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

#141

Post by kwere » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:44 PM UTC

r3trohack3r wrote: post #133

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.

from a social development standpoint it makes sense, a lot of "geniuses" had/could develop problems growing up with people emotionally/socially more mature, altough keeping gifted people with underperformers and lowering education level to keep them "afloat" is a disservice to both groups

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

#142

Post by fnordpiglet » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:44 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #84

Scubabear68 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. There are known “good” and “bad” school districts. The known good school districts have better teachers and teaching methods. This is not about the bell curve, it’s about a lot of US schools not actually teaching students successfully.

Copy and pasting from elsewhere in the thread: Some schools being above grade level has nothing to do with teaching methodology, and everything to do with student composition. Smart people who raise their kids to do well in school move to neighborhoods with better schools, which raises the grade levels. Ex: I went to Bronx Science, a specialized high school in NYC where 98% of the students are above grade level and g…

I’d posit given the data presented students and schools being above grade level has more to do with the definition of grade level than literally any other factor. I’m curious what you believe the phrase means in this context?

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

#143

Post by johnea » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

Just reenforces my perseption, after living in California for 40 years, and being a parent of a child going through public education, that education here sucks, and most Californian's are dumb as rocks...

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

#144

Post by johnea » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

fnordpiglet wrote: post #19

Looking at the history this doesn’t seem abnormal, and it hovers around 49%. This implies to me median is determined to be grade level (essentially) and it hasn’t moved materially beyond this point since the data was compiled and the entirely arbitrary definition of “grade level” was declared. Would be interesting to see other states but it wasn’t immediately obvious if a similar dataset exists for anywhere else. Giv…

Just reenforces my perseption, after living in California for 40 years, and being a parent of a child going through public education, that education here sucks, and most Californian's are dumb as rocks...

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

#145

Post by 015UUZn8aEvW » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

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?

Fixing the Schools has been a massive political issue for decades. Huge amounts of money have been spent and all kinds of strategies have been tried. When you look at the long-term trends, though, you see only the standard, persistent performance gaps associated with demographic factors. The money and changes in education policy barely show up as blips.

If there were an obvious way to change things, things would have changed by now.

https://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/the-null-hypothesis-in-educ...

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

#146

Post by nerpderp82 » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

Why don't we get rid of grade levels? It would seem 50% of the students are continuously behind and probably suffering. A more humane approach would be to continue to teach the material at a level they can learn from until they get it, and or find new ways to teach it.

You see a bimodal distribution in technical subjects (reading and math are technical) where if you get behind, you will continue to get further behind. Catching up takes a 150% power output to even get back to parity if the rest of the non-lagging cohort continues to run ahead.

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

#147

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

mistrial9 wrote: post #108

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. California does not have a large Black immigrant population. The Black population speaks English and does worse than the average (including ESL students). Language alone doesn't explain the gap. Particularly since immigrant Asian groups are above average.

let me help you here - "black" is a particularly tragic demographic classification.. since a very large part of the world population live closer to the Equator, and have darker skin, than the people who wrote those English category names; add to that the particular unique form of slavery in Agricultural USA. The fact that the President of the United States for two terms, a Harvard Law School graduate, is as demograph…

[deleted]

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

#148

Post by johnea » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #27

fnordpiglet wrote: post #19

Looking at the history this doesn’t seem abnormal, and it hovers around 49%. This implies to me median is determined to be grade level (essentially) and it hasn’t moved materially beyond this point since the data was compiled and the entirely arbitrary definition of “grade level” was declared. Would be interesting to see other states but it wasn’t immediately obvious if a similar dataset exists for anywhere else. Giv…

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.

Just reenforces my perseption, after living in California for 40 years, and being a parent of a child going through public education, that education here sucks, and most Californian's are dumb as rocks...

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

#149

Post by listless » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:46 PM UTC

HardlyCurious wrote: post #100

listless wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malcom Gladwell covers this in Outliers. There is something that can be done, but it has to be done starting in pre-school and continuing through second grade. And that "something" is that you don't get a summer. You learn year round for those first few years. The reason why some kids excel and some don't is almost entirely because they don't get continuing education at home. And past 2nd grade, it's almost irreparab…

The effects of preschool have been studied and showed no benefits after grade 3. Not sure about the year round portion of it, but it seems to me this is a narrative born from intuition and not from evidence.

As I understand it, it's the gaps in the summer that account for the gaps in education. That's Gladwell's assertion. When kids have gaps without learning at an early age, they fall behind quickly and it is devastating.

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

#150

Post by fnordpiglet » Wed, Mar 01, 2023, 6:46 PM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #39

singlow wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nearly 50% of people perform below average is that bad?

I edited my comment probably as you were responding, but it wasn't my impression that that is what's being measured. Some level is set and the students are measured against that level. I would assume that the target percentage is of course close to 100% to be meeting that level. If not, then it should be. It is also my assumption that the level is already very low.

No, if you read the thread you’ll see it was picked to be greater than the median at the time the metric was established. So in the first year it was less than 50%, but close. The phrase “grade level” implies a 100% goal, but the math of the metric says you’ll do great to do anything better than 50%.