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US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

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Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#631

Post by miki123211 »

Do we know how much of this decline is US-specific versus a global phenomenon? The article cites no data on that score.

This kind of thing is unfortunately pretty common in American publications, and it drives me up the wall. If you don't compare US statistics to global ones, it's hard to separate out political / local factors from global trends (and to be fair, this is exactly what some journalists want.)

In particular, I'd be interested in statistics from countries with different lockdown policies, as well as those that banned smartphones in school. Beyond US politics, lockdowns and Tiktok seem like the two most likely factors that may influence this.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#632

Post by idiotsecant »

rayiner wrote: post #329
tenarchits wrote: post #198

Most 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…

The problem with that “culture” explanation is that white kids in America do fine in international educational comparisons. In the 2018 PISA assessment, 15 year old white american students were near the top in reading (behind only Singapore and some Chinese SEZs) and in the top echelon in science (comparable to Japan). Their weakest performance was math, where they’re around the middle, behind the top asian countries…

Hmmm I wonder if something happened after 2018, it's on the tip of my tongue I just can't quite remember ..

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#633

Post by idiotsecant »

philipallstar wrote: post #594
Meekro wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Poverty blended with hopelessness" sounds about right. I'd like to emphasize that it's not just poverty, since there are plenty of recent immigrant families who live in poverty but the kids are at the top of their class. Unfortunately, though, there's a certain kind of degeneracy some families live in: the parents have largely failed in their every endeavor, and they'll become absolutely furious if they see the kids…

It's not the poverty; it's the learned helplessness.

[flagged]

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#634

Post by nobody9999 »

graemep wrote: post #614
hopelite wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> And yes, skin color itself is irrelevant, it is simply a convenient identifier for underlying significant biological differences No, its a terrible identifier. If you group people by genetic similarity (which is of dubious usefulness) you essentially end up with three different black African races, one Australian, Pacific and Native American, and one everyone else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_cluste…

>If you group people by genetic similarity (which is of dubious usefulness) you essentially end up with three different black African races, one Australian, Pacific and Native American, and one everyone else.

There's only one sentient primate race: Homo Sapiens.

There absolutely are genetic differences between groups that were geographically isolated from each other (as you note). However, when genetic variation is compared both between and within those groups, we see more variation within those once isolated groups than we do between those groups[0].

What's more, even within such groups genetic variation is only around 0.5-1.5%.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics#Race_and_hum...

Edit: Cleaned up prose.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#635

Post by tartuffe78 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #179
lucideng wrote: post #33

The 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…

> Most parents just watch TV, stare at their phones and don't want to be bothered by anything that requires effort. No? Most of the parents around me are busy each working a full time job and doing their best to raise their kids. They now spend some of their free time reading on the phones instead of a newspaper, magazine, or book. Some listen to books while they mow the lawn, clean the house, or do other chores like…

Get off the phone! I see so many parents are restaurants, both glued to their phones while their kid is bored our on their tablet.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#636

Post by bluGill »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #470
ars wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> intellectualism It's interesting to blame anti-intellectualism because Republicans are usually labeled with that. But simultaneously it's Democrats that will dumb down classes to make sure even the worst performing student will pass. And this is also anti-intellectualism, but of a different sort. The combination is failing our students, doesn't matter the political orientation. I'm involved in education, I see this…

I don’t understand why this became about politics, but I will bite. Republicans want to dismantle department of education, have cut funding for education, food stamps, free meals, etc. they are by definition against education for the outgroup and “the poors”. So I think that label is apt. On the other hand, Dem leadership is quite racist and has a saviour complex. They identified the right issue — children from impov…

> Republicans want to dismantle department of education, have cut funding for education, food stamps, free meals, etc.

> they are by definition against education for the outgroup and “the poors”

The second does not follow from the first in anyway. You can be against federal education and strongly for education. Just because you think a federal department of education is needed for good education doesn't mean it everyone thinks like you or that people who think differently automatically do not value the things you think having a federal department of education would help.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#637

Post by mystraline »

itake wrote: post #344
ghostpepper wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you live in Canada or is this happening elsewhere?

> Seattle Public Schools cancels gifted program 'cohorts' for equity reasons https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/sps-highly-capable-cohort-...

Then I think its time for an IEP to be formed for each of those students, for "special education".

Sure, "special education" has traditionally meant slow, retarded, nonverbal, etc. We all know that euphemism. "Short bus". It always represents basically warehousing the bottom 10% of public education students where they cant affect the majority.

But 'gifted students' also require special education. Its not normal, for reasons of academic rigor. And they are way past the curriculum of the middle 67% of the distribution.

So, the answer is to demand an IEP. It is also a legal document, which outlines scholastic rights to the student, and holds these districts strongly accountable.

And, at least for now, gets more federal funding to 'special education'.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#638

Post by [deleted] »

Tarq0n wrote: post #581
JohnMakin wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent commenter’s “source” makes no claims about race related performance whatsoever - it measures by just about everything but that, and then sorts by country. So maybe this is one of those darned reflexive knee jerk responses.

Pages 16, 32, 50 and 62 have breakdowns of mean score by ethnicity actually.

[deleted]

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#639

Post by bluGill »

nathan_compton wrote: post #558
nradov wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the complaints here about physics have to do with focusing so heavily for decades on string theory (or M-theory) which hasn't produced much in the way of practical results. At some point we have to quit throwing good money after bad and redirect funding towards other lines of inquiry.

Yes, but this is cartoon shit. String theory was a major research program in theoretical physics for a few decades but theoretical physics involves quite a lot more than string theory and physics involves quite a lot more than theoretical physics and if you stacked up all the budgets you'd find that string theory is a minor footnote. And also, its been a few decades since people took it very seriously as a strong can…

The problem is string theory was pushed by people who were really good at getting attention and so they appeared to be outsized. Eventually everyone realized they were never making good on their promises and it was time to quit given them money - but most people who are not physics insiders don't really understand the other parts and so the total budget was cut to punish string theory - but by more than just the string theory part.

There is a warning above about something, but I'm not sure exactly what.

Re: US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

#640

Post by tomrod »

zdragnar wrote: post #439
rayiner wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that “culture” explanation is that white kids in America do fine in international educational comparisons. In the 2018 PISA assessment, 15 year old white american students were near the top in reading (behind only Singapore and some Chinese SEZs) and in the top echelon in science (comparable to Japan). Their weakest performance was math, where they’re around the middle, behind the top asian countries…

Skin color isn't it, actually. I knew (second hand) a teacher in a rural area of a low population state. All white kids, she'd have kindergartners cussing her out. Very little hope for any academic future for the other grades as things didn't get better with the older kids. I knew a white kid who lived in a trailer park whose mom was upset he was getting tutoring after school for his dyslexia because she told him he'…

How might we formalize these anecdotes and prove them out from a systemic issue?
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