The Hechinger Report – Luba Ostashevsky
“Looking back on her junior year at Saint Agnes Academic High School in the College Point neighborhood of Queens, Viktoria Mertiri admits that trigonometry “was the death of me. I never understood it.” But Mertiri scored a 70 on the New York Regents Examination, a state standardized test of core high school subjects. It was a pleasant surprise: five points better than she needed to pass. In geometry, she scored an 85. She also passed the English language arts, U.S. history, global history, and a science Regents — with math, the five exams a student must pass, by law, to graduate from high school in New York State and receive a Regents diploma. When she arrived at Queensborough Community College, however, Mertiri, who is now 20, did poorly on the entrance tests and was put in remedial classes. In her first year, she had to take remedial English, science, and math — the math class twice since she failed it the first time. The classes earned no credit toward a degree and cost $6,000, which she paid for by working at a physical therapist’s office two days a week and babysitting on the weekends.”(more)