Tuesday, September 02, 2003

REVELATION: WHAT HARVARD THINKS OF U.S. HIGH SCHOOLS

There has been lots written about what a poor education the Left-leaning teachers of U.S. High Schools give to their students these days. But sometimes deeds speak louder than words. And the deeds of adminstrators at Harvard speak very loudly indeed. Harvard gets the cream of U.S. High School graduates so at least those students should be 100% as educated as you can get -- right? Wrong! One of my readers writes that the reality is much, much worse than that:

I attended Harvard in the early 80's and knew my way around campus fairly well, and was aware of all the academic programs they offered. So you can imagine my surprise when I found out that the University has an active "remedial English" program that at least 20% of incoming freshmen are required to use. Larger minority enrollment, and foreign students are not driving this program, all students seem to be equal offenders. Harvard's black student body have SAT scores within 90 points of their white and Asian peers; Which is excellent. Harvard will not tell you they have this program; and it has a fancy name to hide its purpose, but it is a Community College style remedial English program.

It is a full remedial program with instruction in spelling, grammar, and the lost art of essay writing. From what I understand, essay skills -- or the lack of them -- is what tipped the University off to these problems.

This program is housed under the Freshman Student Union. They use this like a referral system.... they send the kids to the Union, and then they get moved into this informal, formal program.

There is a whitewash of the program here asserting that it is NOT a remedial program but even that does not tell the whole story. The really bad students are funnelled through there to even a more simplified program.


Can anyone now deny that vouchers are the only hope for the U.S. school system?

And if you read what Jeff Jacoby has to report about Harvard's ethics, the coverup should surprise no-one.

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