President Obama has bragged about his supposed revolution in education over and over during this election cycle. He says he’s interested in upping standards while simultaneously appeasing teachers unions. But the performance of American students continues to sink to all-time lows.
2012’s high school seniors have the worst SAT reading score since 1972; they scored 486 on reading, out of a possible 800. In writing, students also dropped dramatically, down to 488. That’s a nine-point drop since 2006.
The tendency from leftists is to challenge the efficacy of the SAT in measuring performance – but it’s a standardized test with great care taken for consistency. Instead, the Washington Post’s Emma Brown suggests that more and more minority students are taking the SATs. “More than 1.66 million graduating seniors last year took the test, the highest number in history. Nearly half were minorities and about a quarter reported that English was not exclusively their first language. More than a quarter of public school test-takers — 27 percent — had family income low enough to qualify for a fee waiver, and more than a third — 36 percent — reported that their parents had not gone to college,” she writes.
No doubt the Obama administration will combat this problem by complaining about racial discrepancies in education and suggesting pouring billions more down the rathole that is the public education system – all the while avoiding scrutiny for teachers unions. That’s the all-purpose liberal solution: cash, cash, and more cash.
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