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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

#101

Post by runjake »

- The Pandemic really set that generation of kids back, particularly kids who were in elementary during that time.

- Public school is essentially daycare. They try to integrate special education students more into the regular classrooms, but the teachers end up spending disproportionate time dealing with them and their behavioral issues, which hurts learning for regular students.

- I don't have strong, set in stone opinions about Common Core, but it's approach is certainly hard for parents trying to catch their own children at home. Eg. there is no emphasis on memorizing multiplication tables, but rather it's on learning rather esoteric and hard to remember (albeit valid) math algorithms.

- The teachers are generally poorly trained, poorly motivated, poorly paid, poorly educated, and poorly adapted to teaching students.

- Learning high school math has been enjoyable. I only took up to geometry in high school, but they are doing much more advanced math. I don't know any of it, and they barely do. So it's been fun learning it and then having to teach it to them in the matter of a day or two. Being a programmer has been exceptionally useful in that regard.

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

#102

Post by sp1nningaway »

tptacek wrote: post #78
sp1nningaway wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The thing to do when this happens is to flag the comment, and, if you think it's really bad, mail hn@ycombinator.com. Writing about how the author is a "dumb asshole" is actually counterproductive; please don't do that!

I probably would have just flagged and moved on, but I don't have an enough karma and at the time of my reply I didn't see anyone pushing back against the parent effectively. The parent got flagged and is now dead so the point is moot, but thank you for your level-headed response to me and to others elsewhere in the thread!

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

#103

Post by Scubabear68 »

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 live in the US in New Jersey, and here a big problem was the State flooded school districts with money during Covid with no material oversight of its spending.

The end result was huge increases in spending. But not on education. The money was spent on more MacBooks, more iPads, more buildings, more smart TVs, more consultants, more School Bullshit System as a Service, more scoreboards, more $50,000 signs in front of schools.

Meanwhile the good teachers are fleeing the system and test scores are plummeting as schools focus more on day care and “social justice”, and a declining emphasis on teaching core subjects and learning in general, coupled with social promotion where everybody gets a C or higher, and 80% of the school gets on the honor roll (spoiler alert: our district is not some outlier where 80% of the kids are geniuses).

Schools have very little to do with teaching, and really are just about baby sitting and trying to correct social issues.

Oh, and endless buckets of tax payer money with meaningless oversight.

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

#105

Post by nyc_data_geek1 »

hx8 wrote: post #72
nyc_data_geek1 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>IQ is highly linked to genetics. Citation desperately needed. How can you prove that empirically? What is your methodology for controlling for environmental factors in making that assertion, including factors associated with access to resources, tutors, having a full belly every morning, and not being constantly flooded with stress hormones as a result of grappling with the daily reality of living in poverty?

I don't want to come off as supporting the grandparent comment, but ultimately there is at least some degree of heritability of IQ [0]. US IQ also seemed to have peaked in the 1990s [1]. It's quite a leap to claim that immigration is the cause of the US IQ decline. The best explanations seem to be that it's environmental [2]. The general decline in IQ is impacting several countries. 0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He…

You know what else is heritable? Wealth, the possession of which tends to help with standardized test scores.

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

#106

Post by bpt3 »

josefritzishere wrote: post #96

I have thought that The "Mississippi Miracle" was a successful model for what could be done in other areas in other states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Miracle

It is, and it shouldn't be surprising that introducing or increasing the amount of rigor in education improves outcomes. But that flies in the face of educational trends in the US overall, so adoption is slow.

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

#107

Post by cpursley »

throwway120385 wrote: post #60
chabons wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm missing something. What change in demographics are we talking about, and why would that influence math results?

I don't intend this as a dig against Spanish-speaking students. But many school systems in the US have tons of Spanish-speaking students who know very little English. But all of the homework, readings, and classroom instruction are given in English. If you don't know the language of instruction then it puts you at an immediate disadvantage. This might be what they're referring to.

Even second generation Latin American folks who speak English fine often perform poorly. It's cultural but we're not supposed to talk about it. Saw a lot of it first hand via the family business; it's truly bewildering and even disheartening.

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

#108

Post by jimt1234 »

Nicook wrote: post #53
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?

It does. I went down a rabbit hole for this once and yes children of immigrants underperform for math and reading testing v immigrant groups. Can go dig up the .gov links assuming they didnt go away

Every immigrant I've known that's around my age has told me basically the same story. When they came to the US as a child, and got put into public school, they struggled with reading (they could barely speak English, much less read it), but they excelled at math. I've heard this from people born in China, Taiwan, Mexico, Iraq, Iran, Japan, etc.

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

#109

Post by VirusNewbie »

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

Citation? I've routinely seen statistics suggesting the opposite, that parents are moreI involved with their children in the modern time and more likely to play and engage with children.

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

#110

Post by peterfirefly »

hungmung wrote: post #92
AlwaysRock wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[flagged]
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