The New York City Schools Are Not Adequately Preparing High School Graduates For The "Real World" And That Is A Major Problem.

The DOE propaganda machine is working full time in presenting the most optimistic face on the high school graduation rate and national SAT scores. Tweed went to great lengths to show that their pseudo education reform under the Bloomberg Administration was working as the high school graduation rate has risen to 61% and the SAT scores improved, especially for Hispanics. However, the truth is very different and disturbing. The majority of New York City Public School graduates are not ready for the "real world", especially Black and Hispanic students. The 2011 SAT scores have shown a widening racial academic achievement gap in the New York City high schools and no DOE playing with the statistics can dispute the numbers. On the whole, NYC SAT scores have declined a measly one point since 2007. However, when you look into the numbers and break it down by racial classifications it shows the ever widening racial academic achievement gap. Since 2007 here is how each group's SAT score have changed.

• Asians...... +29 points
• Whites........ + 9 points
• Hispanics... -17 points
• Blacks........ -27 points

Furthermore, the College Board has said that a SAT benchmark of 1,550 demonstrates college success. For Whites & Asians approximately half meet that benchmark while Hispanics and Blacks average well below the benchmark.

SAT Benchmark for College Success (1,550 points).

1. Whites 1,529 points
2. Asians 1,522 points
3. Hispanics 1,228 points
4. Blacks 1,215 points

New York State uses a different measure for college and career readiness and found only one out of five New York City Public School students were "college ready". What the racial breakdown is for both measures are a closely held secret and I cannot find it in the data. However, it is very obvious that under the Bloomberg Administration, student academic achievement has been non-existent and any academic improvements are simply an illusion.

That brings me to the issue is the DOE really training high school students to the "real world"? Unfortunately, the answer is a very loud no! In the "real world" employees need to be reliable, dependable, and trustworthy. However, the DOE discounts all these attributes when pushing students through to graduation. First, the DOE encourages principals to use bogus "credit recovery programs" that simply requires the student to take an online course and Google the answers. Remember this outrageous action? Second, the DOE pushed to eliminate the "seat time" requirement and shove even more unprepared students to graduation. Finally, administrators pressured teachers to pass failing students to improve the school's report card. The result is students are jettisoned into the "real world" without the necessary skills to succeed. Many of them not only unprepared academically to work in the "real world" but were unreliable, not dependable, and worst of all untrustworthy. The lessons they learned from their high school experience was that one did not need to work hard academically to graduate so why do I need to work hard now?

Gone are the days when school officials demanded that students do their best and give that extra effort to succeed academically and become a productive adult in the "real world". At Tweed it is more about the numbers who graduate, be it by using bogus "credit recovery" programs, or online courses from home, and not whether these graduates are academically or emotionally ready for the "real world". For the DOE it is not "children first" but to massage the statistics to make it appear they are succeeding when the reality shows that the students are really failing when it comes to the adult world of college and employment.