Youth today are ungrateful; they contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble their food, and tyrannise their teachers.
Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)
101–110 of 320 posts
Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)
#102People 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…
Covid, smartphones/screens, social media, AI have an enormous impact on the students. A slight school defunding (if it really exists, which I doubt) cannot compare.
Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
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The pension issue has nothing to do with private schooling one way or the other so I don't know what point you're trying to make.
Well surely corruption would be orders of magnitude worse under private management yea? Or are we pretending that schools trade on a competitive market, and that the US is a place that distributes money rationally? Cuz all evidence points towards privatization as a graft vector
Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worth pointing out that wages in the US are vast compared to other developed countries, though, too. We outspend OECD by 35-40%, but our average national wage is also higher than OECD by 35-40%.
Labor compensation in the U.S. is also extremely unequal, which pulls the average up in a way that isn't very informative as to this particular issue. The average starving PhD would be a much better and more knowledgeable teacher to high school students in the subject she took her PhD in, than the typical high school teacher with nothing more than an Education credential. Are you sure that you need to pay such high w…
PhD holders are, on average, not starving. Some of them could make good primary/secondary school teachers, but knowing how to teach children effectively is a skill by itself. It's quite different from working as a college instructor. That's why earning an teaching credential is important (although the quality of some teacher training programs is terrible).
Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Labor compensation in the U.S. is also extremely unequal, which pulls the average up in a way that isn't very informative as to this particular issue. The average starving PhD would be a much better and more knowledgeable teacher to high school students in the subject she took her PhD in, than the typical high school teacher with nothing more than an Education credential. Are you sure that you need to pay such high w…
Here in my state teachers in good districts start at $60,000 per year and see minimal increases due to length of service; after 20 years they might be making $75,000 per year. You ever done the math on living on $60k per year? Hard to do a lot besides support youself on that income. I note that surrounding states (even higher cost states) have lower salaries. Teachers get paid peanuts.
That's not so low when you account for the fact that school is not in session during summer, and teachers get these months off.
Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)
#106Everyone is going to name their pet bugaboo, but if you look at the full charts, the scores were pretty stable in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and are regressing back down to what they were historically. The real question is why they went up temporarily until 2012.
Few people know this, but it turns out a major bipartisan education reform bill was passed in the early 2000’s.
Constituencies of both parties found reasons to hate it, so its foundational accountability requirements were watered down by succeeding administrations.
I’m perfectly willing to be convinced NCLB had nothing to do with the evolution of test scores over the last 25 years, but the circumstantial evidence is not easy to dismiss.
Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)
#107We might be entering an era when literacy and math are no longer required by most of the populace. Have you seen these kids do google searches? They just use the voice recognition feature on their phone (yes, they have phones at twelve years old, for some reason) and ask google for what they want. Handwriting is already out the window, what if reading and writing are next? If they can have AIs explain everything to them verbally what do they need to read for?
I don't want to envision a future where most people besides a few elite have stopped reading and writing but maybe I'm just an old millennial and behind the times.
Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)
#108The 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
Demographic change is the obvious explanation.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Anecdotally all the kids these days seem equally messed up. It could be that the Chinese and Indian kids are propping up the locals.
Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Labor compensation in the U.S. is also extremely unequal, which pulls the average up in a way that isn't very informative as to this particular issue. The average starving PhD would be a much better and more knowledgeable teacher to high school students in the subject she took her PhD in, than the typical high school teacher with nothing more than an Education credential. Are you sure that you need to pay such high w…
Here in my state teachers in good districts start at $60,000 per year and see minimal increases due to length of service; after 20 years they might be making $75,000 per year. You ever done the math on living on $60k per year? Hard to do a lot besides support youself on that income. I note that surrounding states (even higher cost states) have lower salaries. Teachers get paid peanuts.
It depends a lot on the state. Some actually do pay alright. Some pay terribly (and may have serious issues finding enough staff, as a result).
Unions are similar. People cry about them being a huge problem, but they have effectively no power (as in: don't even collectively bargain for contracts) in lots of states, including many of the ones with poor school performance. In other states, they really do have quite a bit of power.
Re: Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023)
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