A week ago I was on a Southwest flight from Dallas sitting next to a very pleasant middle-aged woman who was busily grading papers. As I finished watching one of America’s greatest cinematic masterpieces on my (brand-new) MacBook Pro, I glanced over at some of the work. It looked identical to the work I see from my ten-year-old daughter and her classmates: Mostly simple sentences, a few dreadful spelling mistakes, and virtually no complex analysis. Unlike my daughter’s classmates, however, this teacher’s students skipped entire sections of their tests — failing to answer half the questions.I was just about to open my mouth and say, “Fifth grade?” when I caught myself. Instead, I said “What grade?”“Junior English.”“High school?“Yes. In suburban Chicago.”I almost choked on my peanuts.— David French, National Review Online – Low Graduation Rates and the Total Lack of Student Effort
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