Posted on 01/23/2024 6:21:16 AM PST by MtnClimber
Call it the big reset – downward – in public education.
The alarming plunge in academic performance during the pandemic was met with a significant drop in grading and graduation standards to ease the pressure on students struggling with remote learning. The hope was that hundreds of billions of dollars of emergency federal aid would enable schools to reverse the learning loss and restore the standards.
Four years later, the money is almost gone and students haven’t made up that lost academic ground, equaling more that a year of learning for disadvantaged kids. Driven by fears of a spike in dropout rates, especially among blacks and Latinos, many states and school districts are apparently leaving in place the lower standards that allow students to get good grades and graduate even though they have learned much less, particularly in math.
It’s as if many of the nation's 50 million public school students have fallen backwards to a time before rigorous standards and accountability mattered very much.
“I'm getting concerned that, rather than continuing to do the hard work of addressing learning loss, schools will start to accept a new normal of lower standards,” said Amber Northern, who oversees research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a group that advocates for academic rigor in schools.
The question is—why did the windfall of federal funding do so little to help students catch up?
Northern and other researchers, state officials and school leaders interviewed for this article say many districts, facing staffing shortages and a spike in absenteeism, didn’t have the bandwidth to take on the hard work of helping students recover. But other districts, including those that don’t take academic rigor and test scores very seriously, share in the blame. They didn’t see learning loss as a top priority to tackle. It was easier to spend the money on pay rises for staff and upgrading buildings.
The elites will tell you what to do. Why do you need to think on your own? Don’t you trust the elites?
BTTT
There kids were purposefully destroyed. While your children were forced to stay home, the elites were still sending their children to private schools or making use of private tutors.
Their children did not have their education interrupted, while your children are never going to have this repaired.
I saw one of those on-the-street interviews. The interviewer asked a college Freshman to name three countries. Her answer:
Canada
Alabama
North Carolina
True, this was probably the worst response, but to even let someone that stupid graduate from HS is a crime. You can see worse by looking for Jay Leno’s street interviews. Public education in the US is a total failure.
“Driven by fears of a spike in dropout rates, especially among blacks and Latinos, many states and school districts are apparently leaving in place the lower standards that allow students to get good grades and graduate even though they have learned much less, particularly in math.”
Better substandard engineering kill thousands than the scourge of racism that would keep POCs from lofty positions for such trivial reasons as a lack of “qualifications”, whatever those are. /s
stupid people will be more likely to have to rely on big government to survive
“hope was that hundreds of billions of dollars”
Well there you have it. Any problem can be solved by simply throwing money at it.
Want to defeat Russia? Print up some money and throw it at Ukraine.
Want to improve “infrastructure”? Print up some money and throw it at your buddies.
Want to make kids learn more? Print up some money and throw it at the schools.
Easy peasy.
As Japan and other Asian countries are learning the hard way, it’s difficult to become a Third World country when you’re still properly educating your people.
In 1958 I made big money by doing homework for public school kids.
I saw one of those interviews where the guy had a big map of the world (all land in one color) and asked someone to point to Africa. She thought about it, and admitted that she “always forgets which country Africa is in”.
How sad is that...
Its been obvious for at least 2 decades - public education has evolved into a situation of NEGATIVE marginal utility. The more money you spend, the WORSE it becomes.
Its not a paradox, its quite common. The more resources something gets, the larger and more bloated become bureaucracies, the larger become decision-trees, the slower becomes decision making, and the more politics and ideology takes over "thinking" in the organization.
Want to "save" public schools? CUT their funding
The 5th R: Re-education.
See you at camp.
I recently listened to a 6 part podcast called Told a Story about the way many public schools teach reading. They use whole language, but when a I heard the way the ‘teach’, I understood why so many fail to learn.
A quick overview: There’s a story with a picture. The child attempts to read. If they get a word wrong the teacher will cue them with three questions: what’s the first letter, what’s in the picture, does your word make sense? They never learn letter sounds or to sound out words. They’re supposed to memorize how each word looks. All because some guru 60 years ago said this is the way. Some of the teachers sounded like they were in a cult.
Here’s a link: ask your kids or grandkids how they learned to read. If they hate reading, this could be why. https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
Because iys not ablut education.
Students are the just the grist for Deep State’s diploma mills.
It’s not about education.
It’s kind of funny to see how Covid misinformation has changed the conservative attitudes towards school.
Before the pandemic, schools were cesspools teaching kids everything except the skills they need to know to function in society. Heather has two mommies but 2+2 equals whatever you feel it should equal, and all that.
Then the pandemic hit and kids had to distance learn. Suddenly, taking kids out of school is the worst thing in the world.
No, it isn’t the pandemic that has the effect on kids’ education. It is still the schools.
Structured homeschooling or teaching in very small classes is, I think, the best learning environment for kids.
Thomas Sowell has been writing about publik skrewls for decades.
Conservative attitudes haven’t changed.
The lockdowns just proved there are no atheists in foxholes.
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