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US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

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Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#91

Post by koolba »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #49
drivebyhooting wrote: post #27

Just looking at the picture triggered me. Why are the students sitting in groups and cutting paper with scissors? There’s a huge teaching gap between USA and Asia. See for yourself: https://youtu.be/wIyVYCuPxl0?si=f6wFv2G3Iru7QFTy https://en.wikipedia-on-ipfs.org/wiki/James_W._Stigler Edit: since it may not have been clear from the video, this is my interpretation: * in the Japanese math class the teacher teaches at…

I think this is because Asian governments want their populations to more educated and American governments want their populations to be less educated. For the former I'd guess its because they have very strong control on people's behaviors so they just want them more capable to innovate, grow economy, etc. For the latter I'd guess its because they fear a more educated population will be harder to manipulate and hence…

> I think this is because Asian governments want their populations to more educated and American governments want their populations to be less educated.

On the American side it’s not that they want people to be less educated. It’s the adversarial system of education being run by people whose interests are not aligned with students excelling.

Teacher’s unions, which predominantly exist in the public school system, are not in the business of educating children. They’re in the business of raising costs (their salaries and benefits) and lowering requirements (the work they actually have to do). They’re against measuring progress. They’re against firing for lack of progress.

Compare that to a private system where you only stay employed if you’re actually doing a good job of educating kids. There’s also the advantage of private schools being able to fire their students, but that’s more of an anti-disruption thing.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#92

Post by hungmung »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #57
lucideng wrote: post #33

The majority of the public school system has devolved into day-care, not education. Most parents just watch TV, stare at their phones and don't want to be bothered by anything that requires effort. A major societal shift needs to happen for this to be reversed. It's many factors... the parents, the food system, various inequalities, social media, technology, healthcare... the solution is multi-pronged. But if I had t…

> Most parents just watch TV, stare at their phones and don't want to be bothered by anything that requires effort The point is that students are doing worse, even though ^ is likely true today just like it was true 5, 10, and 20 years ago.

The generation raised by iPads are in HS now and American IQ tests scores are in decline, especially in the last 10-15 years.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#93

Post by cosmic_cheese »

Education in the US as a whole may be on the decline, but for math specifically I’m not sure that we ever figured out teaching methodologies that work for all children. Every math teacher I’ve ever had was very theory-minded and could barely understand students who weren’t — those who learn through practical example and hands-on activity for instance usually get left in the dust.

Reading teaching on the other hand was for the most part figured out a long time ago but trendy experimental methods keep getting cycled regardless.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#94

Post by bpt3 »

jjice wrote: post #2

Curious what the causes are and how their weighted. Seems like it'd be too complex to actually figure out what's causing the most damage, but it's very interesting. There are so many factors I'd argue are probably negatives: - Always online phone access (and everything that comes with it) - Generative AI for doing assignments without thought - The COVID year or two that they had to learn from home couldn't have helpe…

To add to your list, in my kids' school district, they spent about 4 - 5 years trying to compensate for kids who didn't do well during COVID by basically slowing every class down to the pace of the kid who struggled the most.

Combine this with an emphasis on single-tracking students and a de-emphasis of grading in general, and it's not surprising to me that scores are declining.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#95

Post by bityard »

lenerdenator wrote: post #69
mrandish wrote: post #58

There's a longer trend but also a clear inflection point around the rise of mobile phones and social media. N=1 but we delayed getting a phone for our kid until a few months after she turned 13, which was a good choice because now we wish we'd gone longer. We can see how social media and app snacking clearly have negative effects on attention span, attitude, etc. Also choosing to close schools during COVID was as cat…

We're seeing more districts ban cell phones in the classroom. It makes sense; in my day, the most you could do is text and play Tetris. We didn't have apps that were weaponized to capture our attention and memory like the kids do now. People keep talking about how catastrophic it was to close schools during COVID. We keep having catastrophes and no one does anything about it. If the kids missed school, make them go b…

It's weird to me that cell phones in the classroom is even controversial. When I was in school, some kids had Walkmans, CD players, and game boys. You could bring them to school but they weren't allowed in the classroom without prior approval. In class, you were expected to pay attention to the teacher, even if you didn't want to. If you got caught with a device instead of listening, the teacher simply took it away until after class. If you kept bringing it in, you'd lose it until the end of the week, semester, or school year.

This doesn't seem to be a thing anymore, and there probably multiple sad reasons why.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#97

Post by bad_haircut72 »

jihadjihad wrote: post #82
jf22 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any study or evidence supports that MOST parents "watch TV, stare at their phones and don't want to be bothered by anything that requires effort?" This is a common trope but I've never seen any evidence.

Go to any park/playground sometime and observe the benches. Go to any sports field/venue and observe the bleachers. What you find may astound you, even if the percentage isn't literally 50%+.

Taking your kid to a playground is a parents chance to get a break! Everyone judges parents constantly and blames them for everything, parents in general are doing their best.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#98

Post by quotemstr »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #13

I know we’re not supposed to think about this, but is this controlled for region of origin? That has been changing, and so if that impacts school performance (schools designed by westerners, mind you, in a societal model designed by the same), then we would expect this to change as well right?

> not supposed to think about this

Not supposed to think about it according to whom? Who's telling you that? Why are you listening to him?

The US has some of the best public schools in the world. The US also tops the world on spending per student, especially in poorly performing areas. The education crisis disappears when you control for demographics.

It's right to notice that and remains right no matter how much pushback you get from people who've been pushing the same broken solutions for 50 years.

Congratulations for adopting an independent perspective here. We need more of you.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#99

Post by AnimalMuppet »

lucideng wrote: post #33

The majority of the public school system has devolved into day-care, not education. Most parents just watch TV, stare at their phones and don't want to be bothered by anything that requires effort. A major societal shift needs to happen for this to be reversed. It's many factors... the parents, the food system, various inequalities, social media, technology, healthcare... the solution is multi-pronged. But if I had t…

I think the root of the problem is that education is no longer seen as a fundamental foundation to a better life. Kids aren't doing well because kids don't care. They don't care because their parents don't care.

Why don't they care? I think for many, they have given up any hope that a better life is possible. So education isn't the key, because nothing is the key, because the door doesn't even exist.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#100

Post by username332211 »

weweersdfsd wrote: post #21
bee_rider wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It started in 2013. If we have to blame technology, social media seems more likely than AI, I guess.

Social media AND smartphones became popular around that time. I think it's the toxic combination that's the worst - easy, low effort dopamine hits that are available everywhere via your phone, whenever you are bored.

In 2013 social media was still a textual medium, right? There was Vine, but that died pretty quickly, from what I remember.

If social media and smartphones are the problem, I would have expected that results for English proficiency would be steady until the advent of TikTok, right?

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