How’s the High School Doing? Bright Kids. Middle Class Kids.
So we have seen that the not-so-bright and not-so-middle-class kids tend to drop out of school. If 43% of the 9th grade class will be gone by graduation that means that the brightest and best kids are left. (At least one would suppose.) Knox High School is really a sort of magnet school for the middle class or at least it is an anti-magnet school for the lower class. With this self-sorted graduating class those that are left should be primarily college bound. According to the Indiana Department of education 45% of our graduates are pursuing a college education. Well I think that is pretty poor considering the dropout rate. 45% of the 57% that graduate go on to college. In other words about 1 out of 4 of our 9th graders have ended up starting college.
Only 44% of our 12th Graders take the SAT. Our average SAT score is 967. That is about the 40% percentile nationwide. 1,000 is considered the average score. When you consider the fact that less than half of the 12th graders take the test, these are terrible results. These scores pretty well explain why so few Knox High School students are college bound. They simply are not sufficiently educated to either get into college or succeed if they get there.
I am going to take it as a given that our high school’s job is to educate the students. I think that the SAT figures speak very clearly to the core problem. Knox High School is not providing a decent education for the students that decide to graduate. I have shown in an earlier blog that we are not providing an education for the less fortunate when we have so many drop out. It also seems that we are not providing an education for the more fortunate either.
The focus of the School Board should be on these core problems. These are fundamental educational issues. The School Board is at fault for not paying attention. They have not paid sufficient attention to the quality of our High School. The have not paid sufficient attention to the prevention of dropouts. Our community is being cheated. We pay our taxes. The Board has not made good use of these tax dollars.
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3 comments:
You seem to think that you know what it takes to run the Knox school system. Why don't you run for a spot on the school board then and make it better? I'm sure you have a good reason not to though.
I have two children that have graduated from KHS. One will graduate from and Indiana college this year in the computer field. They other is studing printing. Both have been great students in Knox. Both are great college students. Both are fraternity members and do community work.
Our youngest attends KMS and is a great student also. I have no problems with our school board and they way they educate our children.
Let's see you do better.
Indeed! I plan on writing several future blogs about the great success stories that have come out of Knox High School. The school functions at an excellent level, completely appropriate for about 25% of the students. You should thank your lucky stars that your family is such a good fit. Also, I know that your contribution to your children’s success had to be substantial. I must say “Well done!” to you and your children.
Could I do a better job than the present school board? Why, yes, I could. At least I am not blind to the problems. I can “do the numbers” and see that there is a problem. I wouldn’t be selling insurance and annuities to the teachers. I wouldn’t be installing my relatives in jobs. blah, blah, etc. etc. I do however have quite valid reasons for not running for the School Board. That, of course, is not of any particular relevance to the issue at hand.
I am sure if anonymous has 2 children who graduated from knox and are doing so well, they must be in the upper class and have a name that counts in starke county!! Or maybe just one of the few lucky families to have had the school system care about encouraging or helping their children. Whenever I have called attention to the Adm. staff of the things that were unfair or down right dirty the answer to me was always" I was not aware of that" WHATEVER Our school is a nice looking building the most crooked bunch of leaders I have ever seen!!
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