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Kids are far behind in school

theatlantic.com

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Re: Kids are far behind in school

#111

Post by endisneigh »

balefrost wrote: post #78
endisneigh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I suspect that this problem is vastly overstated. > It's not like the US educational system was doing a great job before the pandemic. I used to teach in college, and a lot of student were not properly prepared. Huh? So you think the problem of being behind is overstated, but observed many students not being properly prepared yourself when you taught?

If you read the article, it specifically points to remote learning as the thing that put students behind. I think the commenter believes that the negative effect of remote learning is overstated relative to other factors.

the commenter didn't even mention remote at all tho

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#112

Post by namelessoracle »

lordnacho wrote: post #81

Being 19 weeks behind doesn't sound that bad to me. It sounds like one of those things you can measure but you can't notice otherwise. Sure, still a thing to think about. But haven't you all had a friend who got sick and missed a lot of school? Can you tell from meeting adults that they were ill for half a year during their childhood? Maybe the numbers will capture it, but it doesn't seem like enough to worry about.…

19 weeks is enough to make a kid college ready or not. And it's enough to push a kid that would be eligible to high achieving school to a lesser one.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#113

Post by HideousKojima »

mavhc wrote: post #71
oneoff786 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The benefit of the lockdowns was very, very small for the kids.

Not having dead parents is a great benefit for kids. Not having dead parents who you infected and caused to die is an even better benefit

Unless their parents were obese retirees, the chances of that happening were a few orders of magnitude lower than the chances for plenty of other risks we deem acceptable and don't lock down society over.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#114

Post by yonaguska »

lowkey_ wrote: post #59
woleium wrote: post #52

Quoted post unavailable.

This is the same logic behind the "great replacement" conspiracy theory, the idea that Democratic politicians in the US will encourage mass immigration so that they get more voters. However much we want to doubt our politicians, I really don't think they would change the demographic makeup or worsen the education of our country simply for votes.

If you don't believe they're doing it for votes, why do you think they're doing it?

I'm not even white, and it seems obvious to me that it's happening. In some cases, people support this because they are racist, and simply hate all things white. Going through college, I had several professors that were outright about their position on immigration and how it will fix the racism problem in America by making whites a minority. Classmates as well, that were quite open about this around me, as I wasn't totally white, I was mixed. It was insane. But in the real world, I see politicians not outright saying this is the goal, but they cheer it on, because they anticipate the demographic changes actually changing voter demographics.

Even in Mexico, I've been asked why American politicians keep encouraging people to come up to the US. Maybe they aren't actively encouraging immigration, but the people that I met and my relatives in Mexico seemed to think so. I'm not sure if this is a product of cartel or political marketing, but the Cartels are literally using democrats messaging to advertise to potential immigrants, or so I'm told.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#115

Post by taeric »

mattmcknight wrote: post #93
taeric wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not much, is my gut. Catching up on relevant academic items is easier than we typically acknowledge. Is why those kids that were reading at an early age are typically not that ahead in a few years. Not that this should be dismissed. But I hazard it is not a panic item.

> why those kids that were reading at an early age are typically not that ahead in a few years. That's often because they are dropped in a single pace system, where they are forced to sit with kids learning the alphabet, wasting valuable time, getting bored.

Certainly possible. My priors speak otherwise, though. Just seeing my own kids accelerate in reading at different ages makes me think early success is as indicative of kid's abilities as it is executive impact. Certainly not zero. But mostly overstated.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#116

Post by DoughnutHole »

criddell wrote: post #16

Any guesses what the long term consequences might be? I have a hard time imagining anything more dire than the immediate consequences of social isolation during the pandemic. In other words, I think the kids that make it through are going to be okay.

The effects will probably be small but measurable on average, with significantly worse effects on poorer kids or kids that were already struggling to begin with.

The closest example to something like this happening is probably major teacher strikes. Kids in Argentina during the teachers strikes of the 1980s lost an average of 88 days of primary education and today make about 3% less per year than you would expect given their age.[0] This effect largely comes from lower income groups being less likely than usual to achieve higher levels of education and being more likely to be unemployed.

[0]: https://www.cedlas.econo.unlp.edu.ar/wp/wp-content/uploads/d...

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#117

Post by woleium »

yonaguska wrote: post #114
lowkey_ wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same logic behind the "great replacement" conspiracy theory, the idea that Democratic politicians in the US will encourage mass immigration so that they get more voters. However much we want to doubt our politicians, I really don't think they would change the demographic makeup or worsen the education of our country simply for votes.

If you don't believe they're doing it for votes, why do you think they're doing it? I'm not even white, and it seems obvious to me that it's happening. In some cases, people support this because they are racist, and simply hate all things white. Going through college, I had several professors that were outright about their position on immigration and how it will fix the racism problem in America by making whites a mi…

Encouraging unskilled immigrants from Mexico is preferable to fruit rotting in the fields. This is more than a one dimensional issue :)

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#118

Post by lern_too_spel »

015UUZn8aEvW wrote: post #94
lapcat wrote: post #55

What does being "behind" even mean? The dirty truth of the US educational "system" is that there is no system. Different school districts offer vastly different levels of education, depending mainly on wealth (i.e., the property tax base, because schools are locally funded). When I was a kid, my family moved from one city to another within the same state, and suddenly I was way behind in my new school, especially in…

>Different school districts offer vastly different levels of education, depending mainly on wealth The data show that causation mostly flows in the opposite direction. The main determinant of whether a school is "good" is the average academic ability of the students who attend the school. And that, statistically speaking, is largely a function of race and income. Policy interventions based on the idea that school qua…

The article you're commenting on mentions several interventions with significant benefit:

"High-dosage tutoring—which educators define as involving a trained tutor working with one to four students at a time, three times a week for a whole year—is one of the few interventions with a demonstrated benefit that comes close, producing an average gain equivalent to 19 weeks of instruction."

"One option is voluntary summer school, which, according to prior research, has yielded about five weeks of instructional gain per student. Another option is an extra period each day of instruction in core subjects. A double dose of math over the course of an entire school year has been shown to produce gains equivalent to about 10 weeks of in-person instruction, although the evidence on reading is weaker."

https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/5-lessons-e... lists a few more studies that consistently show the opposite of what you claimed. School quality matters, and more schooling matters.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#119

Post by mattmcknight »

Simply end social promotion. You shouldn't move up to the next level of a class until you've mastered the current level. (Levels can be much smaller than a year.) Being at a different pace isn't a problem if you can just make up the time. The side effect bonus is letting other students test out of levels they don't need, they can finish early while others end later.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#120

Post by taeric »

brightball wrote: post #77
buildsjets wrote: post #64

Especially in high school, an astounding amount of time, money, space, and personnel are dedicated to sports, and this does not just impact the athletes. In many schools the entire day is structured around the football team's practice schedule. Make school sports a truly after-hours extracurricular activity and remove their impact from non-participants, and I'd estimate you could see around 20% improvement time spent…

The thing about football is that so many people are involved with it, it becomes a school wide event. You have players on the team and coaches, yes. But you also have cheerleaders, marching band, trainer assistants (usually students who want to go into medicine or physical therapy). There are homecoming pagents and dances plus the social event every weekend for the school that goes along with it. There’s no sport in…

This is silly. There is nothing stopping any other sport from being as central more than the amount of money and effort that currently goes to football. Often in an arms race against neighboring schools.

To try and prop it up as a natural thing that is good just feels like a major problem.

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