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A couple of follow up points here. First, when the MCAS was introduced in Massachusetts, the teachers' unions were up in arms about "accuracy", "racism", "teaching to the test", and all the usual resistance to any change in public education that is so accurately captured in this article. Curiously, those 'concerns' seem to have gone away in Mass.

Second, the argument against comparing local SAT scores with those in Massachusetts is valid given that not all Mass. kids take the SAT. However, the fact that ALL Warwick kids must take the SAT reflects a broader and more accurate sample size, because you're testing everyone. And given the law of large numbers, the results in Warwick are that much more disturbing because they reflect the entire population.

Finally, 29.3% of PSAT takers in the 2017-18 school year were deemed to be meeting expectations in Math and 61.3% in English Language Arts. That same group of kids went on to the next grade, but dropped to 25.2% meeting expectations in Math and 50.7% in ELA on the 2018-19 SAT. When coupled with elementary and middle school data, there is now strong evidence that the longer a student remains in the Warwick public schools, the less proficient that student becomes. And if school committee member Cornell is right in his contention that "Some students are just bad test takers", it appears that this mysterious test-taking problem that plagues Warwick's students (clearly an issue for the Water Dept.) only becomes worse, again, the longer the student is in the Warwick public schools.

The good Brothers at Hendricken certainly did ensure that we had a great education which has, indeed, served as life-long insurance.