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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

#581

Post by Tarq0n »

JohnMakin wrote: post #570
poemxo wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't appreciate reading anecdata in response to cited findings. It cheapens the discussion. Now everyone is going to spend time writing knee-jerk responses to you. At least the parent commenter had the grace to reply with another source instead of falling for it.

The parent commenter’s “source” makes no claims about race related performance whatsoever - it measures by just about everything but that, and then sorts by country. So maybe this is one of those darned reflexive knee jerk responses.

Pages 16, 32, 50 and 62 have breakdowns of mean score by ethnicity actually.

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

#582

Post by Fraterkes »

scherlock wrote: post #575
Fraterkes wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first point is a favorite of a lot of people, but doesn’t make a lot of sense to me: how is your generation with the ostensibly correct culture producing a generation with the wrong culture? Parents are apparently raising their children wrong en masse, so was the parents’ generation rotten too? Which raises questions about the character of the generation that raised the parents…

I think social norms in child rearing have changed drastically, though I think, at least in my neighborhood, they are swinging back. Growing up in the 80s, I remember having a lot of free time and autonomy. I had soccer or baseballaybe twice a week and guitar lessons once a week, but the other days, I was doing what I wanted, I was expected to get my homework done, but once that was done,I was free to roam the neighb…

I think this just kinda sounds like a retroactive rationalization if I’m honest. Imagine if the order was reversed: if you had filled your childhood with mandatory activities and todays kids were mostly left to do what they want.

Wouldn’t you just say “When I was young we were forced to adhere to a tight schedule which taught us to be dependable. Todays kids are allowed to do what they want, which means they never learn any responsibility.”

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

#583

Post by ACCount37 »

lupusreal wrote: post #561
weitendorf wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The racial achievement gap is probably one of the most significant problems educators in the US think about. I think one of the biggest obstacles to improving it (not causing the problem, but making solutions difficult or ineffective) is that low-performing urban school districts tend to correlate strongly with strong teachers' unions and big, mismanaged school administrations where things are too bureaucratic and in…

There is no shortage of young naive newly minted teachers who are eager to go into those low performing urban schools and help turn things around. But very few of them last more than a few years in those schools, they get badly burned by reality. The ones who last almost inevitably become callused and bitter, having lost all of the hope they had at the start. The biggest problem with those schools is the students the…

Hell no. Making attendance optional sacrifices way too much.

It's like reducing incarceration rates by never jailing people for anything short of murder. Sure, it improves on that one metric. Obviously. But the adverse effects elsewhere make it a nonstarter.

If you could trust self-selection to only ever stop the "lost causes" from attending? The absolute worst, most disruptive, least likely to ever benefit from education students? Then maybe.

But in practice, for every student like this there would be ten more who would benefit from school education if they attended, but wouldn't attend if it was optional.

And for those missing students, the difference between getting the classes and being left to their own devices might be the difference between becoming functioning adults, low in income but stable, and being locked in a vicious cycle of poverty, substance abuse, violence and crime.

Which is bad for the students in question, and even worse for the society.

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

#584

Post by [deleted] »

zdragnar wrote: post #439
rayiner wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that “culture” explanation is that white kids in America do fine in international educational comparisons. In the 2018 PISA assessment, 15 year old white american students were near the top in reading (behind only Singapore and some Chinese SEZs) and in the top echelon in science (comparable to Japan). Their weakest performance was math, where they’re around the middle, behind the top asian countries…

Skin color isn't it, actually. I knew (second hand) a teacher in a rural area of a low population state. All white kids, she'd have kindergartners cussing her out. Very little hope for any academic future for the other grades as things didn't get better with the older kids. I knew a white kid who lived in a trailer park whose mom was upset he was getting tutoring after school for his dyslexia because she told him he'…

[deleted]

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

#585

Post by heresie-dabord »

tenarchits wrote: post #198

Most of the comments are focused on the supply of education. But I don't think the supply side is the problem, irrespective of teachers and high schools. There is more and cheaper education available than ever before. Nearly every highschooler has more access to learning that kings and emperors would have fought wars for less than 200 years ago. However,the United States, particularly in the last 50 years, seems to h…

> seems to have a culture averse to education

Nay, not "seems", but has indeed subverted education. Hofstadter's Pulitzer-winning book was published 62 years ago [0] and now, in 2025, even the highest office is unrecognisable.

[0] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism_in_Americ...

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

#586

Post by Fraterkes »

ipnon wrote: post #380
mherkender wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess your teachers failed you, since that's a hasty generalization (your experience isn't universal) and a non sequitur (defunding public schools wouldn't address the problem of poor schooling).

It's hard to talk about public education on HN because so many people posting here live in exclusive and expensive Bay Area communities with some of the best public schools in the world.

It’s hard to argue a point when the people you are arguing with have lived experience that contradicts your point yeah

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

#588

Post by clejack »

benmw333 wrote: post #199

When I think of all my teachers I had throughout K-12 public school, not one of them stands out as having meaningfully impacted my life. In fact I would argue many of them were a net negative to my learning achievements (or lack thereof). So yeah, defund public schools as much as possible. That will get my vote.

I was happily lurking until I saw this astounding response.

"Every relationship with {men|women} I've been in has been bad, so romance is obviously worthless."

"My neighbors dog always barks at me, I didn't get why anyone likes dogs."

"I've had a bad experience with ${race} so I really wish we could get rid of them."

"I caught the flu, and it didn't kill me. I don't get why people are always worried about it."

"I've never worn a seatbelt, and I'm still alive. They're a waste of time."

"School was a bad experience for me personally, so best to get rid of it"

Are you serious right now?

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

#589

Post by lr4444lr »

rayiner wrote: post #329
tenarchits wrote: post #198

Most of the comments are focused on the supply of education. But I don't think the supply side is the problem, irrespective of teachers and high schools. There is more and cheaper education available than ever before. Nearly every highschooler has more access to learning that kings and emperors would have fought wars for less than 200 years ago. However,the United States, particularly in the last 50 years, seems to h…

The problem with that “culture” explanation is that white kids in America do fine in international educational comparisons. In the 2018 PISA assessment, 15 year old white american students were near the top in reading (behind only Singapore and some Chinese SEZs) and in the top echelon in science (comparable to Japan). Their weakest performance was math, where they’re around the middle, behind the top asian countries…

All this demonstrates is that outcomes are not uniform, not that the culture explanation is necessarily wrong.

Schools in many urban districts where we see this same disparity control for teacher qualifications and per pupil student funding. In fact, various anti-poverty measures and intensive interventions on low performing schools even tip the scale in their favor on thr "supply" side.

Education isn't just something "delivered" like manufactured product; it is something that had to be properly received and used.

We have to start asking some better questions to uncover what's going on, and they will be a lot tougher to quantify.

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

#590

Post by ransom1538 »

Lol. Any parent immediately knows. iPhone. Just passive entertainment and sweet sweet dopamine hits. Nothing else for 12 hours a day + both days on the weekend. This also decreases the kids ability to ask questions, go outside, meet people.

The problem is obvious. I don't think people will admit the problem - so this is the new normal.

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