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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

#171

Post by miningape »

barbazoo wrote: post #113
echelon wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do Asian countries and top-performing countries deal with this? We should do whatever they do. On that note, we should also segregate kids by academic desire and achievement like Japan and China. The bullies and underachievers hold back those who are academically excellent. We do this in limited instances, but not enough to really count.

As someone with difficulties early on in life and thus showing behavioral issues (what you describe as bullies and underachievers), I went through a system like this and I despised it. N=1 but segregating children at early age based on the behavior they're showing, i.e. the difficulties they're having, felt kinda cruel. It worked academically I guess, I ended up ok, but for many it just meant they just simmered in an…

I get it especially with younger ages, but on the other hand if the student is persistently disruptive they should be removed for the sake of the other students. It's also unfair that 1 student hinders the education of 20+ others.

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

#172

Post by estimator7292 »

el_memorioso wrote: post #146
jimt1234 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of the public school system has devolved into day-care, not education. I resisted that narrative for years, thinking it was just a media-hyped scare tactic to get clicks. However, my niece started high school a few weeks ago (in mid-August, which is weird to me); her experience blew my mind. Her new high school is considered one of the better public high schools in the area. When I asked her how it was…

In what state are public high schools allowed to "how to pray"? It sounds like her new high school isn't that good. I have a daughter at a good public high school in California in a quite liberal area. There was none of what you mentioned. One day of reviewing the syllabi and rules and quizzes in most subjects starting less than a week later.

The law is extremely specific about this one, and this is constitutional law that overrules all other laws.

A government institution cannot promote any one religion. It's fine to have a multi-denominational non-secular common worship area. You can also promote religion as a general concept, but not a specific religion.

Whether this rule is followed or enforced properly is an entirely separate problem that we are apparently still grappling with.

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

#174

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

smelendez wrote: post #166
bananalychee wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The level of tolerance for phone use in the classroom in the last decade blows my mind. It would be like letting kids pull out a GameBoy back in the 2000s, which where I was would have it promptly confiscated.

I was thinking about that recently. I don’t anyone ever pulling out a Game Boy in elementary or middle school in the 90s, even though many of us had them at home. It’s not that we all got a lecture about no video games in school. It just very self-evidently wasn’t a place you would play video games. It would be like getting a pizza delivered to you at the doctor’s office. Just absurd. I remember a kid with a Game Gea…

by the time i was in elementary school, it was common enough for geeky kids to have game boys at school. this was the height of the pokemon craze, after all.

not in class, of course, but at lunch and on the bus, it was fair game.

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

#175

Post by hbosch »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #93

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 wa…

>I’m not sure that we ever figured out teaching methodologies that work for all children.

This is a fundamental problem with all learning: it's difficult to get entire group to do something the same way with equal effectiveness... that being said, teaching methods are evolving and it's really on the school system to embrace those changes. My kids are young, and their school teaches math with the Singapore Math system and literacy with the UFLI program. They have both been highly effective.

Their class sizes are also 12:1 students:teacher ratio, and 6:1 in Pre-K/Kindergarten. So that's also probably important.

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

#176

Post by vondur »

estimator7292 wrote: post #170
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…

The core problem is actually twofold: 1. We pay teachers like shit and treat them even worse. Even if you wanted to do a good job as a teacher, it's fundamentally impossible because: 2. Our schools are structured and run by busybodies that have absolutely no business being within 100 yards of a school. Curricula is set by politics and ideology, not established science. We have book bans and helicopter parents suing t…

Where my wife works the average salary is over 100K per year, so not bad for 9 months of work. This is in California where the test scores are some of the worst in the nation. I would not lean too hard at political party affiliation, California politics is heavily influenced by Teachers Unions, and yet we score near the bottom of the entire US.

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

#177

Post by terminalshort »

estimator7292 wrote: post #170
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…

The core problem is actually twofold: 1. We pay teachers like shit and treat them even worse. Even if you wanted to do a good job as a teacher, it's fundamentally impossible because: 2. Our schools are structured and run by busybodies that have absolutely no business being within 100 yards of a school. Curricula is set by politics and ideology, not established science. We have book bans and helicopter parents suing t…

> There's also the intentional and systematic disassembling of our education system by the federal government

Where is your evidence of this? Schools are one of the most locally controlled institutions of our government.

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

#178

Post by terminalshort »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #32
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…

It’s decades of defunding schools. I used to work in education and I have never in my career experienced “more” money coming in. It’s always, cuts, cuts, cuts. That and the culture of anti-intellectualism in the US. I’m completely unsurprised we are falling behind.

Do you have evidence of this? I have never seen a shred of it even though the claim is repeated endlessly. I think it's a conspiracy theory.

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

#179

Post by paulryanrogers »

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.

No?

Most of the parents around me are busy each working a full time job and doing their best to raise their kids.

They now spend some of their free time reading on the phones instead of a newspaper, magazine, or book. Some listen to books while they mow the lawn, clean the house, or do other chores like laundry. They also hang out a mix of kids and parents nearby, both inside and out, in front of bonfires and kitchen tables. RN I'm commenting on HN while my kids and neighbor kids turn dinner into an imaginary cooking show at the table.

Parents around here are also often tending to elderly parents or physically/mentally challenged relatives.

Too few can afford to have one parent stay home fulltime.

Of course there have always been parents neglecting their kids to do anything else: bowling, drinking, partying, traveling, tinkering, obsessively reading, etc. The fact that more activities are behind screens isn't the catch all explanation it's often promoted to be.

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

#180

Post by guelo »

estimator7292 wrote: post #172
el_memorioso wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what state are public high schools allowed to "how to pray"? It sounds like her new high school isn't that good. I have a daughter at a good public high school in California in a quite liberal area. There was none of what you mentioned. One day of reviewing the syllabi and rules and quizzes in most subjects starting less than a week later.

The law is extremely specific about this one, and this is constitutional law that overrules all other laws. A government institution cannot promote any one religion. It's fine to have a multi-denominational non-secular common worship area. You can also promote religion as a general concept, but not a specific religion. Whether this rule is followed or enforced properly is an entirely separate problem that we are appa…

Well our insane Supreme Court ruled a few years ago on a case involving a football coach praying at games that schools are forced to allow religious employees to do their weird religious ceremony at school events.
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