Falling Test Scores Showcase Public Schools' Failure To Educate

Investor's Business Daily ^ | 10/28/2015 | Staff

[IBD editorial writer]

Education: For the first time in many years, national math and reading test scores have dropped for elementary-school kids. Who's to blame? The better question is, who isn't?

[Maceman]

In 2010, Barack Obama called for fixing the public education system by giving us the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and “Race to the Top,”

which he said would fix the education system already fixed by the 2001 GW Bush and Ted Kennedy legislation called “No Child Left Behind,”

which was supposed to fix a system supposedly already fixed by a 1994 piece of federal legislation called “Goals 2000,”

which was supposed to fix a system already fixed by “America 2000,”

which was a 1991 response during the Bush administration to a 1983 federal report on education called “A Nation at Risk,

which was published a full four years after Jimmy Carter first fixed the nation’s public school system by establishing a cabinet-level Department of Education in 1979.

[smartyaz]

[Ken H]

It just doesn’t add up.

[IC Ken]

If you want to keep people on welfare. 1. Put them in big cities and (2) make sure they don’t get an education. (3) Use a Unionized team of teachers to not teach,(4) get low tests scores, then (5)blame it on a lack of funding no matter how much money you give them.

[RipSawyer]

It is obvious that since the peanut picker gave us the department of education our young people are less educated than ever even though they are made to believe that they are the most educated generation in history. I suspect that we are on the verge of wishing that we could know what our ancestors knew a hundred years ago and very few still living have any idea what that means. Many may perish without ever realizing just how little they ever really knew.

[MarchonDC09122009]

IBD tells it like it is.

IMHO, public school student ever declining test scores are an accurate indicator of how systemically “dumbed down” are country is.
We are rapidly becoming an Idiocracy.
As you infer, there’s plenty of blame to go around:
Hollywood entertainment industry: record, film, radio, print
Main Stream News media: TV, radio, print, online
Politicians: Federal, State & Local
Advertisers: TV, radio, print, online
Educators from K thru college
All of the fore-mentioned institutions cater to the lowest common denominator culture that appeals to short term gratification and entertainment.
Each generation of dumbed down kids, become parents who breed even dumber children.
Additionally, 30+ Million illegal immigrants from second world countries have poor education and English language skills which in turn adversely affects overall academic performance.

Businesses: want ever lower wage workers (even if illegal) and lack long term employer commitment or talent development.

America has become so atomized, we no longer have a cohesive culture with common beliefs, values and interests.
Civics and history are not taught to a public that sees no value in it.

Our once nation, once the greatest in the world, has been deliberately pulled down by those who have the least morality, wisdom, and loyalty to our country.
I’m afraid there’s no coming back, when we’re this far gone.

[MarchonDC09122009]

Typo corrections:
...down” our country is.

...our nation, once the greatest..

[Chode]

that's all premised on the fact that the little darlings actually WANT to learn.

[RKBA Democrat]

I don’t get articles like these. The author will wail and gnash their teeth over some seemingly intractable problem while ignoring the 500 lb gorilla screaming at them in the room.

These were all government schools. Since when has a government run organization in the US delivered a better end result than it’s private counterparts? Moreover, since when has a government welfare program like “free” education delivered anything but sloth, waste, and dependency?

The solution is obvious: shut down the government schools and watch kids thrive. But what is wanted here is not an actual solution. What is wanted is a seemingly intractible problem that taxpayer money can be thrown at and bitched about nigh onto eternity.

[wita]

It just does not add up.

Of course it does. Common Core, the latest disaster, says that scores are going to go down before they go up. We were prepared for the lower grades. Now all we have to do is wait for the uptick.

[LambSlave]

In many of these under performing districts, they are spending more money per student than the highest performing schools, and have similarly credentialed teachers. Ergo, it is not the public learning environment, but either the home environment or the students themselves. I suspect a combination. These standardized tests are desinged such that a passing grade means you are able to succeed academically at the college level; based on IQ alone many students will never be able to do that without reducing the standards to the point of absurdity. Add in poor parenting, poor command of the language, and other environmental factors, and many of the middle of the pack students will also fail to attain this level of critical thinking and communications skills.

[refermech]

Also the kids just don’t want to learn. It’s more fun to play on their cell phones and computers. And so our society crumbles as we watch.

[ThePatriotsFlag]

See what happens when you don’t fund something properly? (Waiting to hear this in the next Dem talking points)

[Boomer One]

School is all about indoctrination, not learning. Would you rather your child learn basic skills or how to decide which sex they want to be? Add to that the lack of discipline and love in the home, especially if they have more than one parent, and you have a recipe for failure. Progressives have destroyed the family and educational system. They rewrite history to suit their goals with no regard to the past successes of America and failures of other countries.

[WakeUpAndVote]

What we have here, is a failure to educate.

[Main Street]

What we have here, is a failure to learn.

[WakeUpAndVote]

Actually, education begins at home. Before they start going to school. That used to work very well.

Now we have 30 something year old baby grand-mothers attempting to raise their baby daughters baby because baby daddy is in jail or dead and baby daughter is out to party.

[hal ogen]

Oh, come on. Lighten-up on those “educators”. All they need is more of your money...much more...for the children, you know. Don’t be stingy now.

[generally]

There are multiple factors.

The #1 factor driving test scores down is the change in who is taking the test. The percentage of white and Asian students is down. The percentage of black, hispanic, muslim, and non-English-speaking immigrants is up.

If you adjust for those factors, the changes are not so dramatic. But the professional educrats won’t tell you that. They try to keep that information buried and convince the sheep paying taxes that if they would just pay more taxes and increase salaries for teachers and administrators and expand the government education bureaucracy then everything would be peachy.