REX HOLDS PREVENTATIVE SUMMIT TO DEAL WITH DROPOUT RATES

The rate of students dropping out of public schools in South Carolina is about on par with the number of people who will be getting fruitcakes in the coming weeks.

In fact, according to The Voice for School Choice, teenagers are bolting from our failed education system at a rate of 158 per day. Not per month… PER DAY.

And today The Voice noted that, 56,000 dropouts later, State Education Superintendent Jim Rex has decided to hold a “prevention summit.”

Despite the magnitude of the drop-out problem, South Carolina education bureaucrats have been reluctant to embrace any truly innovative policies to help reverse the situation. After two years of being in office, Jim Rex finally made a feeble attempt to address the drop out problem by announcing an “Attendance Awareness Month” back in October.

At the rate of 158 drop outs per school day, that translates into over 56,000 drop outs over the course of the two school years that Jim Rex has served as superintendent of education.

Shortly after Rex’s lack of leadership in the expanding drop-out crisis, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings had to come to South Carolina to personally announce a new method of calculating school graduation rates.

Why single out South Carolina? Because Rex’s administration has the nation’s highest disparity between reported graduation rate, and the actual number of students who receive a diploma four years after entering high school.

Good job, Jimmy, you’re a genius. Let’s take the Plan B “morning-after pill” in the third trimester… I’m sure it’s not too late.

While we’re at it, why don’t we hold a summit on how best to prevent Hitler’s rise in Germany in hopes of thwarting what could become a serious “Holocaust.” Maybe Bill and Ted can lend us their phone booth.