The biggest irony is that spending more money is not going to help things.
US High school students' scores fall in reading and math
261–270 of 1001 posts
Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the institutions reflect culture. The fact that these institutions can exist at the low-performing state they do is a direct reflection of the culture of the people who run them, send their kids to them, pay taxes to support them, etc. The schools can only do what they do to the degree that people aren't willing to put up with it.
Institutions are supposed to protect culture, but they have failed due to the actions of a small elite class. It's like blaming a child for not having parents.
Have they failed?
Or are they dutifully resisting cultural shift that threatens the "don't think critically, just go to work, pay your taxes, don't question the system, don't do drugs, go to college, get a job, lease a new car, buy a condo, cross your fingers that stonks go up enough for you to retire" late 20th early 21st century status quo "ideal citizen" and "ideal culture" that they were built to foster (and who are the kind of people who fill out the majority of the system)?
The way I see it peddling blue state bullshit and red state bullshit (depending on a given school district's location) is simply a common sense adaptation districts are making to garner support from local populations who were willing to support the system so long as it provided useful education at a non-insane cost but are more critical now that the deal is worse.
Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math
#263Most of the comments are focused on the supply of education. But I don't think the supply side is the problem, irrespective of teachers and high schools. There is more and cheaper education available than ever before. Nearly every highschooler has more access to learning that kings and emperors would have fought wars for less than 200 years ago. However,the United States, particularly in the last 50 years, seems to h…
"Culture" is downstream of incentives.
Particularly, the biggest incentives are test scores and passing rates, which incentivize attention only to the bottom 50% and 20% of students (respectively). This means:
- You do not diversify classrooms by academic ability---the high-performing students can be free tutors to the low-performing students.
- You inflate the GPAs and implement no-zero policies.
- You teach to the standardized tests, and don't worry about the material.
- You make lessons "fun and engaging" because you need the attention of the students least likely to give you their attention.
- You eliminate gifted or honors programs, because that's wasted money not improving your bottom line (bottom students).
Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math
#264The majority of the public school system has devolved into day-care, not education. Most parents just watch TV, stare at their phones and don't want to be bothered by anything that requires effort. A major societal shift needs to happen for this to be reversed. It's many factors... the parents, the food system, various inequalities, social media, technology, healthcare... the solution is multi-pronged. But if I had t…
The core problem is actually twofold: 1. We pay teachers like shit and treat them even worse. Even if you wanted to do a good job as a teacher, it's fundamentally impossible because: 2. Our schools are structured and run by busybodies that have absolutely no business being within 100 yards of a school. Curricula is set by politics and ideology, not established science. We have book bans and helicopter parents suing t…
You are hilarious.
Schools are dominated by leftwing CRT ideology. It's the rare exception when there is real pushback against dinosaurs or evolution. I very much doubt that you are as angry about Islamic pushback against sex topics in school.
The reward structures, the dumbing down of courses, removing accelerated courses, passing everyone, the move against merit, the removal of structure, discipline, and punishment for bad behavior all come from liberal ideas on teaching.
Anyone who demands standards, values merit, values hard work with high expectations is labeled a fascist, colonizer, or some other pejorative. "Ways of knowing" is an idea that permeates modern teaching where we can't judge or grade anyone for what they know or don't know because different people just "know" differently. Grades are racist. Expectations are racist. Math is racist.
Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math
#265Everyone wants to shit on teachers and schools. Both get alot of blame.
I’m fortunate to send my kid to an excellent private school that is excellent at what it does. They have problems too.
I blame technology. The pivot from books to the lowest common denominator Chromebook homework, reading and testing is a joke.
Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the institutions reflect culture. The fact that these institutions can exist at the low-performing state they do is a direct reflection of the culture of the people who run them, send their kids to them, pay taxes to support them, etc. The schools can only do what they do to the degree that people aren't willing to put up with it.
Institutions are supposed to protect culture, but they have failed due to the actions of a small elite class. It's like blaming a child for not having parents.
No, institutions reflect the culture of the broad population. It’s like blaming a community for having streets filled with litter.
Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math
#267The majority of the public school system has devolved into day-care, not education. Most parents just watch TV, stare at their phones and don't want to be bothered by anything that requires effort. A major societal shift needs to happen for this to be reversed. It's many factors... the parents, the food system, various inequalities, social media, technology, healthcare... the solution is multi-pronged. But if I had t…
I graduated from high school less than ten years ago. I'm sure screens have become a big issue in many (or most) schools, but that was not the case at my high school. It still was mostly daycare, not education, so banning screens will not be enough.
Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is in California where the test scores are some of the worst in the nation I read your post and thought it was BS, so I did a little research. According to this, California public school test scores are better than Texas and closing in on New York and Florida. > California politics is heavily influenced by Teachers Unions, and yet we score near the bottom of the entire US. California scores better than Texas,…
Adjusted for income its really bad. Income is the strongest causes of academic performance, so if you adjust for them California is doing way worse than other states.
This is false. Adjusted for income CA students outperform most other states because CA has one of the largest populations of low income students.
Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why think when your phone or the AI can do it for you? I imagine there are a few people in this forum who might have some thoughts about that.
Recalling math trivia is not thinking... that's why it's called memorization...
I find this attitude to be really frustrating. Based on my experiences teaching math a student is not going to learn how to do the impressive things that you might call thinking if they don't have a solid foundation in how to do the basics. Imagine saying that learning the alphabet or spelling rules is just rote memorization and therefore not worth doing. If a person needs to spend all of their brain power thinking through elementary operations then they will have very little left over for the things that we might call thinking. I have seen too many kids who struggle with Algebra not because they can't understand the concepts but because they cannot do basic things like multiply 3x4 without needing to add 3 to 3 to 3 to 3.
Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, no. My niece's mom, my sister, called her school to ask wtf was going on. They gave her a lame, lawyer-approved response about their responsibility to protect children and the drills are mandated by the state, blah blah blah. So yeah, my niece said they practice how to respond (call 911, not your parents?), what to do if the teacher is shot (they don't use the word "shot", though), and they talked abou…
>call 911, not your parents? What else do you expect government run schools to teach if not "engage the government at any/every opportunity"? Looking back on my own education what a disservice some of those behavior patterns (not specifically that one) they tried to teach us would be in adult life.
I don’t think advising kids to make their first and possibly only call to an emergency number where someone’s all but guaranteed to pick up quickly and dispatch help instead of to a parent who might not pick up for any number of reasons and can’t personally dispatch emergency responders (but will surely just themselves turn around and call 911) is, like, a Big Government propaganda conspiracy. Seems more like plain old good advice.