Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Just What Are Our Teachers Bragging About?
The Tribune Review reports some alarming statistics on college-level remedial learning at the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC). In the fall of 2003, 62 percent of students took a remedial class because they placed too low on college level placement exams. For black students, the percentage was a stunning 88 percent at the Community College’s main campus on the North Side.
Those numbers are part of a five-state study examining what it will take in order to reduce minority enrollment in remedial classes. That study has so far found that 77 percent of minority students take remedial math compared to 67 percent of white students. The state and non-profits are now sponsoring a program called “Achieving the Dream” to understand how to better educate minority students.
This information is especially damning considering the fact that here in Pennsylvania we are endlessly bombarded with the claim that our public school teachers are among the nation’s best and deserve their high salaries. They hold strikes to prove it. The Allegheny Institute’s most recent Policy Brief highlighted the disparity between public school salaries and those for white-collar workers.
Wonder what highly-paid teacher was involved with these students, some of whom told CCAC officials that “we didn’t read a book in high school”.
Of course, the teachers would likely say that that is the exception to the rule. The question is, how can anyone graduate from high school having never read a book? Despite all their whining about being underpaid and for the great job they are doing, when confronted with such obvious examples of their shortcomings, they have no good answers. Union solidarity and browbeating the taxpayer. That is their answer to any criticism.
Those numbers are part of a five-state study examining what it will take in order to reduce minority enrollment in remedial classes. That study has so far found that 77 percent of minority students take remedial math compared to 67 percent of white students. The state and non-profits are now sponsoring a program called “Achieving the Dream” to understand how to better educate minority students.
This information is especially damning considering the fact that here in Pennsylvania we are endlessly bombarded with the claim that our public school teachers are among the nation’s best and deserve their high salaries. They hold strikes to prove it. The Allegheny Institute’s most recent Policy Brief highlighted the disparity between public school salaries and those for white-collar workers.
Wonder what highly-paid teacher was involved with these students, some of whom told CCAC officials that “we didn’t read a book in high school”.
Of course, the teachers would likely say that that is the exception to the rule. The question is, how can anyone graduate from high school having never read a book? Despite all their whining about being underpaid and for the great job they are doing, when confronted with such obvious examples of their shortcomings, they have no good answers. Union solidarity and browbeating the taxpayer. That is their answer to any criticism.
