None of this makes any sense: Nearly all the people in NY are in areas of high cost of living and, thus, are relatively well paid. That should also make them

None of this makes any sense: Nearly all the people in NY are in areas of high cost of living and, thus, are relatively well paid. That should also make them relatively competent and relatively good as parents with relatively accomplished children. In Manhattan, the cost of living, etc. are higher. In contrast, I went to a public high school in the South; nearly everyone graduated; and 97% of the graduates went to college. I did well in math and science, but English literature didn't make much sense to me, and somehow the way French was taught I just didn't 'get it' (my father and brother were both quite good at French but somehow didn't help me). My SAT total was over 1400; still, except for math and science, high school was not so easy for me; my high school was not really easy; in some of the courses, a lot of the students did better than I did. I did well enough in college, especially in math and science. I went to a relatively good college, and there the girls in the humanities classes were much better than I was; my only retaliation was to totally blow them away in math and science, which was easy to do. So, not doing so well in a public high school in the South, I was plenty successful in college. So, I don't 'get it': If my public high school in the South did so well, then why are NY and Manhattan having so many problems? Where are they missing it? At one point, here in NYS 70 miles north of Wall Street, my wife and I were considering having children and wondered about the quality of the schools, so she called a local high school and asked to visit. She was brilliant, Valedictorian, PBK, 'Summa Cum Laude', Woodrow Wilson, and research university Ph.D. In college once she wanted to take a history course, didn't need the credit, so wanted just to audit. The prof asked audits also to take the tests, so she did. It was a lecture hall course with 300 students. At the end the prof told her that she should have taken the course for credit since she got the highest grade in the class. Brilliant. So, with her credentials, she got a good reception for a visit. She sat in on a senior class in history and concluded that it would have been challenging for her. I'm not 'getting it': Where are these really bad schools in NY? Just what is it about college the students can't do? I've taught undergraduates at Indiana University, Georgetown University, and Ohio State; except for one 'special' collection of students at Georgetown, the students were from good enough down to not so bad. Just what is it about NYS students that are much less good? What is all the screaming about in NY? Just trying to get more money for the teachers? Maybe we need to see the some distributions of SAT and CEEB scores for some representative samples of students from Manhattan, the rest of NYS, and some other states.