By Ray Cardello for February 23, 2023 Season 16 / Post 28

Our education system is costing more and producing less every year. In my small town, the Tax Rate is $24.75 / thousand, with Education accounting for $18.00. That is 73% of every tax dollar earmarked for schools giving us lower test scores yearly. The system is broken but costly. The average home cost in Exeter is $240,000, and the tax bill is over $6,000. The average homeowner pays about $4,500 into the education cesspool. Is that too difficult a word? Not when you look at the results. Those numbers seem low. That is because of the 9,000 homes for the 22,000 residents; over 900 are mobile homes. These Mobile homes have an average value of $58,000. It is a very eclectic town but with one thing in common with most of America; we have a failing education system.

Two cities, in particular, highlight the extremity of the problem. Baltimore, once one of the finest cities on the east coast, is now a city to avoid. Recent numbers show 77% of high school students read at an elementary grade level. Many read at the kindergarten level. This is not only a failed system, but we are failing our children.

According to a FOX45 report:

Perhaps that’s why Patterson High School still boasts a 61% graduation rate despite the inability among most students to read at anything close to grade level.

But the problem likely isn’t limited to Patterson High. Nearly a year ago, FOX45 discovered that one student at a different Baltimore high school had passed just three classes in four years and “ranks near the top half of his class with a 0.13 grade point average.”

These “graduates” are unprepared to contribute to society, which may be why so many turn to crime, drugs, or suicide.

In Chicago, the proud city of Mayor Lightfoot, enrollment in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has dropped 25% since 2000. At $9.3 billion this year, CPS will spend $28,000 per student (operational, capital, and all other spending), compared to just $19,000 in pre-COVID 2019. The money is not well spent. Blacks comprise 80% of CPS students, and only 11% read at the high school level. Is there any wonder that gang numbers and crime rates are growing faster than school results fall.

Not to only focus on these two failed cities, the national dropout rate has risen to 5.3%, which is 1.19% higher than pre-COVID stats. It appears the only results growing in American education are the negative numbers. We cannot succeed as a nation if we do not prepare our children to contribute. The ultimate hypocrisy is progressives claiming we have to discuss sex and gender options with grade-school kids to prepare them for the complex world they will enter. What about preparing them to read and have the math skills to balance a checkbook. If we create an illiterate generation, does it really matter what gender they choose?

The Left’s solution to failing grades is to do away with grades all together and to ensure equity, advanced classes are discontinued. It was decided that AP classes were discriminatory and made “failing” students feel inadequate. It appears that everyone failing to reach their potential is how the Left and Progressives envision success.