Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

781–790 of 1001 posts

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

#781

Post by 0xTJ »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #755
jmpman wrote: post #693

My son is taking a woodworking class in high school. First week, he came home and I asked him what he was doing in his woodworking class… “Disassembling the library bookcases”. “Why???” “Because they’re getting rid of the library”. Apparently the school board decided to save money by cutting the librarian, and then decided to just move the books out of the school library and into the “nearby” public library. In reali…

[flagged]

Sometimes, you see a take that's so far-removed from any take you've ever heard someone speak that you're not even sure how to interact with the one stating it. This is one of those cases; it sounds like an argument made by a Victorian factory owner in London, angered that children aren't being allowed to work because too many lost an arm last month reaching into the grain mills.

However, trying my best to answer sensibly:

> Every now and again there is an aberration where teachers actually teach something in a public school, but in the US, why take the chance?

You seem to be backing up your argument that a high school education doesn't have value (and shouldn't be funded) by stating that the US has an overall-poor standard of public education. That's a circular argument which doesn't even try to address the reasons that the quality of education is lacking or comment on whether a higher-quality education would have general value. I can't understand your viewpoint that the actual education of students shouldn't be funded, because the quality is already poor. You seem to be ignoring the fact that a well-funded and correctly-motivated (in terms of education, not just which high school can build the most football fields) education system can produce graduates who go on to add extra value to society.

Why should a decent high school education be reserved for the wealthy who can send their kids to private schools?

Also, I'd recommend against including statements like the one that you make in your last paragraph. Saying (paraphrasing) "I'm right, everyone who downvotes my high controversial and unpopular opinion without spending time to reply is an uneducated idiot" is starting from an unconstructive place.

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

#782

Post by OhMeadhbh »

cevn wrote: post #703
jmpman wrote: post #693

My son is taking a woodworking class in high school. First week, he came home and I asked him what he was doing in his woodworking class… “Disassembling the library bookcases”. “Why???” “Because they’re getting rid of the library”. Apparently the school board decided to save money by cutting the librarian, and then decided to just move the books out of the school library and into the “nearby” public library. In reali…

Wow, I spent 90% of my free time as a kid in the school library. Reading this hurts. At least they are protecting them from using their brain

+1. Libraries are about more than just lending out books.

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

#783

Post by fooqux »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #755
jmpman wrote: post #693

My son is taking a woodworking class in high school. First week, he came home and I asked him what he was doing in his woodworking class… “Disassembling the library bookcases”. “Why???” “Because they’re getting rid of the library”. Apparently the school board decided to save money by cutting the librarian, and then decided to just move the books out of the school library and into the “nearby” public library. In reali…

[flagged]

> Looking forward to your down-votes. Instead of arguing, it's much easier to shout and jeer and press the downward facing arrow. I expect nothing less since we haven't taught critical thinking in most public schools for quite some time.

I believe that's uncalled for. If you're looking for a discussion, that's not the way to go about starting it. You're just turning it hostile before it can even begin; what sort of response do you expect from such hostility?

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

#784

Post by crazygringo »

jmpman wrote: post #693

My son is taking a woodworking class in high school. First week, he came home and I asked him what he was doing in his woodworking class… “Disassembling the library bookcases”. “Why???” “Because they’re getting rid of the library”. Apparently the school board decided to save money by cutting the librarian, and then decided to just move the books out of the school library and into the “nearby” public library. In reali…

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but is there still much purpose in a modern high school libraries except as a work/study space?

Elementary school libraries are important because kids can check out books at their reading level and you don't need a huge variety.

But in high school, when I wanted a book for research or recreational reading, 99% of the time my high school library wouldn't have it anyways. You had to go to the public library anyways for decent fiction, and the local college library for non-fiction you would need to cite.

I think it's important to preserve the high school library space for working and the computer access. But I'm just not sure how relevant the actual books are. Especially since public libraries now have e-books, so you don't even have to go there in person if it's inconvenient.

Should maintaining a collection of physical library books really still be the job of high schools, when public libraries will do it better and are open to everyone, not just high schoolers?

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

#785

Post by OhMeadhbh »

fooqux wrote: post #773
sleepyguy wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in North Texas, school districts drop tens of millions on artificial turf for junior high and high school football fields. Some even run bond elections to build stadiums and training facilities that would make an NFL team jealous. Meanwhile, academics sit dead last on the priority list—kids are walking across the stage barely able to read or write. Honestly, if AI came in and torched the whole education system,…

I presume if AI does come in, it won't be replacing those "geniuses running things now". They'll be fine; it's all the teachers who will be replaced. They're expensive, and all that money can go towards more sports!

If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance.

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

#786

Post by ianbicking »

echelon wrote: post #80
stephendause wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jonathan Haidt has a lot of good material on this. He is leading the charge in encouraging parents to delay giving their child a phone until high school and not allowing them to have social media accounts until age 16. https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/family/story/author-sugge...

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.

There were some responses about educational expectations, but I would love to hear how folks in these Asian countries specifically deal with cell phones, social media, and these general media/online distractions.

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

#787

Post by arcfour »

ACCount37 wrote: post #583
lupusreal wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 educ…

But going to jail and getting an education are completely different things...nobody wants to go to jail.

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

#788

Post by ToucanLoucan »

bpt3 wrote: post #771
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most schools here have those too. The problem is in the United States children are treated just a hair better than chattel slaves and their parents can basically do anything they want up to the line of actually killing them, and the state does very little. And, even in the cases where the state should and could do something, the line for those services is incredibly long and the child will be properly fucked up by th…

So the state, which is incompetent/ineffective in your description above, should be given even more power in this situation? Parents in the US don't have any more rights than those elsewhere.

I mean, it's ineffective because it's under-resourced. Child welfare offices and family services in general have been gutted by the politics of austerity in the name of tax cuts and balancing budgets after the aforementioned tax cuts. You can take the best damn engine in the world and if you run it on barely any fuel, you will get barely any power.

I've never understood this pervasive logic in our culture where a government service that's deemed ineffective has it's budgets and staffing cut. How is that supposed to help anything?

And, in regards to the state getting more power; yes but no? I don't think it's a matter of the state needing more power than it has, I think it's a matter of children needing more legal protections for themselves as people. Like it's wild how authoritarian the American system makes parents, whether they desire that power or not. Parents routinely keep their children from going to school because the schools values "don't align" with theirs, but that's not a choice a parent should be making, not really? If a parent is all about that Jesus life and is blessed in whichever way to not really need to function in society, bully for them. That's not necessarily true for their children and they aren't the ones who will suffer the consequences of that choice, their children are but the children largely have no say in the matter until it's FAR too late.

We're the only developed nation that has not signed onto the UN's charter for children to have rights as people themselves as opposed to simply the property of their parents, subject to the whims of people who supposedly have their best interests in mind, but with absolutely zero recourse for that child if that child disagrees with those whims. It's very strange to me that children effectively exist, in the "land of the free," within tiny totalitarian states until such time as they turn a completely arbitrary age, at which point they're expected to be plus or minus functioning adults, with whatever teaching their parents permitted and completed before then, with, in many places, NO oversight whatsoever.

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

#789

Post by OhMeadhbh »

fooqux wrote: post #783
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Looking forward to your down-votes. Instead of arguing, it's much easier to shout and jeer and press the downward facing arrow. I expect nothing less since we haven't taught critical thinking in most public schools for quite some time. I believe that's uncalled for. If you're looking for a discussion, that's not the way to go about starting it. You're just turning it hostile before it can even begin; what sort of r…

[flagged]

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

#790

Post by stetrain »

arcfour wrote: post #770
stetrain wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the case in schools 15+ years ago, but recently a lot have had more problems with parents complaining about teachers taking away their child's phone. Part of it is that phones are more expensive, a $900 iPhone vs a $100 Nokia. Another is (perhaps founded) anxiety about their child needing to have a way to communicate to the outside world in an emergency situation like a school shooting. Also people get used…

> Another is (perhaps founded) anxiety about their child needing to have a way to communicate to the outside world in an emergency situation like a school shooting. Yes, a situation less likely to happen than being struck by lightning. Very founded! Not to mention you can just, I dunno, borrow anyone else's phone and have one or two phone numbers memorized? Assuming if they are in an emergency and alone they are not…

It's rare, but scary, and humans are often bad at judging things that are rare but scary.

I'm not saying it's a good net reason to let kids keep their phones, it's just founded in some real things that have happened in this country, including a famous case where kids were calling/texting parents while police waited for over an hour before entering, while blocking parents who had arrived from entering the school.

Letting kids have their phones isn't an actual solution to that problem, but right now in a lot of places that's the argument each teacher has to have with each parent. It's better for the state, county, etc. to pass an explicit policy about phones in the classroom so teachers can just point to that policy instead of having to rehash the argument with every parent.

Post reply on HN