Middle schoolers' reading and math scores plummet
axios.com
axios.com
I have always been dismayed by the overemphasis on funding at many educational institutions. "We need all this equipment! We need this, we need that!" As far as equipment is concerned, a good, true education is not that expensive. A lot of what is emphasized today boils down to frills and bells and whistles while the core of what is important is neglected.
This is one reason why classical schools are popping up all over the place that are inspired by the trivium and quadrivium and updated accordingly. They are also cheap.
The education industry is shot through with grift.
I think you forgot about the whole "pandemic" thing that happened
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s really hard to argue that lockdowns were the right call.
The US's categorical inability to implement the basic functions of a state are not an indictment of those functions
> mostly ineffective
The United States government is mostly ineffective. Again, America's inability to do most functions of government correctly is not an indictment of those functions.
Also, it should be said, the US's prolonged mishandling of the Coronavirus pandemic had lasting economic impacts because people willingly chose to stay home to avoid getting sick, not just because occupancy limits were lowered for many businesses (what you mistakenly call a "lockdown"). Had the US enforced coronavirus restrictions better and if Americans didn't selfishly refuse to follow the rules, the economy would have taken far less damage than we chose to inflict upon ourselves.
We have known this for over 100 years, since the Spanish flu pandemic. Denying this is simply anti-scientific and motivated by your political beliefs
> With the benefit of hindsight, it’s really hard to argue that lockdowns were the right call.
With the benefit of hindsight, the easier judgment to make is that the US has become an anti-social, low-trust society made up of people who are incapable of putting the needs of others ahead of their own interests. If you live in the US, you were never truly under "lockdown".
We also have plenty of evidence from the Spanish Flu pandemic which supports pre-emptive school closures (rather than reactive school closures) as an effective means of slowing spread
There are many unknowns. Especially with younger kids who missed out on social interaction during key developmental windows (4-6 years old).
The knee-jerk fears around covid were so, so foolish. So little regard for all the externalities, and the true devistation to communities that lock-down created.
Also, I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of graphs in the article. The actual report has some illustrative ones: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
Doing a search on the sub for 'parents' is a good start: https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/search/?q=parents&restrict...
My educator wife, however? There aren't enough minutes in the day to enumerate the inane BS she's put up with from students parents!
There are also plenty of counterexamples of parents, fed up with the poor quality of the savage factory that is the public school, coming together to form new private schools that surpass the standards of public education. These parents may not be representative, perhaps, but laying the blame at the feet of parents while valorizing administration, I claim, doesn't reflect reality adequately and certainly not constructively. In general, I am favor of more school choice and local initiative which would free parents to pursue models of excellence that could then be copied by other parents and even public schools (fat chance).
Remote school was a disaster for younger kids. All schools- public or private- are bureaucracies with rigid hierarchies. The pandemic showed the cracks in many social institutions. Schools were no exception. With a more horizontal and open structure, schools could have responded more flexibly.
Also there should have been a massive social safety net similar to the Great Depression supporting families AND businesses during the worst of it so parents could just be with their families.
In a vertical market-based Capitalist social structure, there just is very little wiggle room and the system fights like hell to maintain its own homeostasis.
A pandemic is classic example of a situation that would benefit from Capitalism stepping aside and let Socialism handle the hard stuff during the crisis- until Capitalism can step back in. It doesn't have to be binary. To not embrace this kind of flexibility is like building a structure in an earthquake zone with no provision for movement. It's going to fail during times of stress.
This is called an "integrated classroom" which is part of the "differentiated learning" pedagogy [1].
It has been around for a very long time.
Many schools have incorporated it into their curricula.
It is extremely difficult to build a successfully integrated classroom. The kids who need more help will slow down the kids who need less, which can decrease performance in both groups.
Educators with integrated classrooms need to construct several variations of a single lesson plan to mitigate this.
Given that education is amongst the lowest-paying professions in the US (less well-paying than restaurant work, after tips!), and given that many schools have been stripped of funding and other resources that can help alleviate this potential burden, I hope you can see why implementing this suggestion is easier said than done.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiated_instruction
Where is the real article?
Edit:
Here is real article:
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/
Scores dropped more for the lower percentile performance cohorts, much more for lowest.
The article isn't really about the genius children of HN posters.