Our Child Left Behind

American Students Drop to 13-Year Low in Reading Test (Update1)
By Brian Kladko
Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Reading skills among U.S. students graduating from high school this year fell to the lowest since 1994 as measured by the most widely taken college-entrance exam.
Reading scores on the SAT declined 1 point to 502 after a 5- point drop last year, the test's operator, the College Board, reported today. The decline in 2006 had been the largest in three decades. Average math results fell 3 points to 515, and writing grades also declined 3 points, to 494.
The results for the test, taken by 1.5 million high school students, contradict findings from the rival ACT exam, which rose for the third time in five years. The declines also contrast with boasts by schools such as Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania that applicants have higher grades and test scores than ever as they compete in record numbers for freshman- class positions. Harvard accepted just 9 percent this year.
``It sort of confirms the sense in which education in our country is really a tale of two cities,'' said Barmak Nassirian, a spokesman for the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers, based in Washington.
Admissions executives at selective schools report ``a generation of hyperqualified candidates, the likes of which they've never seen,'' Nassirian said. ``Then you get numbers like this, which presumably paint a broader picture, and seem to speak of a general decline.''
International Comparisons
The SAT is primarily a U.S. test. On a 2003 assessment of eighth-graders in 44 countries, the average U.S. math score was lower than those in 14 nations, with Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan leading the way. In science, U.S. eighth-graders were outscored by peers in eight countries, with Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea at the top.

When "No Child Left Behind" started, Ohio school districts had to cut teachers to find the funds to comply with the new law. According to our DC comrades, in some engineering curriculum's in US Universities there are no American students. In electrical engineering, especially electric power, the students are mostly from China and India. There are two reasons for this. One, American students are not competitive, and two, the foreign students are all on scholarships from their countries. The US doesn't provide scholarships. As he put it, if it bothers you that all the clerks at McDonalds are Mexican, wait until all the folks building and maintaining our electrical system are Chinese and Indian.