Most Active Stories Sat January 19, 2013 New Reading Standards
Aim To Prep Kids For College — But At What Cost? Originally
published on Sat January 19, 2013 7:17 pm Once upon a time, in
the long ago world of high school reading, Holden Caulfield was
perhaps the epitome of angst: a young man suddenly an outcast in
the world he thought he knew. The antihero of J.D. Salinger's
The Catcher in the Rye was about to enter a perilous journey of
self-discovery. Fast forward to high school reading today, and
you might find that a lot of high school English teachers are
identifying with Holden more than their students are identifying
with him. Reading scores for American students have dropped
dramatically, and the solution could see their world change as
well. "So many kids, often as many as 50 percent, graduate high
school ... demonstrably not ready for the demands of a first-
year college course or job-training program," says David
Coleman, president of the College Board, a nonprofit membership
organization that admini