US students' reading and math scores at historic lows: 'Devastating trend'

About the fourth or fifth report like this I’ve seen. Always picking a grade level that suffered lack of school during covid. 4th graders are a recent pick. Seniors are a good pick too, losing out on 7th/8th grade.

Uneducated people are easier to manipulate.

Must be the micro-plastic or air pollution.

Republicans: this trend is comforting.

No, they're gonna weaponize this by saying "look at what DEI is doing to our schools!" or somehow funnel money to private schools and away from public schools.

That's the point.

Once a stock price is involved, you're just another line item on a spreadsheet; something to be minimized and managed as much as possible for the sake of maximizing profit.

You're not a human being. You're part of a collective metric called labour. And as such, they only need you to be as smart as you need to be to use the tools required for your job. Any smarter than that and they run the risk of losing control.

Ultimately, it's why there has always been a conservartive demonization of the Liberal Arts (Ars Liberalis) and a large push to be the "party of the average joe" who likely goes to a trade school.

If they could read this, they'd be devastated!

The lesser thinking and reasoning capabilites of the masses the more thriving times for the most powerful ones, you are basically eliminating crucial defensive capacities of the population allowing a critical advantage in perpetuate the power monopoly of the few...

Let's be super real though. The multiple choice questions on those exams are fucking horse shit. Nobody gives a fuck about the content of those passages. I skimmed them and circled all c so I could leave.

And as a physics professor, the math is fucking horse shit. Cave dwellers like me will use things that are proximally related as viewed through a telescope. Everyone else learns it for these exams and nothing else

The only thing these exams test is the color of people who can afford after school test prep to learn how to best and most brainlessly eliminate the wrong answers and guess. (It's the white people)

I say dropping scores are progress. Let's bottom out and hopefully we take the shit basket we call education more seriously.

Everyone else learns it for these exams and nothing else
A big part of learning is to learn how to learn. Without learning just for exams it's hard to learn useful things later in life.
- I’m not sure if I am misinterpreting or misunderstanding your answer, but this is my response to everything.
  There’s a difference between learning for tests and learning critical literacy and inquiry-based learning. Unfortunately, schools are forced to teach to the test and many students don’t connect with it and/or they are multilingual or English language learners and are struggling because the tests go over things that are exclusive to American culture or students, in general, aren’t provided support.
  Yes, even math suffers. Word problems are a problem. Schools have to pull in social studies to other disciplines and science is often neglected for reading and math. There are a ton of behavior issues as well that teachers deal with that take away from time.
  There’s just SO much wrong with education. I’m in the middle of a master’s program for elementary education and I’m substitute teaching as well (career switch late in life). I’m learning a lot about this stuff when I didn’t really pay attention before.
- That's true, but it could be anything

You can tell. It’s been obvious for years.

No cap.

As planned.

This right here. They want us dumb and stupid so we are easier to control. It is Vital to teach your children about resist and what to stand up for.

I am seeing reading ability go up in middle school. There was a huge drop as the wave of elementry year covid wave of students go through. My current students were in 1st grade when they were sent home and are far better at reading and writing than the group I had 2 years ago who missed 3rd grade. The group that missed 5th grade had more behavior issues. I believe data will get better as the disturbance gets farther away.

The school system is becoming dumber and dumber. They are blaming kids for the failures of the system. They are making decisions to teach what’s on the tests instead of the material. School is suppose to give kids options. Not teach everyone the same slop

Lol explains all the anti vaxers and anti science maga idiots

No this is different.

My states largest district is an online charter school/massive embezzling scheme. Self paced online classes, with a teacher that may/may not ever meet the student. I work with a client who just graduated from there.

They had no idea how to solve a one step algebra equation until today. Today we struggled through such exercises as “2x+4=8.”

I briefly worked for that school and had a high school student who had no idea what Christianity was. Really, the concept of religion in general was entirely new to him.

It feels deliberate. The in person/actual schools also suffer - students passed from class to class without knowing how to read or work with fractions, because it’s not even really necessary to have a bachelors degree to teach anymore. I guess it’s the kind of population that will grow up to vote R, to fall for whatever stupid shit the rich use to stay in power.

My only real hope is that the pendulum will swing back eventually. I at least hope that I will be able to personally take advantage when the need is recognized again, that at some point someone who can teach a high schooler logarithms is considered a valuable member of society worth paying a living wage.

It is deliberate.
As the article pointed out, the top 10% of students aren't seeing major drops, it is mainly in the bottom marginal students who need more institutional help to get a better education.
If we're deporting all these immigrants, the country is going to need a new underclass.
- the country is going to need a new underclass.
  Which is the old underclass? If you notice, most students ended up in service jobs anyways.
  If anything, people are starting to wake up to what a waste of time and effort school is for the vast majority of students that are forced to attend.
  But hey, it makes you feel good so I guess that counts for something.
guess the previous gen is the real winner before braindead phones and AI fucked it all up

And it just gets worse. Pardon me while I rant.

Here in central Louisiana, a state historically in the bottom 3 in education, they've now opened an "ag only high school", obstensably to teach trade school and "farming" skills. When I was in high school ag classes were offered where they basically taught welding. At least that's all I ever heard anyone talk about, oh and maybe some husbandry, but not with actual livestock.

The gist of it though, is now all of those kids who were in the non-college ag or business track can now take just ag classes, and it's in a completely separate campus about 7 miles from my old high school. They don't commute from another high school and I can't imagine they have much more than a basic English and Math curriculum, if that. And a not insignificant portion of them will upon graduation go work for their families.

There's also a "magnet" school (pardon the excessive quotes, it's Louisiana and nothing is ever as it seems) in the county seat that seems to only be useful for draining off the non-sports smart kids... which might be good, except I suspect this is being facilitated by Louisianas take on the Republican school-voucher programs. Which if you didn't know is a way to drain funding from "under performing", i.e., poor, usually minority, schools.

So that can't be helping any national reading or math scores.

Can't edit my original response for some reason, but I just recalled that "magnet" school is a private charter school.
There's also a "magnet" school [...] in the county seat that seems to only be useful for draining off the non-sports smart kids.
It has been shown that there are benefits to the smart kids to separate them into a different curriculum. Grade skipping has problems as it pushes kids into social situations they meet not be equipped to handle. By creating different tracks, you can have some students take more rigours courses which actually challenge them and so kids can learn the soft skills they wouldn't learn with an easier curriculum. I've seen some high schools where you can basically graduate with a year's worth of college credits.
Which if you didn't know is a way to drain funding from "under performing", i.e., poor, usually minority, schools.
And I would agree that is part of the problem as expressed in the article. Most states are preserving or increasing the teaching quality for high performing students while absolutely collapsing funding for under performing students.
- Can't edit my original response for some reason, but I just recalled that "magnet" school is a private charter school.
- Oh for a typical magnet school, yes, I know.
  But like I said with the excessive quotes, I'm not sure it's a real magnet school given how the parish has dealt with all of their other schools and the excessive Republican influence in the state.

It's ok Trump doesn't believe in science anyway.

We've been on a nation wide teacher shortage for 40 years now. The poorest school districts are lucky to have 50% trained teachers. The rest are people off the street that could pass a background check. (no degree needed) Not saying those individuals aren't needed but being an effective teacher takes years of experience and schooling to teach effectively. We have more OF models in America than teachers.

being an effective teacher takes years of experience and schooling to teach effectively
I disagree. Some people make great teachers, and most people don't.
- Oh I get that 100% the good thing about a traditional path is that it weeds out a lot of individuals that really shouldn't be teachers. And there are those individuals right off the street that take to teaching naturally. But those individuals probably had a career closely aligned with what they are teaching. (stay at home mom's make amazing Pre-k and K teachers once their children leave the nest.) Those are few and far between. Track your local district's lawsuits and regulations violations. A large share will be caused by emergency hires. Most are good people just put in a sink or swim situation when the support system is an already crumbling school system.

BREAKING NEWS : AMERICANS STUPID AND IN RUINS

wow

A dumb America keeps the billionaires fed

This is sad, well beyond the educational aspects.

Imagine not being in a mental position to enjoy books. The Hobbit. Asimov’s Foundation or Robot books. The Expanse. D H Lawrence. Jane Austen. Vonnegut. Stephen King. Lewis Carroll.

Even worse, not having the capacity for the full nuance of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams.

I'm so glad that when I was in school social media didn't exist. I read The Hobbit during the summer between 4th and 5th grade and moved right into Lord of the Rings. In 6th grade I tried The Silmarillion but that was still a little too dense for me. I went back 2 years later and conquered that beast.
Reading Tolkien was a formative experience for me in ways I couldn't have imagined at the time. It literally shaped the way I look at things, expanded my vocabulary, and inspired future hobbies in addition to all of the benefits that you get from reading anything. I can't even imagine having that part of my life replaced with TikTok brainrot and selfies.
- Mom had this big illustrated version of the Hobbit. TV off, she read it to us kids across many evenings, determined that we would know Tolkien.
Man, novels are really what killed what love of reading I could have had.
I absolutely fucking hated reading the shit that was forced upon me in school. It's like forcing someone to listen to a song or watch a movie. It genuinely makes me sick even to this day.
Thankfully, I found out that I actually enjoyed reading the textbooks, so I'm still reading textbooks to this day.
We do a great disservice to people by spreading the idea that novels are the only thing they are expected to read on their own.

Just heard a piece today about AI that tangentially mentioned historic lows for "student engagement" -- where kids are interested in learning rather than just sitting through their classes and waiting to leave. The main point was that using AI is not as simple as using calculators because students don't learn to think when AI does all the work. AI removes the necessary pain of learning to put things together before a deadline.

Oh, and they were talking about some plan to replace teachers with AI instructors where adults would still be present, but not in charge of the learning. I guess the adults will just be there to mete out discipline?

skibidi generation is going to have it rough

I think I've been reading this headline for 30 years.

Yes. That's how we got Trump and today's Republican party.

One doesn't need an education to work in the fields.

I wanna see a comparison with european countries. To get a reference.

How much of this can be attributed to conservative families finally getting the chance to enroll their kids into private religious schools via voucher programs?

Actually, how much can be attributed to voucher programs in general?

Yeah, but if it makes us feel any better, future us weoll haven killed for scores like this.

Schools were always indoctrination mills.

None of this matters. Even when reading and math scores were higher, most students still ended up in service jobs that didn't require higher level reading or math.