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

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

#151

Post by fnordpiglet »

Ekaros wrote: post #95
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.

Something like 90% in primary education should in my mind be a goal. But when we get to policies that don't allow repeating classes if needed, there really isn't any clear solution to keep kids on their level.

If the metric “grade level” were defined as the median when the measurement started, do you think 90% is reasonably achievable?

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

#152

Post by [deleted] »

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)

[deleted]

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

#153

Post by nerpderp82 »

kwere wrote: post #141
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

People are not underperformers, you can't and shouldn't segment the population across some quantitative boundary. Each individual should learn at a difficulty gradient for them that is positive and engaging for each subject. For everyone this will be a different value.

What you are describing is a form of damaging elitism.

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

#154

Post by fnordpiglet »

latchkey wrote: post #77
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…

> Looking at the history this doesn’t seem abnormal, and it hovers around 49%. Ties in with this data too: https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy ~50% of the entire US is at a 6th-grade reading level. Update: Sorry, I didn't put the hyphen that is in the text of the article. "sixth-grade level"

Ok so grade level is another word for “median.” So saying 50% of students are above or below the median doesn’t really elicit the same reaction as saying “grade level” - presumably they knew this and picked the name and the metric to induce hand wringing.

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

#155

Post by vore »

johnea wrote: post #144
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...

Did you mean to prove your own point like that with your spelling?

Sorry, I couldn't resist the dig. In any case, your own personal feelings without anything to back them up doesn't really help anyone.

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

#156

Post by theGnuMe »

cm2012 wrote: post #103
fatcat500 wrote: post #68

A population of ignorant and illiterate peasants is great for maximizing political capital. They are receptive to propaganda. They are an energetic bloc of voters. They know something is wrong, but are too ineffective to correctly identify the problem, which means politicians will continually entice them with "solutions" that solve nothing but increase the political or financial capital of interested parties. We're h…

You really think the school system is bad because the entire cadre of school administrators are taking secret orders from shadowy politicians to keep kids dumb? I recommend you rethink the logical process that brought you to this conclusion.

It's not the administrators. It is the politicians and some rich donors funding things like banning books, banning sex ed, changing curriculum standards i.e. not teaching about slavery because of political pressure or the threat of prosecution or defunding.

You know, all the stuff that's been in the news for all time as pushed by the conservative agenda?

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

#157

Post by ROTMetro »

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…

Now map this to spending per student.

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

#158

Post by troupe »

lr4444lr wrote: post #107
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…

Grade level education standards are criterion-based, not norm-referenced. That's why kids (used to) get held back to repeat a grade when they failed them.

Right. And if we don't hold them back, it means that 50% of the students in the next grade are going to be holding back the the teachers ability to full help students who were in the top 50%.

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

#159

Post by seafoam »

listless wrote: post #149
HardlyCurious wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is summer gaps. Now how about lockdowns?

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

#160

Post by Balgair »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #42

In our rural public school in NJ, both our kids were routinely socially promoted with B’a and C’s even though they were very below average on State testing. We tried fighting this but the inertia of “do nothing and pass anyway” was too great. When we moved them to private school last year (5th and 9th grade), they had a brutal adjustment period of catching up from being so far behind, and for learning studying habits…

> In our rural public school in NJ

Where in New Jersey is rural now?

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