Our Failing Public Schools

Our Failing Public Schools - Commentary

Harvard, Princeton, NYU, Swarthmore, Cornell, Columbia, American, Syracuse, B.U., Case Western, MICA, RISD, Penn, Catholic U, Tulane, UVA, James Madison, Lehigh, Michigan State.  Is this a list of universities that grads from some posh Main Line private school will be attending in the fall?

No – our suburban Philadelphia district spends at about the state average, and these are some of the schools that our local public school grads will be attending   Last night I had the pleasure of shaking hands with over 450 members of the class of 2011 who were kindergartners when I began serving on my local school board 12 years ago. 

In addition to receiving over $1.2 million in scholarships, they received hundreds of academic, athletic, extracurricular and community service awards. In spite of hamstringing state and federal rules and regulations, in spite of education policy that would privatize our public schools and reduce them to test prep factories, and that would give tax dollars away through vouchers and tax credits to private and religious schools that have zero accountability.

We are very proud of our students, their hard work and determination, and very appreciative of the support they received from our community: their parents, their teachers and our local taxpayers.

American public schools with poverty rates of less than 25% lead the world on the benchmark international PISA exams.  No other developed county has a poverty rate of over 20%.

If you have a success story to share please send it along.

Local control of public education – it is the American way.

We make American citizens.