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Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)

nationsreportcard.gov

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Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)

#31

Post by estearum »

zaphar wrote: post #25
japhyr wrote: post #22

People are talking about Covid, smartphones/screens, social media, and AI. No one has mentioned defunding public education yet. In Alaska, where I lived most of the last 20 years, education has been largely flat funded for about a decade now. Imagine running an organization in 2026 on that organization's 2016 budget. Schools have a bunch of obligations they have to spend on. Every time health care costs for staff go…

If increasing spending had almost no impact over time why would cutting spending have an impact?

If filling a leaky bucket had almost no impact over time, why would stopping filling the bucket have an impact?

Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)

#32

Post by adriand »

shimman wrote: post #24
aggakake wrote: post #21

Look at Youtube Shorts in an incognito window to see the mindless crap that's popular among median users.

Or look at corporations + elites constantly attacking children for the last 40 years (pushing school vouchers, school choices, attacking teacher unions, politicizing school boards). Who do you think suffers when elites attack public education? It's always the children. Fun fact: Silicon Valley elites are big proponents of school vouchers because, like their hatred of American labor, they also hate public schools and…

> Who do you think suffers when elites attack public education? It's always the children.

Exactly. And who benefits from a less educated, less aware populace? The answer is pretty clear: look at who is benefiting right now!

Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)

#33

Post by yoyohello13 »

japhyr wrote: post #22

People are talking about Covid, smartphones/screens, social media, and AI. No one has mentioned defunding public education yet. In Alaska, where I lived most of the last 20 years, education has been largely flat funded for about a decade now. Imagine running an organization in 2026 on that organization's 2016 budget. Schools have a bunch of obligations they have to spend on. Every time health care costs for staff go…

The US has been continuously defunding and deprioritizing education for decades. This is the result of a culture that doesn’t value education.

Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)

#34

Post by tommica »

kpw94 wrote: post #18
godelski wrote: post #7

The peak was in 2012 2012 2020 2023 Reading 263 260 256 Math 285 280 271 So people are looking at Covid and that's probably not enough. The scores are closer to those of the 80's than those in the 90's and 00's

My non-controversial theory: It's all the attention-span-shortening stuff. - tech apps starting with infinite scroll (facebook, 9gag, Instagram, etc.) - media/tech shortened content: shorter tv shows, short video content, etc. (Tiktok is the "state of the art" of those 2 trends pushed to the max) Specifically, we're getting more & more addicted to things that increase the dopamine spikes frequency, making it increasi…

Absolutely, we are feeding kids so much attention-span killing things. Even as an adult I'm having hard time with YouTube shorts, and i cannot imagine a kids brain having the ways to deal with all that.

Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)

#35

Post by cyberax »

japhyr wrote: post #22

People are talking about Covid, smartphones/screens, social media, and AI. No one has mentioned defunding public education yet. In Alaska, where I lived most of the last 20 years, education has been largely flat funded for about a decade now. Imagine running an organization in 2026 on that organization's 2016 budget. Schools have a bunch of obligations they have to spend on. Every time health care costs for staff go…

On the other hand, Seattle school funding has been going up and up. Yet the scores have been trending downwards.

Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)

#36

Post by guzfip »

kpw94 wrote: post #18
godelski wrote: post #7

The peak was in 2012 2012 2020 2023 Reading 263 260 256 Math 285 280 271 So people are looking at Covid and that's probably not enough. The scores are closer to those of the 80's than those in the 90's and 00's

My non-controversial theory: It's all the attention-span-shortening stuff. - tech apps starting with infinite scroll (facebook, 9gag, Instagram, etc.) - media/tech shortened content: shorter tv shows, short video content, etc. (Tiktok is the "state of the art" of those 2 trends pushed to the max) Specifically, we're getting more & more addicted to things that increase the dopamine spikes frequency, making it increasi…

I certainly feel several degrees dumber than I did as a teenager without that stuff

Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)

#37

Post by weberer »

japhyr wrote: post #22

People are talking about Covid, smartphones/screens, social media, and AI. No one has mentioned defunding public education yet. In Alaska, where I lived most of the last 20 years, education has been largely flat funded for about a decade now. Imagine running an organization in 2026 on that organization's 2016 budget. Schools have a bunch of obligations they have to spend on. Every time health care costs for staff go…

>Averaged across the general student population, there was no statistically significant correlation between a school’s spending levels and its students’ academic performance in 27 of the 28 academic indicators used in the model. In the only category that did show a statistically significant correlation — seventh-grade math — the impact of spending more was very small.

https://www.mackinac.org/S2016-02#results

Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)

#38

Post by crabbone »

Being a parent, I ask myself this question: is it worth it to struggle to get my child to try for better grades? And I don't have a definitive answer.

The reasons to doubt are perfectly known: meritocracy is on a decline in the Western world, there's an ever improving safety net for losers, there's a price to pay for forcing my child to study vs the child spending time with their friends who were left to roam free as their social life will suffer.

I probably met more people whose degrees played little to no role in their professional career than the other way around. I've met lots of people who could never realize their degree because of the hollowed down European industry. Engineers seem to suffer the most. It seems like the few ways where a degree can open the door to a better life must be in a field that provides very localized services s.a. medicine. All else is outsourced. Trades do better in this respect as a lot of them need to be local, but they too are being populated by foreign workers and competition is fierce.

I don't think that COVID or any other "force of nature" is to blame for the outcomes. When there's will, there's a way. It's just that fewer parents see academic achievements as worth pursuing for their children.

Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)

#39

Post by jaccola »

aggakake wrote: post #21

Look at Youtube Shorts in an incognito window to see the mindless crap that's popular among median users.

The most common reply to this is: “people said the same about Books/TV/Comics/Games/Facebook stop being such a Luddite”

My answer to this is approximately: “yes they’re all relatively bad compared to the thing that came before so they were all right!”

Even books. If the option were between my child reading about blacksmithing/compsci and DOING blacksmithing/compsci I’d choose the latter every time. It gives you real experience and opinions.

The difference with each successive new wave is that it becomes increasingly addictive. It’s possible to read one book and stop for a while. Shorts can hook you for hours and then draw you back the next day with no natural stopping point.

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