Dumber than Dirt

I've said it before. If you live in Baltimore, you are dumber than dirt.

For tolerating corruption you might find in a Third World theocracy. For accepting consecutive administrations who don't reform the system and educators who don't educate. And newspapers that don't expose the rot.

Lately, Baltimore has been touting their 66 percent graduation rate - that probably isn't. That is being challenged by a retired teacher who wrote a letter telling how those numbers were inflated in recent years. Commenters at the post agree. Another letter from an adjunct at a local community college illustrates the point.

For the current semester, my college is running 63 sessions, 20 students each, of Basic Writing I and Basic Writing II. These are remedial classes for the 1,260 students who could not test into English Composition. Additionally, a recent study completed at my college indicates that 20 percent of students in Basic Writing I cannot even read or write at a sixth grade level.

He concludes: "I know that for the students I encounter, their high school graduation means very little in real academic terms. They were robbed of an education, and they don't even know it."