Middle schoolers' reading and math scores plummet
1–10 of 29 posts
Re: Middle schoolers' reading and math scores plummet
#2This is devastating. Whatever you think about covid lockdowns and remote education, it's clear that something drastic has happened. The question is... is there anything we can do to fix it? I'd hate to be a high school teacher right now.
Also, I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of graphs in the article. The actual report has some illustrative ones: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
Re: Middle schoolers' reading and math scores plummet
#3This is devastating. Whatever you think about covid lockdowns and remote education, it's clear that something drastic has happened. The question is... is there anything we can do to fix it? I'd hate to be a high school teacher right now. Also, I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of graphs in the article. The actual report has some illustrative ones: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
Re: Middle schoolers' reading and math scores plummet
#4This is devastating. Whatever you think about covid lockdowns and remote education, it's clear that something drastic has happened. The question is... is there anything we can do to fix it? I'd hate to be a high school teacher right now. Also, I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of graphs in the article. The actual report has some illustrative ones: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
Disempower the administrators and parents that won't let teachers do their jobs. Vote for school district officials and attend meetings and question why they won't let teachers dictate policy as opposed to administrators, standards-makers, or boards that don't have teaching experience or no longer teach.
Re: Middle schoolers' reading and math scores plummet
#5With what I know from watching this shit-show up close with my own kids, this is no surprise. Kids essentially learned nothing during those years aside from what we as parents provided them. We were fortunate enough to be able to hire an aide to work with our kids during the school hours.
There are many unknowns. Especially with younger kids who missed out on social interaction during key developmental windows (4-6 years old).
The knee-jerk fears around covid were so, so foolish. So little regard for all the externalities, and the true devistation to communities that lock-down created.
Re: Middle schoolers' reading and math scores plummet
#6Apart from the effects of the disastrous consequences of a largely pointless lockdown, the education system is and has been failing to educate in the true sense of the word for some time
I have always been dismayed by the overemphasis on funding at many educational institutions. "We need all this equipment! We need this, we need that!" As far as equipment is concerned, a good, true education is not that expensive. A lot of what is emphasized today boils down to frills and bells and whistles while the core of what is important is neglected.
This is one reason why classical schools are popping up all over the place that are inspired by the trivium and quadrivium and updated accordingly. They are also cheap.
The education industry is shot through with grift.
Re: Middle schoolers' reading and math scores plummet
#7This is devastating. Whatever you think about covid lockdowns and remote education, it's clear that something drastic has happened. The question is... is there anything we can do to fix it? I'd hate to be a high school teacher right now. Also, I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of graphs in the article. The actual report has some illustrative ones: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
Having kids and knowing parents of younger kids, I have thought about it and do have an idea. If a kid is doing great, their path remains the same. If they are lagging behind: make one monolithic math course that everyone enrolls in. Institute mentoring. The older kids help the younger. Remove any negative consequences of just trying (that is to say no one will fail)- use only positive incentives. Maybe a scholarship fund for kids who help others.
Remote school was a disaster for younger kids. All schools- public or private- are bureaucracies with rigid hierarchies. The pandemic showed the cracks in many social institutions. Schools were no exception. With a more horizontal and open structure, schools could have responded more flexibly.
Also there should have been a massive social safety net similar to the Great Depression supporting families AND businesses during the worst of it so parents could just be with their families.
In a vertical market-based Capitalist social structure, there just is very little wiggle room and the system fights like hell to maintain its own homeostasis.
A pandemic is classic example of a situation that would benefit from Capitalism stepping aside and let Socialism handle the hard stuff during the crisis- until Capitalism can step back in. It doesn't have to be binary. To not embrace this kind of flexibility is like building a structure in an earthquake zone with no provision for movement. It's going to fail during times of stress.
Re: Middle schoolers' reading and math scores plummet
#8This is devastating. Whatever you think about covid lockdowns and remote education, it's clear that something drastic has happened. The question is... is there anything we can do to fix it? I'd hate to be a high school teacher right now. Also, I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of graphs in the article. The actual report has some illustrative ones: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
Disempower the administrators and parents that won't let teachers do their jobs. Vote for school district officials and attend meetings and question why they won't let teachers dictate policy as opposed to administrators, standards-makers, or boards that don't have teaching experience or no longer teach.
Do you have an example of parents interfering in teachers ability to do their jobs?
Re: Middle schoolers' reading and math scores plummet
#9This is devastating. Whatever you think about covid lockdowns and remote education, it's clear that something drastic has happened. The question is... is there anything we can do to fix it? I'd hate to be a high school teacher right now. Also, I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of graphs in the article. The actual report has some illustrative ones: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
Disempower the administrators and parents that won't let teachers do their jobs. Vote for school district officials and attend meetings and question why they won't let teachers dictate policy as opposed to administrators, standards-makers, or boards that don't have teaching experience or no longer teach.
The administration today is about as untrustworthy as it gets, having become a vector of ideology. Parents are responsible for their children, and their primary teachers, not administrators, not teachers, and so they have more than just a say, but the deciding say; all other authority are deputized. I seriously doubt that parents are the primary reason for the mediocrity of education standards, but even if they were, it is parents that must be convinced that a curriculum is good. This is non-negotiable.
There are also plenty of counterexamples of parents, fed up with the poor quality of the savage factory that is the public school, coming together to form new private schools that surpass the standards of public education. These parents may not be representative, perhaps, but laying the blame at the feet of parents while valorizing administration, I claim, doesn't reflect reality adequately and certainly not constructively. In general, I am favor of more school choice and local initiative which would free parents to pursue models of excellence that could then be copied by other parents and even public schools (fat chance).
Re: Middle schoolers' reading and math scores plummet
#10Apart from the effects of the disastrous consequences of a largely pointless lockdown, the education system is and has been failing to educate in the true sense of the word for some time I have always been dismayed by the overemphasis on funding at many educational institutions. "We need all this equipment! We need this, we need that!" As far as equipment is concerned, a good, true education is not that expensive. A…
>largely pointless lockdown
I think you forgot about the whole "pandemic" thing that happened