I don't know how I missed this story a month ago.  The NY State Dept of Education, led by ed reformers/warriors David Steiner and John King (with lots of support from Merrly Tisch, the head of the Board of Regents), continues to raise the bar, exposing the terrible performance of the public schools across the state – yet still the legislature dithers in obvious, no-brainer things like laying off bad teachers, not young ones.  This report looks beyond the high school graduation rate and asks what percentage of graduates are college ready, defined as a score 80 or better on the math Regents exam and 75 or better on the English Regents exam (basically, it means they're ready to take an introductory-level course at a community college – no high bar).  The answers are shocking (the entire 4-page report is posted at http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20110208regentsGradRates.PDF).  The highlights (I mean lowlights): across the entire state, barely more than half of graduates are college ready, in Syracuse, fewer than ONE PERCENT of Hispanic students are college ready (0.9% to be precise), and in Rochester, only 5.1% of ALL students are college-ready:

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February 7, 2011

Most New York Students Are Not College-Ready

By SHARON OTTERMAN

www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/nyregion/08regents.html