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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

#981

Post by benmw333 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #216
benmw333 wrote: post #199

When I think of all my teachers I had throughout K-12 public school, not one of them stands out as having meaningfully impacted my life. In fact I would argue many of them were a net negative to my learning achievements (or lack thereof). So yeah, defund public schools as much as possible. That will get my vote.

That's unfortunate, I had at least 6 or 7 I could point to from that time that were outstanding teachers who instilled passion into their subject.

That is good to hear. In which subjects? Did that carry out throughout your entire life so far? Or did one particular subject end up taking more of your time, and if so, do you attribute that to specific characteristics of those who mentored you? Do you know if those mentors were elevated over time in their organizations?

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

#982

Post by benmw333 »

exoverito wrote: post #306
benmw333 wrote: post #199

When I think of all my teachers I had throughout K-12 public school, not one of them stands out as having meaningfully impacted my life. In fact I would argue many of them were a net negative to my learning achievements (or lack thereof). So yeah, defund public schools as much as possible. That will get my vote.

I had a number of good teachers at the various public schools I attended, though the best ones were at a private school. Instead of defunding, we should institute a voucher system where parents can choose between a local public school if it's good, charter schools, or towards a private school tuition and pay the difference.

What characteristics of the teachers and/or student body made the private school experience better?

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

#983

Post by benmw333 »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #205
benmw333 wrote: post #199

When I think of all my teachers I had throughout K-12 public school, not one of them stands out as having meaningfully impacted my life. In fact I would argue many of them were a net negative to my learning achievements (or lack thereof). So yeah, defund public schools as much as possible. That will get my vote.

"America is bad and should be destroyed without regard to the people living there" The worst leftists (handshake) the worst right wingers

How is America destroyed if people own their labor (money) and where they invest it?

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

#984

Post by linalgmixer »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #670
etempleton wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US there are a few obvious things, but everyone acts as if we are powerless to solve them: 1. Cell phones in classrooms. I don’t know how or why they were ever allowed. They should have to be in a backpack or in a locker and off during class. 2. Not removing students with bad behavior from classrooms and schools. The current thinking on how to handle a student who is seriously misbehaving and potentially viole…

1. Good luck. Have you ever tried to take an iPad kid's iPad? Be ready for the fight of your fucking life. 2 and 5 are handily down to No Child Left Behind which is frankly some of the worst legislation ever devised for education. 3 and 4: And these factors are only getting worse as worse and worse kids enter the school systems. Nobody wants to deal with them, including their parents. Bonus: It's not hard, but we won…

Yes, it’s a fight sometimes. Do it anyway. When we give in to avoid a blow‑up, we teach “meltdown = win.” That’s not fair to the kid long‑term. Set the limit, prep the transition, follow through.

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

#985

Post by int_19h »

p1esk wrote: post #976
int_19h wrote: post #956

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The past needed more serfs than readers until the Industrial Revolution, but once we got those going, all that machinery required skilled people to operate.

Did making things without machinery require fewer skilled people?

Depends on what you're making. Pre-industrial society was mostly concerned with growing food to feed itself. Things like say blacksmithing or advanced weaving certainly did require skilled professionals, but they were proportionally a tiny minority of a society consisting mostly of farmers.

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

#986

Post by aprilthird2021 »

rayiner wrote: post #433
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you compare a country where most people are one ethnicity or where wealth and race are not as correlated as in the US, then it's a bit of an unfair comparison. Does the comparison hold if you segment the white Americans, Chinese, Singaporeans, Japanese, etc. by economic class?

I think it’s the opposite—it is a fairer comparison. White Americans are a relatively homogenized population that reflect the entire spectrum of economic class, where immigration effects have been attenuated by time. Is it unfair to compare the median white american to the median Japanese, just because the U.S. also has a large Hispanic population that mostly descends from low-education post-1970 immigrants from impo…

> Is it unfair to compare the median white american to the median Japanese, just because the U.S. also has a large Hispanic population that mostly descends from low-education post-1970 immigrants from impoverished Latin American countries?

It's a bit unfair because the average white American is wealthier than the races you excluded from American. The average Japanese person includes everyone from all classes, it does not skew towards the wealthier. If it did, you might see a different result.

Like I asked, does the comparison hold if you segment the results by economic class?

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

#987

Post by dan-robertson »

weitendorf wrote: post #374
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…

The racial achievement gap is probably one of the most significant problems educators in the US think about. I think one of the biggest obstacles to improving it (not causing the problem, but making solutions difficult or ineffective) is that low-performing urban school districts tend to correlate strongly with strong teachers' unions and big, mismanaged school administrations where things are too bureaucratic and in…

Some evidence that progress can be made within public school systems, though perhaps less bureaucratic than northern cities: https://www.the74million.org/article/the-last-reformer-houst...

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

#988

Post by peterfirefly »

chongli wrote: post #523
diogenescynic wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the biggest factors comes down to single parent vs intact families.

Sweden has the highest proportion of single-parent households at 34% whereas Poland is near the bottom at 9% [1]. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/e...

"Single-parent households" in Scandinavia doesn't mean the same thing as it does in most of the world. There is usually still a high degree of coparenting.

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

#989

Post by Nicook »

orochimaaru wrote: post #190
Nicook wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. I went down a rabbit hole for this once and yes children of immigrants underperform for math and reading testing v immigrant groups. Can go dig up the .gov links assuming they didnt go away

That’s a strange one. The highest performing public schools are generally where Chinese and Indian origin kids are a significant minority - I.e. around 20-30%.

Chinese and Indian kids being above is outweighed in this case by others. Look at the volume of immigrants and whatever countries they come from. The east asians are the exception not the norm.

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

#990

Post by Scubabear68 »

thehappypm wrote: post #299
Scubabear68 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the US in New Jersey, and here a big problem was the State flooded school districts with money during Covid with no material oversight of its spending. The end result was huge increases in spending. But not on education. The money was spent on more MacBooks, more iPads, more buildings, more smart TVs, more consultants, more School Bullshit System as a Service, more scoreboards, more $50,000 signs in front o…

Which county in New Jersey?

Hunterdon. One of the richest counties in the United States.
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