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Editor, The North Country Gazette:
Remember the Manhattan Institute report on high school graduation rates.http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_48.htm#10
Some questioned the stats for minority graduation rates in New York state, attributed to the Manhattan Institute report http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_48.htm#10. See Table 1 to the report and check out tables [table 2] [table 3] [table 4] [table 5] as well.
NYS Education Commissioner Mills blames the low graduation rates on high truancy rates and community apathy, given minority graduation rates this implies minority parents and communities promote low respect for education and thus low student attendance, (as opposed to a need for school choice and better access to better schools, with all schools competing for students).
It is important to appreciate. NY pays about 60% more per student than the national average and achieves the worst minority graduation rate of all states with data to compare. Many of us in the black community who are aware of this situation reject the implication that New York has the worst minority parents and communities in the nation, as implied by graduation rates, money spent per child, and the excuse this is primarily because of poor attendance (arising from parental and community apathy.)
Again, if nearly two out of three minority students are actually not attending class enough to be able to graduate in four years, what kind of operations are the public schools? What percentage of the students are missing on any given day, and why does no one notice? We need a system of school vouchers and school choice for those children already 'in the pipeline', with the ability to benefit from and take advantage of the opportunities offered by better schools. What does it cost good students to wait and be held back for years while we try to fix troubled schools?
New York has the worst graduation rate for minority students of any state listed, and most of the media seems as reluctant to expose this as they are to expose those who obstruct tougher sex offender legislation and their motives for doing so.
The majority of minority parents have supported school choice for decades, but these latest developments are so down played in the major media that school choice is barely an issue in this election. God bless all of you who are willing to give this issue the exposure most of the rest of the media wil not.
If community and parents do not appreciate how badly the system is failing their children, if they do not know that their children are almost twice a likely to fail than to succeed, how motivated do you expect them to be? There are in fact many exceptional schools in NYS and many minority students could benefit from them if they had access the children of most liberal elitists do.. ALL schools need to be actively trying to compete for the students that good performance attracts. Parents need to appreciate the graduation rate facts which are being hidden so that in an election year they can apply the political pressure to get kind of cooperation from legislators that is offered the teachers' unions and illegal aliens who might someday become a powerful voting block.
We need school choice.
Tom Chandler
Guilderland NY
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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