THE CASE FOR BILLING THE HIGH SCHOOLS.

The Big Remedial Apple.  Nothing but Distressed Material at the once-highly-regarded City University of New York.  And the Distressed Material pays a remediation tax.

have to waste their first semester, or even their first full year or longer, learning the skills and knowledge they didn’t get from the city Department of Education, even though it graduated them.

Time spent on remediation also eats up students’ limited resources — the grants, scholarships, loans or personal savings they’d counted on for higher education.

Too many quit before they’re caught up — and others never finish college after starting so far behind.

I had the policy response to habitually irresponsible high school districts years ago, and I have yet to be argued out of it.

Being mugged by reality might be a thing, even in New York City, where the risk of a real mugging is real.

Last year, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz said the city Department of Education should absorb the costs of these kids’ remediation: Why let it get away with sticking the students with the cost of its failures?

And the full “remediation tax” is higher still: This report doesn’t count the cost to kids who try to make it in the workplace without basic skills.

By the city’s own reckoning, only 35 percent of its high-school graduates last year were college- and career-ready.

First, identify the districts that are failing to prepare their graduates.

I'm still waiting for that first university to follow up with a bill.

But I can wait.  Business as usual isn't working.