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Oregon raised spending by 80%, math scores dropped

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Re: Oregon raised spending by 80%, math scores dropped

#111

Post by throw0101c »

guywithahat wrote: post #45
scrubs wrote: post #18

Good grief! The bush admin tried to getting better scores by standard testing ... as a scheme in some ways by-pass local control by trading improvement for cash or removing cash. Mixed results. There's whining about standard testing .. . There's whining without it too. But states brought that on themselves. I raised two boys one a plain-joe kid, one with special needs. The older, regular kid got into and out of unive…

I was in school in Wisconsin when they got rid of the teachers union; schooling improved drastically. We had a physics teacher who went years refusing to write AP level physics courses when it was a union job, but suddenly found the motivation once the union left. Most substantially, at the state level the governor passed course options, which allowed high school students to take courses at local universities or othe…

> I was in school in Wisconsin when they got rid of the teachers union; schooling improved drastically.

[citation needed]

There are all sorts of folks saying all sorts of things on the topic. Right wing publications have said it's been great:

* https://www.city-journal.org/article/wisconsin-act-10-consti...

Others are saying it reduced test scores:

* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02727...

Re: Oregon raised spending by 80%, math scores dropped

#112

Post by simonsarris »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #39
scrubs wrote: post #18

Good grief! The bush admin tried to getting better scores by standard testing ... as a scheme in some ways by-pass local control by trading improvement for cash or removing cash. Mixed results. There's whining about standard testing .. . There's whining without it too. But states brought that on themselves. I raised two boys one a plain-joe kid, one with special needs. The older, regular kid got into and out of unive…

> - pay teachers more with commensurate increase in accountability. (You can't have only one.) I would bet 90% of the problem is the attitude towards learning at home and among the peer group, who also get their attitudes from home. Doesn’t seem effective or fair to hold teachers accountable for that.

Maybe, but then do we really need teachers with special degrees and other credentials that drive up cost for them and us? Maybe we can find a way to make education much cheaper if we're going to admit its limitations.

Re: Oregon raised spending by 80%, math scores dropped

#113

Post by zamadatix »

judahmeek wrote: post #97
scrubs wrote: post #18

Good grief! The bush admin tried to getting better scores by standard testing ... as a scheme in some ways by-pass local control by trading improvement for cash or removing cash. Mixed results. There's whining about standard testing .. . There's whining without it too. But states brought that on themselves. I raised two boys one a plain-joe kid, one with special needs. The older, regular kid got into and out of unive…

You talked about holding the kids accountable & the teachers accountable. What can we do to hold the parents accountable?

Blame is easy to assign to parents but if you do mean real accountability it is seemingly impossible beyond the most basic things such as student attendance.

Even taking a non-cynical look at certain parents' level of interest/ability/care/etc, we go as far as taking students and teachers out of the rest of the workforce for the express purpose of being able to assign them accountability for education instead. There just aren't levers like that available on the parental side to try to trigger meaningful actions with, nor is there anything close to consensus on how those might be put into place to begin the debate on what parents should be made accountable for with them.

The best chance I've seen to increase the amount of involvement from parents in their child's education is to try to have enhanced their own childhood education well enough to see why it's so important they be actively involved.

Re: Oregon raised spending by 80%, math scores dropped

#114

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Incipient wrote: post #109
wffurr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> much of math education seems to have been farmed out to really crappy software and short video clips running on chromebooks Our local school committee is debating this currently. There was a book mentioned "Ditch That Textbook" about using EdTech to reimagine curriculums. I have a hard time imagining actual high quality math education not using a textbook, and I don't really see how crappy software (and I do not f…

I absolutely think that there is a better way to educate than tests and textbooks...however I'm certain we haven't found the perfect formula, and videos and chromebooks significantly worse. Different is not better.

> absolutely think that there is a better way to educate than tests and textbooks

Genuine question: why? Specifically, why with textbooks?

Even if textbooks are suboptimal, they’re the way a lot of human information is organized. Just developing the skill of being able to work through a textbook is probably massively productive.

Re: Oregon raised spending by 80%, math scores dropped

#115

Post by johnea »

About a year ago there were a number of articles about how Alabama was greatly improving their public school math outcome with an elementary school teacher training program:

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/17/nx-s1-5328723/alabama-math-le...

Was this misinformation?

If not, I wonder why these results don't show in the nationwide aggregation?

Re: Oregon raised spending by 80%, math scores dropped

#116

Post by judahmeek »

zamadatix wrote: post #113
judahmeek wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You talked about holding the kids accountable & the teachers accountable. What can we do to hold the parents accountable?

Blame is easy to assign to parents but if you do mean real accountability it is seemingly impossible beyond the most basic things such as student attendance. Even taking a non-cynical look at certain parents' level of interest/ability/care/etc, we go as far as taking students and teachers out of the rest of the workforce for the express purpose of being able to assign them accountability for education instead. There…

I think you might be conflating accountability with enforcement or motivation a little bit.

Maybe we should start by identifying metrics that enable us to measure the impact that a parent is having on their child's education?

Re: Oregon raised spending by 80%, math scores dropped

#117

Post by [deleted] »

judahmeek wrote: post #116
zamadatix wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blame is easy to assign to parents but if you do mean real accountability it is seemingly impossible beyond the most basic things such as student attendance. Even taking a non-cynical look at certain parents' level of interest/ability/care/etc, we go as far as taking students and teachers out of the rest of the workforce for the express purpose of being able to assign them accountability for education instead. There…

I think you might be conflating accountability with enforcement or motivation a little bit. Maybe we should start by identifying metrics that enable us to measure the impact that a parent is having on their child's education?

[deleted]

Re: Oregon raised spending by 80%, math scores dropped

#118

Post by zamadatix »

judahmeek wrote: post #116
zamadatix wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blame is easy to assign to parents but if you do mean real accountability it is seemingly impossible beyond the most basic things such as student attendance. Even taking a non-cynical look at certain parents' level of interest/ability/care/etc, we go as far as taking students and teachers out of the rest of the workforce for the express purpose of being able to assign them accountability for education instead. There…

I think you might be conflating accountability with enforcement or motivation a little bit. Maybe we should start by identifying metrics that enable us to measure the impact that a parent is having on their child's education?

I think we just have different understandings of accountability but, perhaps, the same end desires. I absolutely agree if it's meant to be about also measuring the impact of the parents.

To me, accountability requires an added component of being held answerable for said impact. E.g. "John was held accountable for the damage to the car" would mean John had to answer for the damage, not just "the damage John had was measured" or "John's actions were found to cause the damage". This answerability to the impact is the only part of accountability which I think we can't realistically do with parents as we are able to for students or educators.

Re: Oregon raised spending by 80%, math scores dropped

#119

Post by prewett »

mrguyorama wrote: post #26

Title has been editorialized. In terms of the continuing "education depression" as discussed by this article, we still haven't gotten rid of "No child left behind". Of course kids are less educated than they used to be, you don't need to be educated to graduate. Maine specifically is an important example. There has been no real change in education policy in the state, yet there is still significant reduction in outco…

Do you have any idea what it is that makes her so effective, especially with kid who otherwise wouldn't care?

Re: Oregon raised spending by 80%, math scores dropped

#120

Post by squibonpig »

Recurecur wrote: post #92
godelski wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that Oregon teacher salaries have gone up quite a bit more than the national average in the last 10 years, less so in the last couple. Also let's not forget Covid. Yeah, Covid is at the tail end of the time period but it would be an error to make assumptions about the rates of change being constant over these periods. We've all seen that El Nino graph that is used to misrepresent climate change by careful w…

Yes, COVID was a problem, along with many of the ill-considered responses to it. However, it’s now four years later, and it’s misguided to attribute the situation today to mostly being a result of COVID. Eliminating the DOE and most of our current approach to K-12 education seems entirely prudent! Just compare what students learned circa 1900 before graduating high school to today…

...huh? I don't think this is worth engaging with other than to say that's a very silly conclusion.
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