Oklahoma school system continues to fail

"No matter how painful the reality," Andrew Spiropoulos writes today in The Journal Record, "we must constantly remind ourselves that our system has failed and continues to fail our children."

Despite (even with this year's modest reduction) a massive increase in spending in the last two decades, our state's performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exams -- the most reliable set of data we have -- continues to lag behind the nation and, most importantly, demonstrates that most of our children do not leave school prepared to succeed either in higher education or in the most demanding (and rewarding) segments of our workforce. On the 2009 NAEP:

• Only 28 percent of our fourth-graders achieved a “proficient” score in reading.

• Only 33 percent of our fourth-graders achieved a “proficient” score in math.

• Only 26 percent of our eighth-graders achieved a “proficient” score in reading.

• Only 24 percent of our eighth-graders achieved a “proficient” score in math.