everyday life.
Under the old requirement, students had to select and complete four math courses — including algebra — from a designated list. They could also waive the requirement by using transfer credits or obtaining a certain score on a proctored exam. Now, students can fulfill the requirement by taking two quantitative literacy courses that place math in a real-world context.
Rigor is the word that MSU doesn’t want to use. Sorry, math is math and is the purest of almost any academic subject. But this is just dumbing down the worth of the final diploma that she’ll be happy to receive at the end. Just like being valedictorian in a school and getting a “social promotion” diploma that has turned out to be worthless.
Oh, and another mission that has been picked up by our public schools: political self-interest groups. What’s that you say, Skip?
Yeah, an interest group all of and by themselves. Look at which party they donate, work, and vote for: the Party of Government (Democrats).
