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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

#161

Post by becquerel »

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.

You don't need conspiracy when you have hegemony.

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

#162

Post by cm2012 »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #142
cm2012 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I am using an absolute "grade level" for the average NYC student in general, as decided by whoever sets grade level for NYC, compared to the two schools here (which are above and below that level respectively).

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

#163

Post by gibsonf1 »

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.

Perhaps a graph of this metric over time will help in understanding where things are headed. The moment choice is added, in that parents can choose where to send their kids, the schools will have no choice but to improve or fail.

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

#164

Post by preommr »

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.

Because school isn't about maximizing education; it's a daycare so that parents can work and children can come out with a uniform education that will suffice to do basic things in society like read/write/taxes etc.

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

#165

Post by fnordpiglet »

troupe wrote: post #126
cm2012 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Some schools being above grade level has nothing to do with teaching methodology, and everything to do with student composition While I mostly agree, we shouldn't underestimate the destruction that can be wrought by a bad teacher.

I’d also note that teacher quality probably correlated heavily to funding and “lack of social challenges” in the student body. Schools with worse parental education attainment levels, higher poverty rates, discriminated against classes and other demographics, kids exposed to more social ills, etc will lead to worse teachers picking that as their job opportunity. Why? Because most people prefer a job that’s not extraordinarily difficult in ways they’re not compelled by. There will always be a set of teachers that are compelled to be a great teacher AND a great social worker, but you have to expect that joint distribution is pretty small relative to the staffing needs.

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

#166

Post by yamtaddle »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #139
WalterBright wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Last time this same exchange (involving the same poster) happened on here, it came out that of course there'd have to be a bunch more nuance than just "pay teachers a bonus for having more kids end the year on-grade-level". Which, yes, obviously there would. That was acknowledged.

But, of course, the real wrinkle is that that system, with much of that extra nuance, is what's already in use. No bonuses to teachers for doing well but teachers and admin are definitely very concerned about meeting or exceeding those targets, because there are consequences if they don't. It's literally already how we evaluate schools and teachers, and it's very much on educators' and administrators' minds.

Meanwhile, the actual way for a capable teacher to earn a bonus is... to leave teaching for something that pays better. The more bullshit process and microscope-level evaluation we apply, the more will follow that incentive, and the worse the teacher labor pool gets. If this "bonus" isn't a solid $20k/yr or more, it's not gonna keep them around, especially if we make their jobs & work environment any more annoying and abusive than they already are.

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

#167

Post by Scubabear68 »

thebooktocome wrote: post #89
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…

Teachers’ unions are basically ineffective outside of large liberal cities (NYC, Chicago, Seattle). Their ability to “protect lousy teachers”, as you put it, has already been gutted. As a side-effect, they’re also now incapable of retaining exceptional teachers.

Counter example, n=1. We are in one of the smallest school districts in NJ, "out in the sticks" as it were. The teacher's union is extremely powerful here. Everybody - and I mean everybody - knows who the bad teachers are. Nothing at all can be done get them to improve or to exit.

When parents come in talking about issues, the teachers all put up a wall of educational verbiage and jargon that is impenetrable, but the jargon is designed to make the administration look the other way. Use the magic code words in a meeting and you're OK.

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

#168

Post by kcb »

Balgair wrote: post #160
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?

Most of it. Go an hour to the west of NYC.

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

#169

Post by fnordpiglet »

peterfirefly wrote: post #115
zozbot234 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "good students attract good teachers" factor is also why tracking is a terrible idea. It means that students who have "tracked" lower at any point in their schooling are then stuck with the worst quality teachers and cannot catch up to average standards.

Does it help a struggling student if the teaching is 1) too fast and 2) based on things the student hasn't learned in previous years? Of course tracking is a good idea.

Conversely a teacher teaching below a students ability is going to drive the student out of the classroom. I was egalitarianly not tracked and I barely graduated school because I was so bored I checked out in the 6th grade, yet got summa cum laude at one of the worlds most difficult engineering programs.
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