Results of national education performance testing

According to the U.S. Department of Education only 27 percent of 8^th-grader students in Chicago public schools are grade-level proficient in reading, and just 23 percent are grade-level proficient in math.

I note this not to blame teachers--there are thousands of highly-motivated, amazingly skilled teachers out there who work a lot more than 8 hours a day and love their job.  But for some reason, in big cities like Chicago the results are awful.

I really, really wonder why.

You probably won't be surprised to learn that the national average is a lot better than the large cities, and the average for smaller states not on the coasts is better yet.  But as for large cities it's a ghastly misery.  And for students graduating with little education it's a damn shame.

BTW, the website at the DOE link is really hard to use.  It's almost as if the DOE wasn't eager to let voters see the results.  Nah, that couldn't be right.