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Kids are far behind in school

theatlantic.com

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Re: Kids are far behind in school

#171

Post by lapcat »

jeffbee wrote: post #151
markvdb wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does being "behind" even mean? In my case as a guitar teacher, I see two patterns: - Students with less support at home or natural feeling for guitar are about a year behind where they would normally be after four years of studying. - My most motivated, talented and best supported students are on schedule or slightly ahead.

Thanks for mentioning music. It baffles me that anyone would be blind to the idea that children could be "behind" when so much of childhood development involves muscle strength and dexterity that must be practiced. This goes for many musical instruments as well as the voice, all athletics, penmanship, verbal articulation, and so much more.

Is this actually a problem for music though? Who are the future professional musicians? "My most motivated, talented and best supported students are on schedule or slightly ahead." So it's not clear that we're losing any potential virtuosos here. If a generation of amateur musicians end up being a little less proficient in music, that's unfortunate, but hardly worth panicking, I think.

I personally started playing guitar, and tennis, too late in life to become a professional. This had nothing to do with the pandemic. But I can still enjoy them as an amateur.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#172

Post by scotty79 »

Cerium wrote: post #70
scotty79 wrote: post #57

I'd like to see how well the knowledge is retained in kids after let's say 3 years. I believe most of the knowledge the kids were taught that long ago is not present in their memory anymore as if it was never taught. I remember happily forgetting all information I learned and it took me just summer vacation to do that.

Most of the facts get forgotten, though I can conjure up quite a few on any class I think of having taken. The important part of education is not the facts, it is the skills. School taught me to think scientifically and critically, to write and to speak, as well as made me confident interacting in the society I live. Those skills have served me well.

> School taught me to think scientifically and critically, to write and to speak, as well as made me confident interacting in the society I live.

I had completely opposite expeirience from primary and to some degree secondary school. Especially on the last item. But also speaking and writing and thinking. It didn't develop me in those areas. If anything it stunted me for life. I had to painstakingly recover from it after it was finally over and I'm sure I'll never recover 100%.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#173

Post by usrn »

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…

[flagged]

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#174

Post by mcv »

watwut wrote: post #121
OscarCunningham wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I just don't think spending extra time on homework and paying for tutors is going to help with the latter.

If the failure is due to inability to put that understanding into practice, which is actually very likely, then tutoring can actually help. Not every failure in exam is hopeless-helpless situation.

My son's challenges are primarily in planning the work, starting the work, and finishing the work. And those are things this particular tutoring is supposed to really help with.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#175

Post by mschuster91 »

mattmcknight wrote: post #124
015UUZn8aEvW wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

While you are correct that good schools are caused by good students, it's not strictly accurate to say that "statistically speaking, is largely a function of race and income". Being a good student is largely a function of intelligence and conscientiousness, which is largely a function of parental intelligence and conscientiousness. Income doesn't cause intelligence or conscientiousness, although it may be partially c…

> Being a good student is largely a function of intelligence and conscientiousness, which is largely a function of parental intelligence and conscientiousness

Only partially - only ~40-50% of a person's IQ are a result of parental genetics [3]. The rest is a result of the environment in which the child is raised - and there are very important factors at play that directly correlate with income of the parents:

- Does each child have their own, adequately sized, room with a study desk to work in and concentrate? During the pandemic it turned out to be a real problem that children who had to share rooms had issues following streamed lectures.

- Are the living conditions actually healthy? Poor people are often forced by their poverty to live in decrepit conditions: noise from highways or rails, toxic emissions from nearby factories, general issues with toxicity (paint, lead water pipes, mould). All of this has direct outcome on performance of students.

- Do the children, particularly those of working age (14 and above, but especially 16 and above) have to work actual jobs to make pocket money or contribute to household income?

- Are the parents largely absent from their children's lives because both parents have to work full-time or worse jobs just to make ends meet?

- Can the parents invest time and money into furthering their children's education? Can they sit together with them in the afternoon/evening and work through homework problems? Can they afford side education, playing instruments or similar activities that have been shown to have a positive effect on education?

- Do the parents have enough money to feed the children? Hundreds of thousands of students alone in New York depend on schools handing out free lunches, which turned out to be a massive problem during the pandemic [1].

- Poverty causes stress - not just from being cooped together in too small living spaces, but also in food insecurity, increased fights between parents over the stress, or in the worst cases from literally being homeless [2].

[1] https://www.foodandwine.com/news/new-york-city-school-childr...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/nyregion/nyc-homeless-chi...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Molecular_g...

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#176

Post by yonaguska »

ryanklee wrote: post #24
bigDinosaur wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people have stated that 'the kids will be fine' quite consistently. Also, all costs other than deaths have been underplayed by people in favour of lockdowns. Memory-holing this is literally insane (where insane = disconnected from reality). That's not to say that what was done wasn't the best of a suite of bad options. But I saw nothing but fairly extreme downplaying of the consequences of lockdowns from people…

I think you should clarify your sample. I'm a liberal, was in favor of school closings early, my daughter went to her first year of kindergarten remote, and I was very aware of the tradeoffs. People like Emily Oster have been excellent at raising concerns.

You were aware of the tradeoffs for your daughter.

Were you aware of the tradeoffs for children in less fortunate situations? And while being aware, did you still support schools closing early? Do you stand by your support knowing the trauma it has inflicted now?

The school closings have had catastrophic effects on children with poor home lives. School for me was a place to eat, and in middle school, even just showering when the gas or electricity had been cut at home. Many of these kids were dodging abusive relatives, gangs, and drugs by going to school. The more fortunate kids were lucky to drop high school in exchange for working to support their families.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-11-year-old-...

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-online-sex-a...

https://www.wbez.org/stories/to-help-their-families-during-t...

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#177

Post by izzydata »

mattmcknight wrote: post #119

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.

They would have to end this concept of no child left behind. Also such a meritocracy system would likely be perceived as racist as the students with more time and financial support become more likely to succeed.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#178

Post by User23 »

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…

Home schooling is quantifiably far superior to public schooling, pretty much independent of socioeconomic status[1].

  As one would expect, the education level of parents did affect the results. For example, home-school students of parents without college degrees scored, on average, at the 83rd percentile for the core subjects. When one parent had a college degree, those students scored at the 86th percentile, and when both parents had a college degree, those students scored at the 90th percentile. There was virtually no difference, however, between the scores of students whose parents were certified teachers and those who were not.
It amuses me that apparently certified teachers are no better at teaching than any other concerned parent. In fact, a concerned parent will wildly outperform a school teacher. This ought to be unsurprising to anyone who is aware of the mind-boggling two standard deviation improvement tutoring provides. A home-school is essentially a tutoring arrangement.

[1] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/30/home-school...

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#179

Post by kkfx »

usrn wrote: post #20
kkfx wrote: post #5

There is a meaning issue here: school in Democracies, in substantial ones, are the tool to spread a certain level of culture needed to be Citizens, those who intellectually can get opportunities to going further, those less smart can still acquire a minimum culture to be Citizens peers between peers. In formal BUT not substantial democracies witch means in wannabe dictatorships school means just indoctrination so the…

The idea that modern US public schools communicate the culture of the sounding community is honestly a little ridiculous sounding.

I'm speaking in theory, about schools as a concept. Modern schools implementations in western countries and most of the rest of the world are just about mass indoctrination.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#180

Post by mcv »

philipov wrote: post #83
humanrebar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but a lot of people, including underage people, are motivated by reason. School ideally goes at an appropriate pace to challenge them. Partly so they pick up good study habits in a non-contrived scenario with obvious benefits. Saying busy work is important because they might need study habits in five years is not motivating.

> Being smart and understanding the material are the important endpoints. This statement contains a serious misapprehension and requires revision. My grandfather would often say that "understanding" swimming won't help you when you're drowning. You need to be able to swim. You can't get to a point where you can swim through mathematics without solving a lot of math problems. You don't become good at something by stop…

Exactly. Being smart is not the end point, it's the starting point. Being able to apply it effectively is the end point.
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