密歇根新闻广播 密歇根的公共教育处于自由落体状态

 

Don’t let the opening days of another school year, or another Michigan win at the Big House, fool you: public education in this state is in steep decline.

Out of the 50 states, Michigan ranks 37th in eighth-grade math and 41st in fourth-grade reading, says the nonpartisan Public Sector¹ Consultants². Strip out the state’s lowest-income students, and fourth-grade reading slips to 48th.

That should make a lot of parents and teachers shudder³.

Performance for white, Latino, and African-American students has declined since 2013, according to the Education Trust-Midwest, another group that tracks education outcomes. Michigan’s higher-income students have slipped to 41st nationally from 34th in 2003.

And that exposes a Big Lie: all that ails⁴ education around here doesn’t just reside in Detroit and poor urban cores.

In the past 10 years, state spending on postsecondary education has declined 14 percent — that’s even as tuition at Michigan colleges and universities has continued to increase.

The bottom line? Michigan’s educational attainment⁵ metrics stink⁶, and they’re getting worse. They deteriorated⁷ under a Democratic governor, and they deteriorated under her Republican successor. They worsened when Dems controlled the state House, and worsened again when Republicans did.

If the past is prologue⁸, only two things will rouse the political and educational establishment here to action: the kind of financial collapse⁹ that forced two Detroit automakers and its city into bankruptcy¹¹. Or a wholesale¹² exodus¹³ from the public schools.

Don’t think that can exact pressure for change? Ask Detroit Public Schools, where funding plummeted¹⁴ when families fled the city schools for other options.

It shouldn’t have to come to this in a state that is home to arguably the top public university in the United States. In a state that witnessed firsthand the price of ignoring competition and performance, of disregarding the human cost of inaction. But it has.

“Today, Michigan’s K-12 system is among the weakest in the country and falling behind,” says Education Trust-Midwest. “White, black, brown, higher-income, lower-income — it doesn’t matter who they are or where they live.”

Michigan kids are not keeping up. And that’s a statewide embarrassment¹⁵.

How can the place that presumes to be the high-tech¹⁶ auto¹⁰ capital of the 21st century, that has designs to reshape its economy with knowledge workers, that boasts so much technical talent, make that case — with a straight face — when it refuses to educate its kids?

It can’t.

And it’s past time that parents and business leaders, teachers unions and politicians, Republicans and Democrats¹⁷, all stop prosecuting¹⁸ their petty ideological¹⁹ agendas and rally around a simple proposition: They are failing kids. And that means Michigan risks getting dumber and poorer.

Nearly 93 percent of Michigan children born in the 1940s earned more than their parents. By the 1980s, that number shrank to 46 percent. The unemployment rate for state residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher is 2.7 percent. For those without a high school diploma, it’s 14 percent.

College may not be for everyone, but education is.

Today’s leaders do tomorrow’s kids no favors by beggaring education spending or weakening curriculum standards. And ignoring evidence of underachievement is just plain cowardice²⁰.

It has to stop.

1 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

2 consultants   

顾问( consultant的名词复数 )； 高级顾问医生，会诊医生

参考例句：

• a firm of management consultants 管理咨询公司
• There're many consultants in hospital. 医院里有很多会诊医生。

3 shudder   

v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动

参考例句：

• The sight of the coffin sent a shudder through him.看到那副棺材，他浑身一阵战栗。
• We all shudder at the thought of the dreadful dirty place.我们一想到那可怕的肮脏地方就浑身战惊。

4 ails   

v.生病( ail的第三人称单数 )；感到不舒服；处境困难；境况不佳

参考例句：

• He will not concede what anything ails his business. 他不允许任何事情来干扰他的工作。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Measles ails the little girl. 麻疹折磨着这个小女孩。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 attainment   

n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣

参考例句：

• We congratulated her upon her attainment to so great an age.我们祝贺她高寿。
• The attainment of the success is not easy.成功的取得并不容易。

6 stink   

vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭

参考例句：

• The stink of the rotten fish turned my stomach.腐烂的鱼臭味使我恶心。
• The room has awful stink.那个房间散发着难闻的臭气。

7 deteriorated   

恶化，变坏( deteriorate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Her health deteriorated rapidly, and she died shortly afterwards. 她的健康状况急剧恶化，不久便去世了。
• His condition steadily deteriorated. 他的病情恶化，日甚一日。

8 prologue   

n.开场白，序言；开端，序幕

参考例句：

• A poor wedding is a prologue to misery.不幸的婚姻是痛苦的开始。
• The prologue to the novel is written in the form of a newspaper account.这本小说的序言是以报纸报道的形式写的。

9 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

10 auto   

n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车

参考例句：

• Don't park your auto here.别把你的汽车停在这儿。
• The auto industry has brought many people to Detroit.汽车工业把许多人吸引到了底特律。

11 bankruptcy   

n.破产；无偿付能力

参考例句：

• You will have to pull in if you want to escape bankruptcy.如果你想避免破产，就必须节省开支。
• His firm is just on thin ice of bankruptcy.他的商号正面临破产的危险。

12 wholesale   

n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售

参考例句：

• The retail dealer buys at wholesale and sells at retail.零售商批发购进货物，以零售价卖出。
• Such shoes usually wholesale for much less.这种鞋批发出售通常要便宜得多。

13 exodus   

v.大批离去，成群外出

参考例句：

• The medical system is facing collapse because of an exodus of doctors.由于医生大批离去，医疗系统面临崩溃。
• Man's great challenge at this moment is to prevent his exodus from this planet.人在当前所遇到的最大挑战，就是要防止人从这个星球上消失。

14 plummeted   

v.垂直落下，骤然跌落( plummet的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Share prices plummeted to an all-time low. 股票价格暴跌到历史最低点。
• A plane plummeted to earth. 一架飞机一头栽向地面。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 embarrassment   

n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫

参考例句：

• She could have died away with embarrassment.她窘迫得要死。
• Coughing at a concert can be a real embarrassment.在音乐会上咳嗽真会使人难堪。

16 high-tech   

adj.高科技的

参考例句：

• The economy is in the upswing which makes high-tech services in more demand too.经济在蓬勃发展，这就使对高科技服务的需求量也在加大。
• The quest of a cure for disease with high-tech has never ceased. 人们希望运用高科技治疗疾病的追求从未停止过。

17 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 prosecuting   

检举、告发某人( prosecute的现在分词 )； 对某人提起公诉； 继续从事（某事物）； 担任控方律师

参考例句：

• The witness was cross-examined by the prosecuting counsel. 证人接受控方律师的盘问。
• Every point made by the prosecuting attorney was telling. 检查官提出的每一点都是有力的。

19 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

20 cowardice   

n.胆小，怯懦

参考例句：

• His cowardice reflects on his character.他的胆怯对他的性格带来不良影响。
• His refusal to help simply pinpointed his cowardice.他拒绝帮助正显示他的胆小。