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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)

#221

Post by [deleted] »

BrenBarn wrote: post #203
bcrosby95 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in elementary school I don't see the deficiency in common core math compared to what I had 30 years ago. My kid has been exposed to a wide variety of topics sooner than I was, and she's way stronger in word problems on top of that. Do people have a specific complaint with elementary school common core math that we should be teaching but aren't, or vice versa? Or is it more problematic later?

One thing I notice is there seem to be far more students who finish elementary school unable to comfortably do basic math in their head (stuff like 17+36 or 14 4 or even basic multiplication tables like 3 8).

[deleted]

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

#222

Post by jgord »

If you have kids you will need to intervene to give them a good math science education.

Fortunately there are some great resources, far better than the average colorful school textbooks :

- aops.com and their BeastAcademy cartoon series

- an old book "Algebra" by Gelfand

- W W Sawyers old books on how math should be taught

- Geogebra and Desmos web tools

- 3Blue1Brown

- KhanAcademy

I try and introduce math in a more visual way, with multipication as rectangles and the distributive rule being central concepts that lead into all other areas of math :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu8hxgQdvRo&list=PLEInJ-Z4qB...

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

#223

Post by nsxwolf »

SapporoChris wrote: post #182
MrVitaliy wrote: post #121

States should pay more attention to Mississippi on how they were able to revamp education in under a decade. https://oxfordeagle.com/2025/01/30/mississippi-4th-graders-n...

I know it's a difficult word but if you spell Mississippi correctly your comment well be taken more seriously.

Please don’t do this.

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

#224

Post by rahimnathwani »

nsxwolf wrote: post #211
zozbot234 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If kids are held back when they fail standards, shouldn't they also be allowed to race ahead when they exceed them?

Always used to be the case, is that no longer an option?

Not an option in San Francisco.

Back in 2022 I spoke with the principal of a nearby government-run school. She told me:

- under no circumstances would a kindergarten teacher teach any first grade content, and

- grade skip is so rare that she'd seen it only once in her entire career

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

#225

Post by [deleted] »

nekusar wrote: post #145

I'll throw in my own $1.50 , inflation and all. There's definitely loads of money in "education". But the actual teachers arent seeing it. No, its in "special interest programs", state/federal compliance, loads of tests, and ordained material from "preferred creators" (cough, pearson etm.) We can pay teachers better, sure. But there's lots of areas to "pay better". Small classes. 12-17 students. Budget for class reso…

[deleted]

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

#226

Post by steviedotboston »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #68

[1] is a summary of the impact on the brain of Covid-19 infections including IQ reduction but many others besides. Its best understood that there is no such thing as a consequence free Covid infection, it always damages something and the early british experiment where they intentionally infected young men resulted in all of them loosing IQ and none of them being aware of the loss. This finding has been built on subst…

the trend started before covid...

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

#227

Post by ajam1507 »

raincole wrote: post #23

I know the knee-jerk reaction is social media, but from the graph in the article, it seems to just get back to the same level as 90s.

It still shows a problem. If math and reading levels were largely improving for decades then we saw a sudden decline, it signals that something changed, especially since covid.

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

#228

Post by datadrivenangel »

zozbot234 wrote: post #141
datadrivenangel wrote: post #132

Just gotta do the Mississippi thing and hold kids back unless they meet standards. Don't leave them behind by pretending to leave no one behind.

If kids are held back when they fail standards, shouldn't they also be allowed to race ahead when they exceed them?

Yes. That's the whole idea of adaptive/personalized learning.

There are some interesting ethical questions about disparity of outcomes, but we should aim to have a system that educates each individual as best we can (without leaving kids behind). The current system of bludgeoning every individual student to be the same is not working well.

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

#229

Post by datadrivenangel »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #224
nsxwolf wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always used to be the case, is that no longer an option?

Not an option in San Francisco. Back in 2022 I spoke with the principal of a nearby government-run school. She told me: - under no circumstances would a kindergarten teacher teach any first grade content, and - grade skip is so rare that she'd seen it only once in her entire career

teachers not being able to teach 'higher level' content seems like a huge issue.

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

#230

Post by rahimnathwani »

nekusar wrote: post #145

I'll throw in my own $1.50 , inflation and all. There's definitely loads of money in "education". But the actual teachers arent seeing it. No, its in "special interest programs", state/federal compliance, loads of tests, and ordained material from "preferred creators" (cough, pearson etm.) We can pay teachers better, sure. But there's lots of areas to "pay better". Small classes. 12-17 students. Budget for class reso…

"But the actual teachers arent seeing it."

There are multiple teachers in my local school district whose total compensation is well over $200k: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=school-...

And, no, this isn't mainly overtime pay. So they're getting paid this much even though they work only 80% as many days as people with normal jobs. If you multiply the compensation numbers by 100/80 to make them comparable with people working full time, the numbers look really large.

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