An alarming piece of data was presented last week by the new Buffalo Schools superintendent. Dr. Kriner Cash told the school board that in Buffalo for every 100 ninth graders, only 50 end up graduating. WBFO's Focus on Education reporter Eileen Buckley talked to two school board members about the data.
"He illustrated very clearly, the problem -- the condition that we are in," said Carl Paladino, Majority School Board Member.
The other part of the data also indicated that out of those 100 high school freshmen, only one would go on to college.
Paladino said he believes some members of the board have been trying to cover up the reality.
"It's a terrible condition. Nobody wants to acknowledge it, especially the minority people on the board. They don't want to acknowledge it. They want to tell everybody everything is fine," said Paladino.
Majority Board Member Larry Quinn also reacted to the data. "I'm startled by it. I'm not totally sure it's accurate because it seems like such an astounding number," said Quinn.
Quinn noted that with the superintendent's data it would mean the district has spent millions of dollars per student in order to have one reach college graduation.
"I did the math and I said this would mean we spent $32 million to produce a college graduate. So as Dr. Cash pointed out, even if he's wrong by half, when you think about it, to send a child through a private education K-12, that would be about $250,000, so something, as he tried to point out, is radically wrong and this is going to have to require not the same old same old stuff," noted Quinn.
In his first news conference in Buffalo Cash indicated that he would be sharing data to help fix the broken school district.
A brand new school year is about to begin this week. City school teachers from Pre-K through 8 will be report to their schools Tuesday and will be attending professional development. Then on Wednesday, high school teachers will report.
The first day of school for Buffalo public school students is Thursday, September 3.