The Listin Diario points to the major deficiencies of public school teachers who are turning out even poorer students. The newspaper highlights a study carried out by the quality control department of the Ministry of Education whereby average scores on national tests for the past three years have been under 65 points. Furthermore, last year, high school graduate level students averaged 56 points on math tests, while eighth grade students averaged 49 points. Grammar and spelling is another major problem area. The study showed that the teachers themselves have major deficiencies in spelling.
