RCSD College Preparation Rate

A recent study presented by the New York State Board of Regents revealed that only 5% percent of students in the Rochester City School District are prepared for college.

As a student in said school district, this statistic is alarming. There are a number of problems with schools these days. The problem here, however, can't really be narrowed down to one source. It's a wide array of problems, which makes it all the more difficult to fix. Pretty much, the entire system is broken.

It starts with the homes. In order for this whole public education thing to work well, kids have to actually care about what they are doing in school. This means parental involvement. If the parents don't care it is likely that, likewise, the kids will not care.

Of course, this is a very hard problem to approach, because there is only so much the district can do in terms of getting parents involved. The other idea, then, would be to offer programs in schools that kids will care about. An obvious example is the arts. Going to School of the Arts, many students actually care about what they do. SOTA has the highest attendance rate in the district, perhaps because the arts are a motivational factor. The arts aren't for everyone, though; vocational education needs to be offered in more schools. It provides something for kids to care about and as an added bonus is beneficial to society; instead of shoving more Foreign Language credits down kids' throats, offer them some vocational education, such as carpentry. The world always could do with more carpenters. Many of these trades taught through vocational education don't necessarily require college; it's a decent opportunity, and a much better option than just dropping out of high school.

There needs to be increased incentives for schools, and more pressure on them to churn out adequate numbers. The statistics provided in the study are interesting. This college preparation number is actually a great number to have for schools, and should be required to report along with the obligatory graduation rates, etc. If schools aren't performing well, do something to fix them. Offer those schools who put up good numbers an incentive. Point is, we need to stop throwing money at a system that isn't working. Nothing good can come from it. Regroup, reevaluate everything, and spend money accordingly on things that will actually improve the state of schools.

Education isn't something to be messed around with. This is the rest of our lives we're talking about. I only hope the school district can figure out their problems and start coming up with some reasonable solutions. The future of our society depends on it.