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> And even worse yet as her district is focusing on putting AppleTVs in every room while buying curriculum that has no books.

I agree that Apple TVs in classrooms is a waste of money, but I don't remember text books being particularly useful, either. We covered between 25% and 50% of the contents of the book, and maybe had assigned reading for half of what was covered.

Textbooks are also a bit of a racket, too. The contents and pedagogy generally move very slowly, but legislators and parents like to micromanage contents, and textbook makers are happy to oblige. The number of, say, algebra, books across the US is probably embarrassing, as is the fact that there isn't a movement for public domain textbooks.

Novels are different. With 5 books per year at $4 per book with books lasting a few years, I'm less concerned.

I too remember hauling around really heavy books and only reading parts of them. My wife seems to use much of her reading curriculum which comes with workbooks they use up throughout the year. This next year they are switching to an electronic curriculum apparently, but she only has 7 iPads for 20 kids. I think she would be happier if she had 20 devices. They could have probably purchased more if they chose Chromebooks over iPads.

Over a decade ago my aunt taught 4th grade. She told me that a lot of kids were getting there who couldn't read and it was impossible to teach them 4th grade material.

This seems like that on greater scale.

More granular mastery-based progression seems like it would be a good start.

What are your(/her) thoughts on gifted programs? I can say personally that gifted programs saved me from this fate of slogging through high school during these pandemic years. For some reason some gifted programs get dragged but having actual difficult assignments instead of just crap I can google, honestly 100% saved me from mediocrity.

She likes them. Her school has a really high quality GT ("gifted and talented") teacher. It is an honor to get into the program and allows kids the opportunity to do longer-term project type learning like you are talking about. This also gives her more time to focus on the kids that are struggling while not holding back the kids that are already exceeding expectations. In our experience though, it really depends on the teacher, I suppose that goes for all classes in all schools. You were lucky to have a good one it sounds like!

Serious question, what are you learning between kindergarten and 2nd grade that's so important?

I remember my time there being effectively day-care, I learned more outside of class than inside it. The only real benefit was socializing with kids my age but otherwise everything I learned in those 2 years could've been taught in a week.

It's not just those grades; I see the same in high school. To a lesser extent, but a lot of the classes that are non-advanced are, here's a 5 question quiz and 15 minutes of content every week, turn it in whenever.

I went to a technical high school with (apparently) one of the toughest curriculums in my city (non US). You know what I found unique? That I didn’t know my curriculum was tough. I just thought that’s the way it was for everyone and went for it. Once we got older and started going out and making friends from other schools is when we realized that no one else was learning calc 1 at 15. The initial success rate of the class was like 95%, few kids had to re take finals around the summer break but no one failed. The admissions were not tough at all to this school, so we weren’t gifted. In fact I failed in college soon after.

What I’m trying to say here is that if we push kids without telling them “this is so hard, you might not be able to do it”, they might just do it. If we pushed the gas a bit further in the content we teach, not only we’ll get people learning more and faster, but also they might get a better sense of accomplishment.

Many people kept their kids "remote", which started a few years ago in response to the pandemic. Many of these kids did not attend any remote classes or do any of their assigned work over that time. Meanwhile this school reopened in-person almost immediately and many families sent their kids back. So you are talking about kids who don't know 1+1=2 or how to read a single word, when the rest of the class is reading intro chapter books and doing double digit math. Socially they are 2 years behind, which is another issue. Perhaps you are a quick learner, but that's really not the case for everyone.

In her school there is 1 math and 1 reading specialist, who are meant to focus on kids like this. Now they need about 5 more of each but the district has routed funding elsewhere like the Olympic quality weightlifting gym for the high school football team (which is used maybe 1hr per day). Better stop, feeling like I'm about to start ranting again...

This is when most kids learn to read. Some kids have basic reading skills before kindergarten, and some learn after 2nd grade. But for most, this is the time when they go from being able to recognize a handful/bunch of words to being able to figure out new words, understand exceptions, and learn about grammar.

There's also a decent amount of conceptual math taught in these grades. I wouldn't say that the concepts are 'hard', but they do take repeated exposure for many kids to grasp them and perform them accurately. You could teach the skills in a week, but only very bright kids would immediately pick up on all of it and not need further practice to be on par with kids who attended K-2. For example, it takes repeated exposure and practice for kids to know that a number ending with 4 and a number ending with 6 will always sum to a number ending in 0. Or to know their multiplication tables.

Does it take three years to learn this stuff? No. But it can't be crammed into a week or even a month.

At 6? The US is behind regardless then. I remember landing in first grade and we all knew how to read already from kindergarten. 1st grade was all about math, learning cursive (which honestly is not that helpful either) and basic life stuff like sending a letter and how the world around us works. My country is shit overall so I’m not bragging, but if my corruption ridden country could make that happen (even if in small pockets) then the us should have the power to make it happen broadly. Only if they listened to the teachers that go in it for the love of it and not the old useless people that manage the system for their profit or stubbornness.