US High school students' scores fall in reading and math • Hacker News Board

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

#641

Post by empath75 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 12:58 PM UTC

programjames wrote: post #283

The core problem is actually very simple. Education studies do not measure what they claim to measure. When they say, "education outcomes improve when..." they usually mean the pass rate, i.e. they only measured a signal among the bottom 20% of students. When they say, "test scores improve when..." they are, at best, measuring up to the 90th percentile. When they say, "the white/black attainment gap," or "socioeconom…

Test scores do not measure directly what they purport to measure. They are a proxy, and when you have a system designed to optimize for a proxy of the thing you want to improve, then the system will always find ways to exploit the difference between the proxy and the underlying thing.

You can call it "juking the stats" or "overfitting", or whatever.

https://sohl-dickstein.github.io/2022/11/06/strong-Goodhart....

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

#642

Post by buellerbueller » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 12:59 PM UTC

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #576

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.

Whose to say "cited findings" have any more value than "anecdata". The institutions that build these national and international statistics do so with bias and goals, or without complete data. For example, how can a bureau make a national statistics on crime accurate when cities intentional report crime incorrectly to look better in statistics. To think "cited findings" is gospel truth is naive. I know it's highly des…

Then argue the methodology and data; anecdotes are great tools for sharing narratives, but a narrative based on bad data doesn't help anyone achieve good outcomes.

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

#643

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 12:59 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #523

diogenescynic wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the biggest factors comes down to single parent vs intact families.

Sweden has the highest proportion of single-parent households at 34% whereas Poland is near the bottom at 9% [1]. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/e...

One possible synthesis is that the high incomes in Sweden make up for the high number of single-parent households.

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

#644

Post by tomrod » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 12:59 PM UTC

poemxo wrote: post #549

zdragnar wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

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.

I disagree. Were this an academic symposium I would agree. But this is the internet where folks who know how to establish causality and understand research methods and proper citing are uncommon. Fortunately, I do appreciate the author's thought and contribtions to observation data, and, tongue in cheek, as a utility monster my appreciation more than negates your lack of appreciation.

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

#645

Post by Yossarrian22 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:00 PM UTC

ars wrote: post #316

doritosfan84 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Republican promoted and implemented No Child Left Behind though? Maybe I’m misunderstanding your point.

My point is that Democrats are implementing it by making classes worse for everyone. Republican states aren't doing that. It's not the concept of No Child Left Behind that is bad, it's the implementation (and it's used as a reason to worsen classes).

Those states are declining too

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

#646

Post by Yossarrian22 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:02 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #425

OccamsMirror wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the purpose of life purely to seek a monetary return on investment?

Is the purpose of theoretical physics purely to seek mathematical innovations with no connection to objective reality?

Define objective

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

#647

Post by empath75 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:02 PM UTC

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 went to a private school and then a public school. All of my private school teachers were worse than the public school teachers, without exception.

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

#648

Post by tbrownaw » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:04 PM UTC

poemxo wrote: post #549

zdragnar wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

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.

> I don't appreciate reading anecdata in response to cited findings. It cheapens the discussion.

So does the linked PDF address this proposed "hopelessness" factor, or is it that once someone cites something the discussion becomes restricted to only things that have published study results?

Also, if someone were to cite https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5094 on the effectiveness of parachutes, are other commenters then forbidden from citing anecdata that disagree with the findings?

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

#649

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:06 PM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #605

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…

Wow it's almost like racism is systemic. It's pretty wild how you can show lower achievement scores for any countries definition of "black" while changing who belongs in that group. For instance, Italians were considered black in the early 1900s and wouldn't you know it, there was an achievement discrepancy for Italians so long as that definition held. Or you can look at apartheid and post apartheid South Africa - wh…

[deleted]

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

#650

Post by empath75 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 1:06 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #230

Nearly half of kids aren’t being raised with their parents in the home. This was rare 50 years ago, and all the research shows that home dynamics matters the most. Education spending has shot up per student because people think it will solve cultural ills.

> Nearly half of kids aren’t being raised with their parents in the home. This was rare 50 years ago, and all the research shows that home dynamics matters the most.

Every thread about something like this is full of people just blaming it on whatever social trend annoys them personally.

But also this statistic is absolute bullshit. 71% of kids in the US have two parents at home, and the number is going up.