Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level • Hacker News Board

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#131

Post by babypuncher » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:38 PM UTC

fnordpiglet wrote: post #21

babypuncher wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume "grade level" was defined by the median student some time ago and has not been adjusted since. The fact that it's going down seems like bad news. EDIT: It seems the headline is misleading and my take is not accurate.

It’s not really going down. There are years it was worse and years it was better. It seems like it’s staying fairly consistent around the original threshold, which appears to be close the median. But I’d note the first year observed was lower than this last year observed, so it couldn’t have been the actual median. They probably intentionally picked a level below the median as the threshold to convince people to frea…

Yeah after taking a closer look at everything, it seems that the actual headline is alarmist and heavily misleading.

The conclusion to take from this is that the pandemic had a mild negative impact on test results, but otherwise everything is fine, and actually marginally improved since these metrics were first established.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#132

Post by cptskippy » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #45

bmitc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's "normal", isn't the conclusion then that the normal is not good? The threshold is extremely low already, and that only 50% of students are hitting that threshold is concerning to me. It isn't that they aren't capable. It's that the social support structures are not there.

There's not much the education system can do here. When you look into educational research its grim - its really really hard to move the needle even a few % on outcomes in a school system, even with large grants and volunteers and special projects. Kids on the bottom half of the bell curve, especially without parental support, are always going to struggle at school.

> Kids on the bottom half of the bell curve, especially without parental support, are always going to struggle at school.

It's not just kids on the bottom half because those that need support are disruptive to the entire class. The way the system is setup, you not only need parental support but the parent drives the process and the administration is resistive because it imposes more work on already strained staff.

I volunteer in my child's class for 2-3 hours a week, as does my partner and a grand parent. There are a number of high needs kids in the class who need Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). These must be initiated by the parents and require outside services and assessments to be truly effective. The parents have largely been resistive to the teacher's appeals. Some point to their child's reading or math ability as proof that the child doesn't need support. Others just do not have the capacity or capability to take on the process.

The teacher is spending a disproportionate amount of time keeping children on task and as a result the entire class suffers. The teacher in this classroom has begged for support from the administration but they assert that it's the teacher's failing. The have taken her out of class to observe other classes at other schools but this was more punitive than beneficial. The only positive from that action was the substitute they got became an advocate for support. The administration has been slow walking the process to get someone to observe the classroom and at this point is just waiting out the school year.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#133

Post by r3trohack3r » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

Bucketing children by age and not developmental milestones has always confused me.

No matter how you slice it, some kids are more advanced in verticals than others (emotional, math, reading, problem solving, etc.) and there aren’t tracks in the U.S. to accommodate that so we end up forcing all these square pegs into round holes - everyone loses.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#134

Post by yamtaddle » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:40 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #66

cm2012 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not much the education system can do here. When you look into educational research its grim - its really really hard to move the needle even a few % on outcomes in a school system, even with large grants and volunteers and special projects. Kids on the bottom half of the bell curve, especially without parental support, are always going to struggle at school.

When there's no incentive for the teachers and schools to get kids to grade level, they aren't. I've proposed before having a bonus to the teacher for every student that reaches grade level at the end of the year.

> When there's no incentive for the teachers and schools to get kids to grade level, they aren't.

There are already extensive punishments for failure on this front, and it's a huge part of what schools' attention and focus go toward, especially post-NCLB.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#135

Post by jeffbee » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:41 PM UTC

nhchris wrote: post #118

WoahNoun wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public schools are heavily funded by property taxes. So schools in upper middle class and above areas are (usually) pretty great while schools and low income areas are (usually) pretty not great.

This is a common but false claim. Property tax funding is supplemented by state and federal taxes to compensate disparities: https://www.heritage.org/education/report/the-myth-racial-di... on average, both Black and Latinx total per pupil expenditures exceed White total per pupil expenditures by $229.53 and $126.15, respectively [total per-pupil funding is around $14k, so the differences are negligible] - https://jou…

The state does not "compensate" for the fact that wealthy city school districts simply fund their schools under the table with massive PTA budgets, and there is not a lot the state can do about that in the short term without significant tax reform.

Three adjacent school districts, in descending order of household income and grade-level performance: Piedmont (90% at-grade-level), Berkeley (67%), Oakland (33%).

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#136

Post by thelock85 » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #86

ketzo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tennessee did a version of this, and had to fire a huge number of teachers because they were just straight-up giving their students the answers to state-level test. Not saying incentives are totally the wrong approach, but they're also easily gamed, especially in the hands of people who are already criminally underpaid and overworked.

I think the solution to this problem is rather obvious. (Let other teachers grade the students)

I’m not sure how this is obvious when there is a teacher shortage almost everywhere. I’d be willing to bet that more often than not students’ exam proctor is not their everyday teacher.

Also while this is a solution to the symptom of perverse incentives, it is still part of a bandaid approach. Low-performing schools are already spending weeks and weeks teaching to the test, which is fine for achievement but just a step above giving the answers out when it comes to rigorous teaching and learning.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#137

Post by mazugrin2 » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

throwayyy479087 wrote: post #46

bmmayer1 wrote: post #18

The failure of public education in this country is a national scandal. It should be the number one concern of everyone, and yet there's no outrage, no political wedge issue, no media -- what's going on?

California doesn't maintain order in schools or their major cities. If you want to live somewhere nice, that's liberal and has good schools move to Boston. If you want to live somewhere nice that's conservative and has good schools move anywhere in East Texas.

The public schools in Boston are struggling by almost every measure, with only about 34% reading at grade level across the system, for example.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#138

Post by fnordpiglet » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

xwkd wrote: post #96

cm2012 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not much the education system can do here. When you look into educational research its grim - its really really hard to move the needle even a few % on outcomes in a school system, even with large grants and volunteers and special projects. Kids on the bottom half of the bell curve, especially without parental support, are always going to struggle at school.

Allow me to be an annoying pedant for a moment: Isn't that a bit tautological? The bottom half of the bell curve is below the mean in a normal distribution by definition. There's always going to be a lower half as long as we model statistics.

I’d note it’s not the mean but the median here. But the IQ is a good example where 100 is defined as the median but has had to be revised upward over time as test performance improves overall. So, in this case they set a fixed definition of grade level being slightly above the median at the outset of the measurements (presumably to induce HN headlines that attract clicks and ultimately funding for schools because more than half are under “grade level”) then over time the goal is to improve on the initial score. In 2019 and 2018 it’s interesting to note the score breached 50% for the first time, peaking at 51%. It’s slipped but presumably that’s a “large scale event” effect and will mean revert to the 2019 levels and continue advancing with time.

But even with the great results in 2019 you can still say “49% of California students are less than grade level” and it looks really bad and people post about how bad public schooling is and hand wringing ensues. - again ultimately leading to more funding, when in fact it’s a real milestone achievement to have lifted such a huge number of students so far in so short a time.

It’s always fascinating to watch the click bait statistic name induce reliable and predictable behavior every time, even when the actual data tells the exact opposite story. Very clever whoever decided to make “grade level” greater than the median performance.

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#139

Post by fnordpiglet » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:43 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #66

cm2012 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not much the education system can do here. When you look into educational research its grim - its really really hard to move the needle even a few % on outcomes in a school system, even with large grants and volunteers and special projects. Kids on the bottom half of the bell curve, especially without parental support, are always going to struggle at school.

When there's no incentive for the teachers and schools to get kids to grade level, they aren't. I've proposed before having a bonus to the teacher for every student that reaches grade level at the end of the year.

What is “grade level” to you?

Re: Less than half of California students read or do math at grade level

#140

Post by kube-system » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:44 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #61

I'm not an american — what level of math proficiency for at what age are we talking about here? Is it about being bad at integrals or not being able to solve a simple quadratic equation?

At the end of public school, the latter; algebra. Calculus is typically optional in US high schools. Although each state has different specific educational requirements.