Do your homework, policy makers.

Don't compare my school to a school in another country. It is like comparing apples to oranges.

In American schools students, all students are required to be in school until 17 and half. This is not so in schools around the world. Students in other countries have to pass tests to continue to be educated by the state. In America we offer free education to all of our children, whether they are citizens or not. This is not the case in other countries. So when we see American leaders comparing our schools in the international arena, we are being cheated badly by ignorance.

Now if our leaders were to use just some of our public schools like Stuyvesant, Mount Blair, Stevenson, and others of this caliber, then we would be doing a better form of comparison. Once again our politicians are not being honest, in fact they are lying when they say our schools are not doing as well as schools in other countries. We are doing very well, it is our politicians who are failing us on many more fronts than just education. They aren't doing their homework. Heck we are seeing their lack of doing their work before they give our money to companies like AIG. How can we expect these people who don't use public education to understand how it works. They sadly lack the skills necessary to speak about public education in this country, especially when too many of them have never been in public schools.

In my school we have students from all over the world. Not all of my students were born in this country. Many of my students have not come to my school with any previous education. This does not happen in too many countries to which we are being compared.

Stop comparing my school to other schools from around the world, because they discharge students who do not meet their requirements. We educate all of our students, not just a select elite. Perhaps we should add our extensive private schools when we compare schools. Do your homework about how education works in other countries.