Reports Show Government Schools Plague Americans All Through Their Lives

Many of you know that ACT, founded in 1959 as American College Testing, just finished their report for 2009 graduating high school seniors.  Each year, ACT releases both national and state-specific reports on the most recent graduating senior high school class. These reports assess the level of student college readiness based on aggregate score results of the ACT college admission and placement exam.

 

This year's report found that only 23% of high school graduates are prepared for college level courses in all four of the core topics - English, Reading, Mathematics, & Science.  The statistics from the report mean that only 23% of the students have a 75% chance of earning a "C" or better in entry level college courses in these four topics.

 

Now I have found that many colleges are dumbing down possibly because the incoming freshman are so poorly educated.

 

Carol & I have a relationship with several higher education firms - one of which is ACTA - American Council Of Trustees & Alumni.  ACTA constantly & tirelessly evaluates & reports the level of excellence, or lack thereof, in American Universities.

 

Here is a portion of an AP piece re some of ACTA's recent work:

 

".....Nor do the top U.S. News universities fare well on a new report card by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, an academic group whose causes include stronger general education requirements in traditional subjects like history, literature and the hard sciences.

 

In a report card released Wednesday looking at 100 leading colleges, ACTA gave an "F" to nine of the U.S. News top 20 national universities, while awarding "A"s to five schools: West Point, Texas A&M, University of Texas, University of Arkansas and City University of New York-Brooklyn College.

 

ACTA said it found almost 90 percent of the leading schools fail to require a survey course in American government or history. Just two — the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and West Point — require economics. Meanwhile, the report card not-so-gently mocks courses that are allowed to count for core requirements — offerings like Wesleyan University's "Physics for Future Presidents" and Stanford's "Ki ho'alu: The New Renaissance of a Hawaiian Musical Tradition."

 

The average cost for the five schools that require six core subjects and thus received an A: $5,400.  The average cost for those receiving an "F" for no such requirements: $37,700."

 

To complete this woeful picture a recent report from TD Ameritrade concluded that 75% of Americans are not financially prepared for retirement.  I know there is a time lag between when people take high school tests & when they retire but the above 23% & 75% numbers from the above two reports add up pretty conclusively to me that the problem with government schools plague the majority of us all through our lives.