The results in major American cities are even worse. In Washington, D.C., for instance, scores on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills dropped again last year. International comparisons also tell an abysmal story, with American students scoring below foreign kids in almost every subject. Almost everyone who resists educational choice for the poor exercises it for themselves. The president and nearly half of the members of Congress send their children to private schools.
Public education survives only because parents have acquiesced to mediocrity.
But while suburban schools have problems, city schools are in crisis. Half of urban kids typically fail to graduate. This isn't bad compared to graduation rates at the start of the century, explains the Clinton Department of Education, but that is a bizarre standard by which to judge America's schools as we approach the new millennium. It is bad enough to be turning out illiterates. It is scandalous to be doing so when the rest of economy is being transformed by new technologies.