VNH's 60
Second NH Education Update
with Charlie Arlinghaus...
1. Why do we need to do anything, don't we have some of
the best public schools in the country? Didn't we just
do something about the dropout problem?
New Hampshire students consistently have among the best
performance on standardized tests among students within
the United States. This means our scores, averaged over
all students, are well above the national average. But
for a huge portion of our students, education has failed
them. Currently about 20% of our students dropout
before finishing high school. In today’s society,
lack of a high school degree leads to an almost certain
life of poverty. Young people without a high school
degree are automatically eliminated from consideration
for all but the very lowest paying jobs. They are much
more likely to end up in jail, in poverty, or on public
assistance.
For
this group, the education system is not good or mediocre
but has simply failed. In recent years, political
leaders have finally decided to face the dropout
program. But the extent of our action has been to
merely decree that the dropout age will be raised from
16 years to 18 years. This isn’t a solution, it is
merely relabeling and helps no one.
Even
if our education system is pretty good or adequate for
the majority of students, it isn’t working for 20% of
the students and probably for an equal number that don’t
officially dropout
but just go through the motions. Something has to be
done.
Question 2.
Are zip
codes the best measure of educational need?
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