The Three Rs

New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg has a lot on his mind these days … transfats, too much dietary salt, 16 ounce + soft drinks, open access to homeless shelters (see: Weekly Standard Story), etc.  But what he doesn’t seem to be too concerned about is that 80% of this City’s high-school children are graduated as being functionally illiterate … see: CBS Local Story … and this is just for the ones who graduate.  35% of high-school students there don’t even graduate (see: Gotham Schools Story).  This means that only 13% (20% of 65%) of students who enter high school in NYC (how many even even get this far?) can really read a fast-food menu. How can this be?  New York spends almost $19,000 per student (see: CBC NY Story ) to “educate” their students but with clearly catastrophic results (and they say we need to spend more money on education) … yet Gotham’s mayor seems distracted with all these other "vital" matters.

Supposedly the “rubber rooms” that were once used to warehouse incompetent teachers have been closed down … but this seems another teacher-union fiction (see: Huffington Post Story).  What has clearly happened is that past generations of uneducated students have been promoted to union-dues-paying teachers and the vicious cycle is ever continuing and worsening.  In my opinion, pretty nearly all the teachers in Gotham should be fired as a result of the above damaging statistics (or at least sent back to real schools to be truly educated).  I would also sh..tcan that billionaire Mayor who doesn’t understand where his priorities should be.

So, unfortunately, in New York City, the three Rs apparently stand for “Recess and Rubber Rooms.”