Actually, the USA did pretty well on the latest PISA, if you adjust for race. Asian-Americans outscored every place on earth except Singapore and the cherry-picked 4 cities in mainland China.
American whites outscored Japan and South Korea.
Hispanic Americans outscored all Latin American countries.
African Americans probably would have outscored all black countries if any had take the test. As it were, black Americans outscored Romania and Thailand.
To see a graph of how Americans scored by race versus other countries:
http://www.unz.com/isteve/the-new-2018-pisa-school-test-scores-usa-usa/
19
@Steve Sailer
Excellent and insightful graph.
6
Asian American students do as well on the exam as their Asian counterparts. Americans of European descent do as well as their counterparts in Europe. Hispanic Americans and African Americans, on average, do poorly on the PISA thus dragging our overall score down.
Why there are score disparities between ethnic groups is not clear. Answers given usually are based on ideology rather than solid evidence.
From my review of the education literature the one variable that trumps all others is teacher quality. We should be focusing on recruiting and retaining excellent teachers- particularly for minority communities. We also should get streamline the process of getting rid of bad teachers quickly.
14
Our culture doesn’t value knowledge or wisdom or understands its role within our collective lives. We need only look to the complacency regarding Trump’s relying on blind devotees rather than experts in running the government. That trend is also observable in the easy dismissal of older people questioning the actions of The Woke among us.
How can we expect teachers to educate our children and youth well when those who are learned are so easily dismissed and even ridiculed?
Not until we overcome that disrespect and distrust do we have a chance.
479
@Denise I think the generalization that our culture doesn't value knowledge and wisdom is overstated.
It might be clearer to say that we have a bifurcation in which a large part of our population values achievement, and have formed the educated professional class. People who value achievement see education as a way to enter that class.
Another broad swath of the country distrusts education as something that undercuts their values - whether they are religious, or cultural or whatever.
And a third swath has little idea of what education can do for them, or doesn't have the skills to succeed in higher education. They often do have the skills to do other valuable work that eludes people who have more formal education. (I am a terrible carpenter.)
And overlaying all of that is a set of people who would rather declare education a waste than pay for it.
51
@Cathy Both Denise's and your comments resonate with me. I agree that students' attitude towards (literacy particularly) is a reflection of larger cultural attitudes.
However: I don't think that literacy is even the same skill/value/measure of intelligence that it used to be. We can't expect that students will have the same experience we did as students--our culture may have changed fundamentally in the last 20 years, from a text-based to an image-based society.
As educators, where does this leave us--particularly when we teach English? How can we prepare students for a future we can't even envision, let alone give advice on?
I believe that testing modalities are another node of this last-century regime. I love literacy, I value reading and language, and I try to share that--but you can't make the horse drink, no matter how much water you have. Students will not learn unless they choose to. Do we give them a reason to, other than "the workplace" or "test scores"? Even when we hold up our pleasure in reading or storytelling, why should we equate that to something that is meaningful for them?
We continue to try. But these are some thoughts as I prepare to teach my Alt Ed 10th grade English class. We are working on Greek Mythology, because I loved it; and because a good story is timeless.
Ultimately, language is magic: the power to know one's true self; and to use words that bind you to the life you can clearly describe and envision. I want to give them THAT.
15
@Cathy Reality Check education is art of sharing our talent . This isnt rocket science with proper amount effort person could learn how to change lite bulb safely . Many skills to be learned many which is trial an error. Still in school at age 66 an plan on continuing to improve skills to learn never ending.
3
In "Generation of Vipers", Phillip Wylie remarked, "The only way to inculcate an exacting skill like reading into the brain of the yapping barbarian that is the average ten year old child is through physical deprivation and punishment."
Time to turn off the cell phone, the TV, and the video game.
18
Charter schools and publics that are able to ape "charter" methods (i.e., a corporate approach that includes a data obsession, hyper-supervision, "layers" of supervision that involves many nonteaching positions, meetings, meetings, and meetings) have had their chance, and they have failed--unless their goal was to drive many veteran teachers out, weaken unions, and dissuade bright young people from entering the profession by turning it into a "gig."
I'm glad my kids are almost out of it--do you want scared, stressed, and confused people teaching yours? And would you want your child to become a teacher--as a career? Find out what it's like first.
14
Greetings from sunny Singapore, the #2 in the rankings.
I have been reading some of the comments and I feel quite compelled to say the following:
1. Singapore is a multi-racial and as well as multi-religious city state that also happens to be Chinese-majority. It's likely that the learners in the sample selected reflect our diversity.
2. The medium of instruction in our schools is English. This is an important point to note because all of us have to overcome the language barrier before we can start our learning proper. And yes, when you do come over to Singapore, please do not tell me how well I speak English.
3. Motivation from within is crucial to learning. In the absence of that, parents can force their kids to schlep themselves to private tutors but the results are not likely to be good. However, this is still better than not having a countervailing influence.
4. At 8 years old, I still could not read properly and was in danger of being slow-tracked as a result. However, a steady diet of Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books from the local library helped me right my listing ship and here I am. It was all free, by the way.
5. Our libraries are worth a visit. Take a trip to town to see the ones we have at Vivocity, Orchard Gateway, Chinatown Point and the Central Library at Victoria Street. We can borrow up to 16 books each time. I just checked the app.
42
If you want students to learn to like to read, give them books that are enjoyable and interesting.
13
Economically deprived students scored poorly. Hopefully progressives take control of the White House and Senate and provide funding for programs to boost performance for these students.
2
This thread encapsulates what's wrong with education in U.S. Everyone has a different view as to what's wrong with education in U.S. Thus solutions remain elusive.
8
Schools care about looking good (e.g. by getting good test scores, doing well in sports, having nice facilities, having a few young overachievers) but they don't care about actual learning, or good teaching.
Kids care about getting good grades, finishing all their homework, and taking as many impressive classes as possible. They don't really care that much about learning or actually understanding what they're doing, they just want to get the right answer, get the dopamine hit from being rewarded for getting the right answer, and then they want to move on and get the next thing.
It's not the kids fault. And I don't think the blame lies solely with test makers and standardized testing. I think it's a culture problem; a societal problem. It's a way of thinking that cares only about the ends and not about the means.
19
I live in Asia and the reality is that students and families spend a significant amount of time outside of school in private tutorials. Most children in Hong Kong with any ambitions to reach university have tutors or extra classes from age 4 onwards. It is expected that students already have familiarity with content from a new lesson before the teacher presents it. Teachers here aren't particularly highly paid and the teaching methods haven't changed since the 1970s. But the culture valorizes education and families push their children to do hours of extra study every day. So while I do think the American education system has much to answer for, Asian PISA scores as a point of comparison don't necessarily reflect a difference in school quality.
16
@Nikki When I was growing up in HK, it has a strong education curriculum. It follows the English Curriculum. The learning materials are of much higher quality. Math topics in this country are taught in the wrong order and with wrong concepts. Many of the U.S. public schools do not use textbooks. Teachers just hand out loose sheets of materials. English grammar is taught with errors. I still remember my teachers in Hong Kong taught me the good concepts in Math and the correct English grammar to be a better writer. The higher PISA scores do indicate a higher level of math skills, that translates into better analytical skills, and many other scientific and computing skills.
11
A friend had this proposal: have quite a few more but smaller schools. Increase the teacher-student ratio considerably. Eliminate school sports teams, but have regional teams who would train at a separate, dedicated location.
To which I would add: no one graduates without learning a foreign language. To learn one's native language well, learn a foreign language. It's stunning to realize how many people are barely literate.
And get rid of the idiot way schools are funded. Make the funding 100% federal ( and generous) and the same per capita. The rich should have no better schools, and the poor no worse. That of course is far from comprehensive, but I think worthy of consideration.
21
So our students don't do well on some silly test. What is important is what our students do after they leave school. Our engineers are the creative and productive in the World. So are our scientists. Everyone wants to watch our movies and our businesses run over everyone else. Lets not kill this golden goose by trying to chase test scores. Our system is working.
3
Spent most of career in construction industry I studied, but also have experience in education. Substitute taught in late 1980's, taught design & algebra at jr college in early 2000's. NONE of it prepared me for dystopian morass I witnessed recently while getting state certified:
Local district, well-funded schools, rebranded as "academies", tech equipped, free breakfast & lunch... a good 70% of the kids have literally skipped early childhood development. Became teenagers w/out even basic sense of human society & theory of mind. Academic failure is LEAST of their issues, & fix won't be academic. Neither liberal empathetic coddling nor reactionary budget cuts have any capacity to help.
My proposal requires more guts than the left will ever have, and more thinking than the right will ever do. 2/3 of kids I saw need to be removed by state, & put in human retraining camp for however long it takes, in small groups, led by highly-trained social workers + equal number security staff standing by to end nonsense.
Maybe 1-2 hours daily to learn basic literacy and numeracy, but should be mostly remedial childhood development camp. Kids who progress can be gradually integrated back into society.
Liberals will say too strict and segregationist, & conservatives will whine about "muh tax dollars on guvmit program". They all need to grow spine and face reality. Pay now, or pay later. Leaving them in school and pushing problem on teachers is idiotic denial, and kicking can down road.
15
Improving the education achievements of our citizens is critical for our national defense. Put the arts back in the regular curriculum because they nurture creativity, which we need lots of to address climate change and an educated citizenry. Move half the defense budget to education. Scrap most home schooling and “Christian” madrassas.
6
@Barrie Grenell What is your issue with home schooling? When the public school options are terrible due to crowded classes, low quality teachers and a confused / confusing curriculum - isn't that a better alternative?
6
"About a fifth of American 15-year-olds scored so low on the PISA test that it appeared they had not mastered reading skills expected of a 10-year-old, according to Andreas Schleicher, director of education and skills at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which administers the exam.
"Those students, he said, face 'pretty grim prospects' on the job market.
First: If 20% of 15 years olds are five years below mastery level in reading, then that's no surprise to me. What the percentage of US adults who are reading at the mastery level of a 10 year old? Until we can answer that question we need to hold off blaming schools, teachers, parents, kids etc.
Instead, we might need to examine the country's culture and norms.
Second: No everyone is going to be a proficient reader no more than everyone is going to a proficient visual artist or musician. Various forms of dyslexia could be contributing to lower scores.
And comparing readers of English to readers of the various languages in China is not exactly apples and oranges but there are significant differences between the two, namely, rules of phonics in English are reliably predictive of phonees much, much less than other languages.
Plenty of well-paying jobs in the trades that do not require a college degree.
5
As with so much in the U.S., it's all about poverty (& therefore racism) & what you spend to alleviate it.
Students from the poorest backgrounds in the US get less support than in other countries. That brings the 'average' US score down.
Part of this is generational racism. Schools are supported by local taxes, which means students in poor areas get less money & less support. That's baked-in disadvantage right there.
The other side of the coin is that poor students in the US generally do better in states where their teachers are better paid, unionized & treated as professionals.
So, it's not difficult to figure out:
1. Centralize school funding
2. Treat teachers like professionals & pay them very well.
3. Remove negative compounders of poverty (low minimum wage job, lack of health care) by raising minimum wages to $20/hr & introduce Medicare for everyone.
Oh and most important,
0. Tax billionaires at 75%, millionaires at 65% and everyone else at 35% to pay for a fairer society.
12
@A Professor Bosh! There is a ton of poverty among whites in Appalachia and other parts of the rural South. That's racism?
Give us a break!
8
My wife and I are in education.
Our kids: Notre Dame, UChicago, Princeton, Chapel Hill, Oxford.
We don't have a lot of money. But we're rich in what counts.
7
@mike I found it interesting that you named your kids after colleges.
Just kidding. Congratulations.
16
Demographics. In California, Latinos are now the largest, fastest growing, ethnic group in the state. And there is not one county in the state in which even half of the students meet state standards in either Math or English Language.
https://public.tableau.com/profile/theresa.chen#!/vizhome/PercentofStudentsMeetingorExceedingStandardsonSmarterBalancedAssessment2017/Sheet1
11
The starkest example of how education is failing U.S. citizens is the President they elected. You don't need international benchmark tests when you can just look at who is in the White House.
20
The four provinces in China that took part in PISA had GDP per capita of Beijing($21,188), Shanghai($20,398), Jiangsu($17,404 ) and Zhejiang($14,907) in 2018. Yet they outperform Singapore($57,714), Hong Kong($46,193), Macau($80,892), Finland($45,703), and of course, the United States($59,531). In all three subjects--Maths, Science and Reading--with wide margins! In fact, the gap in science between China(590) and second-place Singapore(551) is almost as wide as Singapore vs US(502).
Of particular note is the fact that Reading portion of the PISA test this year focused on critical think--" to determine when written evidence supported a particular claim and to distinguish between fact and opinion." How many times were we told that an informed citizenry, capable of discerning fact from opinion, is critical to the health of democracy? How many times did the media try to convince us that those Chinese are brainwashed, propaganda-ridden zombies incapable of critical thought? And yet, the students from the one-party authoritarian states of China and Singapore dominate the Reading test as well. If there are suspicions that China's success in science and maths can be attributed to rote-memorization and standardized-testing, then the results of the reading test should these speculations to rest.
10
They seem to have no problems texting all day.
11
"...the focus of the 2018 exam. Students were asked to determine when written evidence supported a particular claim and to distinguish between fact and opinion, among other tasks."
Guess who are the top performers in this task? Singapore and China. Both authoritarian non-democracies! Who are brainwashed now?
See more at: https://qz.com/1759474/only-9-percent-of-15-year-olds-can-distinguish-between-fact-and-opinion/
4
Why not link to the results of the study itself? (see https://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA%202018%20Insights%20and%20Interpretations%20FINAL%20PDF.pdf)
And why omit Korea and Poland, also outperforming the US?
For those wondering why American kids fail at reading, I recommend "The Knowledge Gap" by Natalie Wexler - it's hard to understand what you are reading if you do not have the necessary background knowledge (or the vocabulary). We keep focusing on skills and strategies, and forgo the meaning.
Read to your kids. Take them to the library. Visit bookstores for fun. Tell them about your favorite childhood books. Ask relatives and friends to buy them books for their birthdays. Tell them stories. Talk to them about the world around them.
It's that simple.
13
First of all, set national standards, but allow local educators and parents to implement them as they find effective. That works far better than local control of the educational programs.
Second, insist that all teachers have the knowledge of the subjects that enables them to teach them through twelve grade. This is especially important for those who teach mathematics and science. The typical elementary school teacher is not comfortable with mathematics and teaches it with so little insight that students end up thinking that it takes a special kind of talent to learn that subject. It's actually much easier to understand quantitative and logical subjects than verbal subjects once the rules are understood.
5
Our system continually focuses on standardized tests, because whatever gets measured is what gets attention. Why should that be the metric of success for our schools? Why would you even assume that the schools are the reason for the test performance, when it's so clear that different types of students in the same schools perform totally differently?
As an American citizen who has chosen to raise my family abroad in Singapore and who has spent a lot of time in China as well, the reasons for America’s low success rates in reading and math are glaringly obvious. In comparison to the top performers, America puts far less value on its children, family structure and overall future. Rates of family violence and childhood neglect in the US are abysmally high- how can you expect a child to do well in school when there is no security at home?
Parents in the US simply do not sacrifice for their kids like those in Korea, China, Japan and Singapore. Statistics on student loan debt and childcare centers show this well.
Merit and performance are worth far less in the US than celebrity and popularity- kids are shamed for their intelligence, whereas in many other countries, studiousness has a premium value. We don’t have shooter drills in Singapore, nor drug pushers in school or gangs roaming the shopping malls.
Latchkey kids are rare in East Asia- there is usually someone to come home to, be it a parent, grandparent or nanny.
Teacher pay is not the issue, but perception sure is. Although much of Asia does not pay its educators well (similar to the US), they are at least given some respect.
America can dump all the money it wants into trying to improve its reading and math scores, but results will remain relatively stagnant until the society wakes up, addresses the rampant violence and starts valuing its children.
29
@A. Pestano -- Kudos! It is all about the family -- and we jettisoned that to build a cocoon around the scourge of society, the single mother.
I taught for years in inner city schools and parenting is what makes for a well-educated student. And, it usually takes two to raise a child.
When we stop exalting unwed mothers and start exalting married parents we will find that scores improve.
12
It is very disheartening to read these comments as they are mostly opinions based on personal experience. Where is the data driven report that can explain what works and what doesn't. If Asian and Scandinavian countries can graduate high performing students year after year, they figured it out already. Why cant we emulate them?
Can anyone provide links to a study on our education system that is both apolitical and complete?
6
Regarding why Asian kids in the U.S. do much better than other ethnic groups academically. Other commenters have noted, correctly, that the main explanation comes from the differences in cultural attitudes and traditions. Asian cultures, particularly Chinese, Korean and Japanese, place great value and emphasis on learning and scholastic achievements. Parents constantly impart this point to their children, encourage extra-curricular scholarly activities, closely monitor their children's progress, check their homework, help them study, arrange for extra tutoring on more advanced subjects, etc. Another important point is that the family structure in Asian families in the U.S. is still more intact than for other demographic groups. According to the CDC data, Asians have the lowest rate of out-of-wedlock births (in 2010 it was 17% for Asians, 35.9% for whites, 53.4% for latinos and 72.1% for blacks). The availability of two parents in a household to help a child with the schoolwork and after-school academic activities makes a huge difference. Children in single-parent families, where the parent works, are particularly disadvantaged.
14
I'm out of patience for those commenters who are using the less-than-thrilling performance of the US on this exam to complain about the unfairness of standardized tests. This is a very low stakes test; scores have no impact on individual students, teachers, schools or districts. The truth is that if students are steeped n high quality curriculums implemented by skilled teachers who themselves are steeped in learning science and and evidence-based practices, doing reasonably well on this test should not be that hard. Additionally, students need exposure to test conditions; learning to perform for sustained periods of time under some time pressure is an excellent way to build resilience. Keep expectations clear and high. The soft bigotry of low expectations has got to end.
18
I will sum up how I feel about the education system in this country based on my kids' schooling in one of the "high performing" school districts in Westchester county, NY.
1. Weak academic curriculum. The Common Core Curriculum is below international standard.
2. Qualification of teachers needs to be strengthened. Standardize teachers program and require applicants to have B or above grades. For my two children, from first to eighth grades, only two teachers teach both reading and math well.
3. Poor teaching materials. This country doesn't believe good textbooks can improve kids' learning significantly. Singapore Math textbooks provide great learning materials. A good English grammar book teaches grammar in the right order with excellent explanations. I use the ones authored by Rosemary Allen or Anne Seaton.
4. Homework and tests are not that serious. For math, they are mostly beginner level questions, and the occasional intermediate level question. Singapore Math questions range from beginner, intermediate to advanced. Advanced questions will lead the kids to develop a deep understanding of concepts learned.
5. The culture of sports is sending the wrong message to kids. Have fun with school work, but practice hard and be competitive with your sports. It should be the other way around.
6. Short school days and number of school days less than international standard.
17
The real problem with education in this country is that parents play an oversize role in how well the student performs. That is not so much because they want to but because the schools have come to expect that parents will do much of the heavy lifting for their children.
This starts at the lowest grades, so that by the time a child gets to Middle school, the differences between those who got the extra support and extra push at home and those who didn't becomes marked. So marked that it can't be overcome.
Here is your best example; reading. The schools seem content with just having the child will learn to read and write . But the super-supportive parent will insist - at home, if not school - that their child be able to write well, with good syntax and extra vocabulary. It is the parent who goes over - line by line - through their child's work. It is the parent who has their child re-write it until it passes muster. The teacher cannot possibly do this kind of work for 30 children in the class room.
So, almost by definition, those with a parent who can - and will take that extra hour every day to go over their child's work in detail, they will become better writers 4 years later. And those with at least one parent who cares to go over that science project with full attention to what makes a GOOD project, not just a completed project, are those who will thrive later in science classes in high school.
11
Students in my college English classes arrive not having learned enough about the world and how it works. They understand how to structure an essay, but they often lack the ability and desire to read and research in depth. They think that they can just copy and paste random bits of somewhat related information into an essay and link them together with what is often the equivalent of diarrhea of the fingers.
If we want to improve reading and writing scores, we have got to teach them meaningful content that is relevant to their lives as well as equipping them to be participants and contributors to their communities. To do this, we need to give them non-fiction narratives that are current best-sellers, not outdated, often hard to read "classics."
This semester I required my students to read and write about legalizing marijuana, same-sex marriage, gender fluidity, and Mike Pompeo. Although the students initially struggled with some of these concepts, most wrote and rewrote their essays because they saw the relevance in being able to intellectually write about and discuss these modern concerns.
To accomplish this, teachers need to stop worrying about teaching "skills" which are meaningless without compelling content. Most importantly, educators need to stop being afraid of unintentionally marginalizing or offending some group. Education should be challenging and sometimes controversial-that is when and how true learning occurs. From that reading and writing will flourish.
11
@J. ENG 101 Instructor
Which “outdated classics” in particular do you encourage your students to shun so that they can focus on reading easier current bestsellers while they are writing on such diverse topics as Mike Pompeo and the legalization of pot? Shakespeare? “Pride and Prejudice”? “A Tale of Two Cities”? “The Great Gatsby”?
5
@J. ENG 101 Instructor
P.S. Have any of your students managed to figure out why Mike Pompeo is always smiling? I’m quite sure it’s not because he’s smoking weed.
5
I spent the last day of my 27-year teaching career last year trying to defend myself to a parent who was incensed that her son earned an A- instead of an A. Trying to explain to her that an A- was a fantastic grade in a chemistry class fell on deaf ears. He “needed” the A, she explained, because he planned to be a doctor.
It’s not just the kids, it’s the parents.
17
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
States Rights advocates have always used public education for their own socio-political agendas, making congruity in learning outcomes impossible in the U.S.. This legacy is like a yoke around students’ neck marginalizing too many of their skill sets. Without acceptable uniform standards for implementation (i.e. uniform teacher pay, common curriculum, assessment, facilities, instructional materials, teacher/student ratios) amenable to sufficient masses of the disparate factions there is only a race to the top. Sometimes by any means necessary.
For, “When elephants go to war, only the grass suffers.”
Year round school, from 8:00 am - 5:00 pm, with ample time for exercise and movement during those hours. Parents would have less daycare expense, and less worry about where their older kids were after school. Students would have time to learn, time to practice and time for help with areas of struggle. And we'd be approaching similar amounts of instructional time per year as other countries who do better on standardized testing
6
I was a teacher from 2009 through 2012, mostly in inner city schools. Many students looked at standardized testing as a vacation day. They spent 5 minutes filling in all the blanks on the paper, then put their heads on the desk and snoozed. No amount of pleading could get them to read the test material because the students know that there are no penalties for doing poorly. Those of you who come from a background of trying to do your very best on every test, think again. There is nothing to motivate students to do well on these tests. It does not affect their grades.
15
@Greta
I understand why you pleaded with your students to try, but what was the incentive for them to expend effort? Would some of them have done well if they’d tried their best?
I’m not criticizing you. I’m a teacher too, and I would be dispirited if my students put their heads down during a test.
1
Education in the US has long been arranged to benefit educators with short school years and school days. Extending school days and extending school years are obvious solutions. But with strong public Unions and limited parental interest in such extensions its unlikely either school days or school years will be extended.
While there’s much hand wringing for public school performance achievement similar concerns involve our large college population most of whom also study in public supported institutions. Again where short school years and shoot days are favored by the faculty and administrators.
The “good news” is that the US still has a major share of the world’s major research universities. And large numbers of foreign students take advantage of such world class universities.
The “bad news’ is most US college grads secure skills that have little or limited immediate value in our ever more technical labor market.
Asian nations seem to “get it right” with long school days, 6 day school weeks and very limited vacation time. Plus an emphasis on learning the STEM subjects. No nation matches the Chinese where learning to read, write and speak English is mandatory at the high school level.
Those who have long studied comparative public school and college performance across nations have few doubts much will change in the rankings of US versus the rest of the modern world.
Education in the US is a really major business and mostly public funded. So change is challenging.
4
Short school days and years were designed when a majority of students worked on farms. Teachers have no input on their schedule, the school board does.
Most teachers I know, including myself, would welcome a year long calendar with frequent shorter breaks rather than one long summer vacation.
8
@Peter I Berman
School days are long enough.
I’m a teacher. By the time my school day ends (a bit before 3:00), the teachers, even the younger ones, are exhausted. As any classroom teacher will tell you, teaching is physically taxing. I know teachers who fall asleep on weeknights by 8 p.m.
And kids need a break from school after being in the building for about 7 1/2 hours. Most have afterschool activities (athletics et al.) and deserve some time with their families at suppertime before tackling homework. Most of the students I know have almost no “down time” except on weekends.
If states decide to extend the school day, of course we will have to pay teachers more. Though no teacher enters the profession to make money, teachers should not be expected to work for free. And if the day were extended., English teachers like me might have to stay up even later to grade the mounds of essays we bring home.
12
More and more, kids are raised by single parents or parents that just don't take the time to teach their kids. For some reason, may parents totally underestimate raising kids and the effort on their part to educate. When kids whine about homework, parents yell at the teachers!
Our school system is not designed to raise our kids, nor should they be. And it's not about the money, just look at those states that centralize school tax collections and divvy them out, often more for low performing schools. And don't get me started on the ineffective department of education.
PS a student cannot be held back anymore- always promoted to next grade,unlike30 years+ ago.
12
While our schools are failing their kids, school administrators are being paid like CEOs of small corporations. Here's how you quickly fix the problem. Half their pay (they'd still be making more than all the teachers), and tie the other half they used to get to a bonus based on long term success of students, along with good checks and balances so no one games the system. That will get them to stop worrying about their car collections and second or third homes, and focus on what matters.
4
In my school, an administrator actually told me that the school was really a business! i guess he thinks of himself as a CEO!
3
This fails to report just what those "billions of dollars" were actually spent on. In general, eeducation spending goes to personnel costs including retirement.
2
Stifling education is exactly what those in power — both political and economic— want. Every poorly educated, employable citizen who is incapable of critical, analytical, and moral thinking is a desirable employee, essentially an automaton, a robot that will not make demands or trouble and will work for a borderline wage, no benefits, little vacation and other leaves, no pension, and little in the way of worker protections. That is now the way of America’s workplace, and it can never lead to the resurrection of a middle class that, along with education, can be an engine of upward mobility and of our our social strength, progress and welfare.
7
"Students were asked to determine when written evidence supported a particular claim and to distinguish between fact and opinion, among other tasks."
One of our many deficits- the ability to think critically, read in depth and study history- too many screens, not enough tactile words. Critical thought is a process that used to include family dinner table discussions, the daily newspapers, and inspired teachers who had time in their day to engage students in something other than fantasy football and dancing with the stars. The results, I fear are not only economic struggles, but vulnerability to propaganda. We have met the enemy Pogo, and he is us- a country now ruled by fear, scapegoats, excuses, waste , greed and narcissism- I thought we'd do better.
3
The solution is always more money. I've been hearing this story for 30 years, and the solution is always more money.
3
@jenny
But the solution WILL require more money. It is expensive to build and maintain school buildings, buy classroom materials, keep class sizes small. pay teachers a fair wage and also fund their pensions, and hire a full-time nurse as well as support personnel to help the neediest students.
You might as well complain that it just costs too much money to keep our highways in good shape.
But if you want to know how education funds should be spent, ask an expert on teaching and learning: an experienced classroom teacher. Unfortunately the ones who call the shots when it comes to education “reform” are mostly rich, powerful family foundations and our Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, fearer of grizzly bears.
4
Throw out the last few decades of new rules/reforms for teaching! Focus on providing some real change not just in schools but in communities where children are suffering from - poverty, gun violence, stress, anxiety and a basic lack of basic necessities - like lunch money or lunch. Bring in real support. Also, give children skills to help COPE with trauma and stress. Mindful/Mediation skills benefit students. It is science-based and has been effective in at risk neightborhoods, prisons and vulernable communities. Kids trauma has to be lowered BEFORE they can learn. www.mindfulnesseveryday.org
2
give families a decent wage and health care and let's reassess. Scores will probably go up.
2
Working or not, the education institution and teachers' union thank they knew the best way to teach our children and there is nothing to be learned by importing from more advanced countries. The main idea are education should be enjoyable, let all kids develop their own talent at their place, keep up social promotion and keep respect for all kids despite their behavior. getting along is more important
than actually acquire skill, lower the standard so not to embarrass lower scorers,patting us on the back for how little has been accomplish Rd and etc.
2
The Repubican war on science, education, the scientific method. We are now believing nothing learned in this country.
4
In terms of National Security it makes more sense to spend $15 billion per week on education than distributing it to the Pentagon.
4
American kids started getting dumber when their moms started leaving them in day care. Families that can afford a stay-at-home parent during the preschool years will continue to produce smarter children. Instead of subsidizing day care, we should subsidize stay-at-home parenting.
3
Children are people, not products.
Parents create families, not resume’d professionals.
Schools provide an education, not a service.
Consumerism and capitalism are great, in their proper place. But they have no place in education, health care, the courts, legislation, or the military.
Teachers have to be free to give needed feedback, even when it’s hard to hear. Parents need to be able to advocate for their kid and get the help needed, without shame or relentless bureaucracy. Kids need food and sleep and stability and encouragement to learn.
Because profits do not drive learning. People do.
Oh and one more thought. Maybe the endless lockdowns and drills and DAILY FEAR OF BEING SHOT BY SOME LUNATIC is taking a toll.
10
Okay, what's not working? The US educational system or the culturally-specific (SES and culture) metrics? Just wondering?
4
Not in MA, baby!
Yeah, I know it is an average and some kids are way below here as well. We talk about free college education but still haven't figured out our "free" public K-12 education!
2
Testing, testing, testing.
We keep testing instead of allowing teachers to actually teach.
5
America's school education system...
Especially, the public school systems are COMPLETELY & TOTALLY BROKEN.
The reasons are follows :-
1. The fundamental reason is that, public school education, is being run, like PROFIT-MAKING CORPORATES. With the belief, that, ambitious individuals with PhDs & GRADS in education-management, without any REAL TEACHING EXPERIENCE, can be made to crush & squeeze & strangulate & pressure & measure, subject-teachers, to produce A+ grades in READING, STEM, math and science. Students aren't products, like phones, or conveyor-belt products or services.
2. READING, Math & Science subjects, can be learnt ONLY in a gentle rising intensity, at a pace and assimilation, at the student's age... in an interesting and motivating approach, at the elementary level and gradually supporting them conceptually upward. Merely by dumping Math or physics or chemistry or biology, at the middle or high school level, for a semester, just like history or sociology or archaeology, because it's essential, will not develop the knowledge, skill or competence. Most often, the dumping approach, will permanently create an aversion towards STEM & scientific learning.
3. The testing system does not show the true situation, because, colleges are being filled adequately by children from wealthy families & private schools.
4. Children from PUBLIC SCHOOLS are being kept from acquiring higher levels of education, by this corporate manufacturing style of education. IT'S A DISASTER.
3
"It Just Isn't Working" could be the overall assessment that describes pretty much everything in this dysfunctional age.
And I have to say it again: We both know the central reason why reading and the STEM subjects are each in historic, even existential decline. Technology. The kind we hold in our hands at this very moment.
It is hard to excite young minds by---speaking analogously---giving them a fast, sexy car, and then trying to instill in them the oh-so-holy importance of the horse and buggy. Particularly when that horse and buggy is likely only to get them as far as a greeter job at the local WalMart.
It isn't 'education' that is in question; It is our very purpose.
5
All the comments here are either very naive or just plainly ignorant of US educational policy.
Let me break it down real simple for you guys: Why would any country choose to educate its people if it is able to just import the best and the brightest from the rest of the world?
The answer can not be paying taxes or good education being a human right. We are way passed these exotic concepts.
6
Common Core was a bad idea? Who could predicted this?
8
Have we ever considered checking out what Indian private schools do in their math programs?
1
...election cycle must be near...wedge "issue" without actual relevance is telling...
1
Trade schools.
The German model.
That is all.
6
“Frustration is understandable,” he said of low test results. But, he added, “Maybe this is just a really hard problem.”
Well duh!
2
Oh! And I had such high hopes for Betsy de Vos. Gag.
1
How are Asian immigrant children disproportionately succeeding in schools?
What are their parents doing that is so effective? Can they train American parents? Are American parents open and ready to work to improve the scholastic performance of their children? Is the scholastic success of their children an American value or are we expecting someone else to effectively motivate them? Yeah. Just throw money and politician promises at the problem. See how well that has worked out.
7
@Joel H
I'm an Asian Indian parent. I'm willing to teach in elementary school, but don't have a teaching certificate. Will probably get one soon.
I taught my kids everything (reading, writing, math) until fourth or fifth grade even though they attended regular public schools. School was for learning social skills. After that they were on their own. It was very time consuming, but it worked.
I also read to my kids when they were young every day.. a habit I learned from other American parents. So American parents are also doing the right thing.. The only difference I see is that they rely too much on the school system due to their long working hours.
7
I've been reading this story since 1982
14
Funny how most people insinuate these low scores are poor, minority students' fault when the level of ignorance and lack of intellect demonstrated by Trump, a rich white guy who had enough resources to get properly educated is astonishing. It is not about poverty or race. It is about this very American attitude among all segments of the population, especially lower class whites: ignorant and uneducated and mighty proud of it. After all who needs education when all they need is the six pack in the fridge, a truck with a good gun rack in the driveway and a big screen TV.
4
I was a public school secondary teacher for many years, but with the blessing of a spouse that covered our family's expenses. My take on this is two fold.
First, mimic Finland, and only hire teachers who graduated in the top quarter of their college class. Pay them as well as you pay an engineer or a doctor.
Second, we need to address poverty. Children from stressed families are stressed, and when half the country has no financial reserve, large numbers of parents are financially stressed.
Can we do better?
yep..the rest of the developed world does, and we're supposed to be the wealthiest country in the world. Surely we can provide health care for everyone. Surely we can pay a minimum wage that provides enough income so families can survive without holding two, three or four jobs. The solutions all involve revising the tax structure to minimize wage inequities and maximize help for families and children.
The comment about exposure to environmental poisons is also worth considering. It may be the most important.
11
We're not building FLUENCY early for kids. They need to be able to quickly learn and memorize formulas (like we used to do). There are new learning tools, using technology, that will help elementary age kids become fluent. After some beta testing in an elementary after-school program, parents will be able to access it for home-use from an app store. There is hope!
1
As a college professor, I've seen a dramatic decline in students' reading comprehension, writing ability, and critical thinking skills since video games and cell phones became common place. Kids don't read anymore for fun or for school. Practice makes perfect and students today do not read. They can't follow simple instructions on an assignment because they either don't read the instructions or don't understand what they are reading. The only thing that can keep their attention in class is videos. Parents should take phones away, turn off the TV, and put their kids in front of the books for a few hours a day. It's the only way for them to be successful in school and in the future.
17
Practice does Not “make perfect”. Assume one is practicing imperfectly.
1
There are lots of theories, but none of the explanations for falling test scores seem to be confirmed with scientific study.
Maybe none of the theories are major contributors to the problem. Maybe the problem has little to do with money spent on education, poor parenting, poor teachers, poor teacher training, cyber distractions, etc.
Exposure to neurotoxins could account for all the symptoms teachers are seeing. More than 1,000 chemicals are known to have neurotoxic effects in animals and the list grows.
3
A friend and I, both nurses, were taking a class in nutrition to help our patients. My friend had lost her student ID and wanted to replace it. As we walked into the student affairs area, we saw a young woman, standing in the foyer crying. My friend knew her and her parents, went to her, asked if she could help her.
The young woman said, "No, I'll be okay, it's just that I have to withdraw from school, I'm flunking two classes".
The 18 year old was next to be called into the office.
After we left the office, my friend told me "She graduated in June with my son Chet. She was an honor graduate."
Something is wrong in education and there are many possibilities.
Parents who are not involved in their children's education could be part of the problem.
But did the change from English majors teaching English, math majors teaching math, and so on begin this downward slope in actual achievement?
Did all the New this and New that in education add speed to the downward slide?
When did the theory that if you learned "the theory of education" you could teach any subject begin?
Was it shortly before the time SAT scores started dropping?
4
@Azalea Lover I home school but kids do full day math & science program. The teachers have PhDs and absolutely love their subject. Of course that expertise and enthusiasm makes for more high-level, engaging instruction.
3
@Sophie
Expertise and enthusiasm = children who are excited to learn!
Years ago I had lunch with an old high school classmate when she was visiting her parents. She was a teacher and her husband an electrical engineer.
My classmate taught in her school district. They sent their children to an area private school. In discussions about education, I said, "The three of us are the product(s) of our town's education system. We've all done well. You made the decision to send your children to the private school. Tell me why."
She said the decision was because the private school teaches the way we were taught decades ago. The private school hasn't changed.
The public schools changed.......thus my old friends' decision to pay high tuition for the same education we received.
Our parents and grandparents paid property and school taxes. My old friends paid property and school taxes - and thousands per year for their children's education at the private school.
Seems to me we have broken a well-respected law when it comes to education: It wasn't broken, and we tried to fix it.
2
@Azalea Lover Exactly this. We are applying to private school for 6th grade. I am acutely aware that despite living in an area with one of the highest costs of living in country, we need to spend a lot to get what was taken for granted at public schools when I was a child.
2
The problem I found with our local schools - and the reason I home schooled - was that kindergarten and first grade are too academic. My twins were not ready for reading & writing instruction in kindergarten.
So a I saw an experience of them being frustrated, failing, losing confidence and mentally checking out. Instead, they spent a lot of time in nature, on free play, being read to and just basic math & letters, etc. In second grade they did a phonics based reading program and became avid readers. We used Singapore Math which starts from the concrete and ends in the abstract which builds confidence. They are 2 years ahead in math.
My kids are not unusual - there are a lot of kids not ready to read in kindergarten & first grade. But most schools don't focus on reading instruction in 2nd grade. So the kids are lost for good absent outside tutoring. We need to do better providing intensive tutoring such that no child leaves 2nd grade without being able to read.
10
The problem can't be solved by the schools. The problem is that this society doesn't support families and children, despite all the talk about "family values." Rampant poverty and near-poverty, unavailable or unaffordable child care, low wages for working families, rents that eat up 40-50% or more of family income, laughably insufficient perinatal leave, an unconscionable degree of food insufficiency — all things that undermine a family's ability to focus on child care and support kids in school. The best teaching in the world won't make up for all that.
8
@pmbrig Baloney. It was FAR worse during the Depression and the War and my siblings and I turned out just fine.
Of course --- our parents were married.
7
Our POTUS would have difficulty performing well on the PISA test. He has all the trappings of a successful adult, but is barely articulate, disrespects education, and rejects science. Even so, he is an acceptable leader to a large proportion of our citizens. What an example for our children!
12
Try two parents at home involved in their children’s lives and education who value learning and homework. Forget the bells and whistles. The rest is bunk. And a huge waste of money.
16
What if the parents work full time and commute??
2
Take these studies with a grain of salt. Many countries cheat on their tests. I'm from one such country.
8
How about underfunding schools (and lowering tax rates), underpaid teachers, poor students who are hungry and/or afraid of being shot to death....the list goes on and on.
8
It's not about money. It's about parents and culture: do they value education, make sure children do their homework and have ambitions for the future, or do they tolerate laziness and immediate pleasure, for themselves (children are excellent imitators) and for their children.
Is school about sports, parties and the prom, or is it about education?
29
Isn't a large part of the problem for the US in terms of education the fact that we delegate the execution of such to local school committees and boards? And local schools are funded rather arcanely by property taxes. So simply put, if kids live in rich towns with good school boards, they get a decent shot. If they don't, they don't. Some states attempt a redistribution among towns. But it doesn't solve the problem. Too many teachers are still buying supplies out of their own pockets. Most are underpaid.
And the elephant in the room, IMO, is that we randomly assign early childhood development to a hodge podge of somewhat and maybe not adequate child care situations. What happens in the first three years is a HUGE determiner of what a child's life will be like. Most American kids are "parked" for the day because that's all the parents can afford. The hunger for learning should be fed at the very beginning. The fact that "billions have been spent" is meaningless if a kid didn't get what he or she needed from the get go.
6
What motivation were the students given for the test? I can imagine China can impose some serious motivations where as in PA our state test counts for nothing, except rating the teachers.
7
Teach LEARNING (school skills like studying, note-taking, reading textbooks, and essay writing) as you would Red Cross Swimming. Don’t advance a student until they show that they actually utilize the skills necessary to succeed further in school. Make their parents participate and arrange real study halls managed as they do in boarding schools.
These skills must be effectively individualized and reinforced.
Per Khan Academy, only 100% segment comprehension learning is the requisite sequence to continued success. Build the strong foundation before going to the next segment.
7
Our child cannot wait for national debate to coalesce into effective educational policy. So, we educate our child ourselves.
Fortunately, I remember the “old fashioned” elementary education with very strict teachers. (And by strict I do not mean corporal punishment.) Our child apparently benefits from this out of fashion instruction. It is amazing what a child can read with a knowledge of phonics!
I teach grammar. It is so important!
I stress all kinds of memorization; math facts, dates in history, presidents, Vice Presidents, kings, pharaohs, states, capitals, countries, what was the first sentence I said, what happened last week, etc. Yes, it’s a pain, but so necessary if a person is to make any progress in developing an intellect.
I insist on perfect penmanship, neatness, and organization.
It is hard work. It’s labor intensive. And our child rises to the occasion every time. In other words, children can meet the high expectations mature adults place on them.
Plus, our child delights in applying hard earned knowledge in the real world.
As parent/educators, my husband and I spend a lot of time with our child. We spend a lot of time reading together, conversing about EVERYTHING, and just enjoying the wonder that comes with everything in childhood.
I only wish my husband and I were not the only ones.
It seems not enough adults deem children a worthwhile endeavor. It shows in this country’s education policies.
5
@Clau Totally agree. I home school also and have experimented with a lot of different curricula. I started with a lot of online lessons based on common core. In every subject I ended up using old school approaches, because they work.
2
@Clau I agree, and I was heartbroken when I learned our public schools, even for kids on the college prep track aren’t assigning required reading lists, some teachers assign magazine articles.. I supplemented my daughter’s education, I assigned her to read the classics and other works I was assigned in school. Every day we discussed what she had read and I assigned her to write a paper on each book. I hired a retired math teacher to tutor her in algebra when she had difficulty as the school in our town no longer allowed peer tutoring and the teacher didn’t care. My late husband and I were blue collar, he was a sanitation worker, I worked a few part time jobs to help pay the bills. We valued and respected education and wanted our daughter to have the education we didn’t have. Today she is has a master’s degree and is a professional. Our schools need to return to the basics, and our resources need to prioritize those basics. This might tick some off but we need to cut the frivolous stuff and that includes the lefty frippery. The reforms put in place in the 70s actually increased illiteracy and dumbing down coursework makes things even worse.
3
Ask teachers what to do. They’ll tell you. The biggest block to learning is discipline. Kids cutting? No consequences. Kids talking during class? No consequences. On the phone? Teacher has to politely ask students to put them away. We’re not allowed to confiscate them ( potential liability) and de Blasio says students can have them.
Principals have a fantasy that if a teacher is compelling enough, students will be so lulled into learning. But I’ve yet to see this unicorn creature especially in harder math/science classes.
This isn’t a teacher problem. Teachers can teach of students are made available for teaching— if they focus and pay attention. Otherwise, you perpetuate the same level of distraction the most vulnerable of students routinely face at home. It’s not money— or it’s not just money— but with more deans, social workers, and willingness to let some students fail at first, you can get there
16
Hi All,
I read this article and a number of responses and am appalled by the original article and responses. The overall article was a white wash of the total US education system and we need to focus on facts, not blame. It painted an inaccurate picture and diagnosis of the real problem. In reality, the best schools in the US are unsurpassed by any country in the world. Look at the incredible results of the students at our universities and the desire of international students to attend them. The real problem is the disparity of results across the US. We have great and bad sitting within miles of each other. Some of it is economic, others are parent participation and support of teachers. The US education system isn’t “busted”. The problem is that it doesn’t serve everyone equally and that problem is equally distributed between the people and the government. I am not saying that the solution is easy, but if you want your children to take advantage of the opportunities that exist, get involved in their schools and push the agenda. You will be amazed how far your kids can go! The money can be found when the politicians realize their jobs depend finding it.
Chris
9
"There were some bright spots for the United States: Achievement gaps between native-born and immigrant students were smaller than such gaps in peer nations."
Perhaps because the arriving immigrants are better, and natives worse? If so, does that qualify as a "bright spot?"
3
Many different reasons for these scores. I work in the public schools and I'll focus on one reason: parents.
Many parents at my school are just not engaged in their child's education. Now, our really good parents volunteer, substitute teach, run the PTA, fund raise, and read to their children. This is a small handful. Our parent-teacher conference nights? It's like a ghost town. Of course those aforementioned good parents are always there and surprise, their kids are not just good students, but good people, too.
The inability for today's parents to grow up -- I see more tattoos on parents than 20 somethings these days -- is stunning. Parents play video games, and parents don't tell their kids to get off video games.
Sorry, I'm not impressed with Gen X on down in the parenting world, it's brutal.
Guess what's cheaper than a tablet, I-Phone, or video game? A public library card. It's free and the dividends are endless.
26
@TRS So true, we couldn’t afford a lot so the public library was a treasure, and many libraries today make available free or reduced cost passes to museums. Occasional trips to museums were important to us to widen our daughter’s horizons
While I absolutely believe that the nation needs educational reform, I’m quite shocked about a blanket-statement that 20% of 15 year olds in the US read at the proficiency level of a 10 year old. The fact is that there are more than 35,000 public and private high schools in the States, and one should be careful about the significance of the statistics gathered in this study. What does “demographically representative” mean? There are many points that should be taken with care when considering these results. As a native Texan coming through the public school system, I have found that there are indeed many gaps that I needed to fill for myself in my higher education (currently pursuing a PhD in physics which is also why I care for good statistics). Maybe the statement from the author is just to bring urgent attention to the education issues, but in my opinion one should take it with a grain of salt.
5
We spend more money per capita than the vast majority of the OECD and still get dismal results.
Cue the Teachers' Union - "we need to spend still more money and THEN things will improve".
11
I know that there are many students who are not doing well across the country, but I think it's also worth looking at what teachers have been complaining about for awhile: the tests are unfair, racially biased, and are not an effective measure of student ability.
In Indiana, this is actually a huge issue right now. The state spent over 100 mil on standardized tests last year that are very, very flawed. There have been a lot of perfectly capable students that I have seen fail tests that the state forces them to pass to graduate. We really need to re-evaluate this under other lenses as well.
7
@em kay PISA is an international exam so the possibility the exam is 'racially biased' defies belief. Lets also keep in mind that PISA is not a test of Ph.D. level astrophysics, but basic reading and arithmetic; skills one needs to simply function in society. Lets not sugarcoat this by blaming the disease on the doctor.
5
It would be great to break down the data between states that have aggressively moved toward a "competition" model and states like Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana who essentially re-instituted segregation via private academies in the 1970s and 80s.
The idea that somehow "competition" would make education better is simply unbelievable and is, again, another Republican invention.
When teachers have class sizes of 25, 30, 40 students how do you get a better education? When teachers in many states buy their own supplies because their states do not fund education adequately (like here in AZ). Where teachers salaries are not really a paid a living wage (in AZ, they eliminated the need for a teaching certification so they could hire teachers at our abysmally low salaries, close to the lowest in the nation).
But who do we blame"? The teachers, their unions and so on and not the Republicans and their aversion to "government schools".
Oh, help us!
5
I'm betting that the median age of today's newspaper readers has to be 55-60+. The death of newspapers, the reports that half of the country gets all its news from Facebook, the results of school tests all point in the same direction. Not a good one.
8
The right's argument that Common Core restricts "local control of schools" is really about teaching the Old Testament as a scientific fact.
That's the end of logic and science, right there.
2
No amount of money or really anything else will overcome less than good raw material. Many people in the US have children that they are unable or unwilling to raise properly thus they never get the proper training before school and really never can catch up. Pretty simple, but with almost no solution from government.
12
People can't read if they don't read.
Like people can't walk if they don't walk.
Let's get honest: our corporate culture is more interested in and profiting from children watching videos.
17
I’m 60. When I was a child, it was all blamed on TV and Rock Music. Now, it’s devices and social media. Wake up, folks. There are plenty of young people that are completely not interested in even completing High School, even let alone attempting College.
What we NEED are Vocational programs that combine High School with learning useful Trades, i.e. Jobs don’t don’t require any College. Males and Females: Clerical, Nursing Aides, Daycare Aides, Plumbers, Electricians, Plumbers, Construction, etc.etc.etc...
Jobs that can provide continued employment at decent wages, even in the first few years. In other words: Real Training and an actual Apprenticeship in the chosen area, with a certificate of proven, basic ability. It’s a steppingstone in respectable self sufficiency. But of course, WE don’t have the Money. Millionaires need more Tax Cuts.
VOTE. 2020.
12
Hate to bust your bubble but the article mentions 15 year olds not college graduates.
How can you possibly think vocational training does not require math and reading skills? Most likely more math skills than 90 per cent of all college degrees.
Do you wish to have plumbing, done carpentry or hvac work being done in your home by someone who does not know their numbers? Or does not have the critical thinking to see it will not work before installing it? There is a reason that plumbers are paid well.
4
We need more jobs that don't require college-level education. We need millions of good jobs in manufacturing that provide a decent living and fringe benefits..
But we shipped those jobs out of the country, beginning in the 1970's, accelerating in the 1980's, and continuing in the 1990's.
Congress after Congress passed bills that made it possible for companies to ship the manufacturing equipment to other countries, and close down the manufacturing plants while getting tax breaks that made the already wealthy owners wealthier.
Who were the Members of Congress who introduced and supported and passed them? Who signed the bills into law? Members of the GOP and the DNC.
Who suffered because of these laws? Families and the communities where the now-unemployed workers lived, in small towns, rural areas, and inner cities.
It's a Perfect Storm: Move the manufacturing jobs out of the USA. Pass laws that make fathers irrelevant in their children's lives, as the mothers marry the State. Add ever-increasing drug use that can affect brains.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote about this coming storm decades ago. Decades later, William Julius Wilson, Professor of Social Policy at Harvard, wrote about what happens when work disappears. Wilson's argument is that the disappearance of work and the consequences of that disappearance for both social and cultural life are the central problems in the inner-city ghetto.
We are living in The Perfect Storm.
1
We're currently travelling in Europe. Yesterday on the train trip from Paris to Milan there was a mother with two children, probably 7 and 10 years old, sitting in front of us. What were the children doing? They occupied their time studying Italian (their native language) words and sentences and writing them down in a ledger book. No looking at phones or playing video games. They seemed to enjoy doing this and their mother helped them when they ran into problems. We never see American children spending their free time this way. This may be anecdotal but speaks to the problem with the American system of education: very little is expected of the children by their teachers or their parents. Americans don't value education.
10
@Eddie you can witness the same kind of admirable parenting like you saw in Europe right here in the US - in Manhattan. It just depends on priorities. So many people like to say the grass is greener in other countries but would be surprised that the often-glorified Finnish school system sends educators to come study how my son’s Manhattan public school excels. But of course, you won’t here that in a Michael Moore documentary.
5
If a person never sees another having fun reading and calculating, they won't know what the point is.
9
As a retired teacher who spent 35 years in the classroom, I have to say that this is no surprise. Like all the “reforms” of the past few decades, the most recent ones were developed with very little input from classroom teachers ... the real experts.
Very few of the “reforms” pay any attention to the students’ home environment. Is it stable? Is there enough income to support the family? Does the family have (decent) health insurance? Does the family have access to broadband (so the kids can do their homework)? We’re the children read to when they were toddlers?
Also, very few of the “reforms” pay anything but lip service to the idea that teachers in this country should be valued, not denigrated. That means acknowledging that they are, indeed, professionals ... professionals who, by and large, know what works and what does not work.
Here in Wisconsin teachers have been attacked as lazy blood-suckers by political leaders. Teacher pay has stagnated (my daughter, who works with high risk students, recently received he second pay raise since 2010). As a result, the enrollment in schools of education has dropped like a rock. Another result is that teachers are leaving the rural schools of Wisconsin and taking higher teaching positions in suburban districts. The result is two systems of public education ... the urban schools and rural schools, both under-funded, and the suburban schools. Guess which group of schools has the highest test scores.
9
Hi All - This is subject near and dear to all of us as parents, grandparents, and individuals who care. We fail because we do not pay our teachers. Our social welfare system needs to be revamped to help those in need with proper incentives. One cannot climb out of poverty if one is penalized for earning more money by losing housing... Affordable health care is important. There are tens of lobbyists for every elected representative in Washington, D.C. We cannot redistribute health care dollars because Washington D.C. is bought. Then we have the insanity of my once upon a time landlord (Mr. Trump) and Congress is total free fall animosity and poor behavior from all directions. No wonder we are polarized. Our kids suffer.
So one simple question... What does one learn in math between 5th and 9th grade? The same thing over and over again. Teach Algebra, word problems, and geometry in 5th and 6th grades. Children can learn it. Those who cannot get a course load that will work for them. But, do not settle for mediocrity. I taught my children 2X = 8, what does X equal when they were 6 driving to school every morning. My son won every math competition in 8th grade.
It all can be done.
6
@Bob it’s not just paying teachers more. It’s throwing out this foolish new method of differentiation, which means lumping kids of varying skill levels together in the same classroom, putting way too much of a burden on a single teacher. Kids do better when they are divided by skill level so they can receive the personal attention they need.
4
There are a slew of reason to failed education system. I am heavily involved with the school district in our community. I also read diverse educational publication. And there are many reasons of the failed education system. Some are “Because the United States lacks a centralized system for teacher training or distributing quality instructional materials to schools.”
The teachers union control education system, therefore:
A. Bad teachers are not retrained or disciplined.
B. Abusive educators can not be fired.
C. Teachers salary and compensation is not attached to any performance.
Curriculum has not changed in fifty years.
A. Kids need curriculum that is relevant, interactive, problem solving, project integrated, and stimulating to trigger curiosity.
B. New programs must be added to the curriculum such as soft skills, communication skills, computer skills, practical life skills, philosophical topics in moral and ethics, current events, learning techniques, and in general skills to manage de idiom and solve problems.
95% of funding allocated to administration and salaries. Education system and politics must be separated!
As long as the education system is plagued with conflict of interest with unions, districts, and school officials, we won’t see any change.
6
@LetsSpeakUp
Before I became a classroom teacher, I might think what you wrote was very reasonable. After five years of teaching, I have to say our education problem is a social problem, not a teacher problem.
As the article points out, the top 25% students are doing well and improving. For the rest of the population, we need a cultural change. As a nation, we pay educators less than we pay plumbers. The children of parents who never read will not do well in school.
Stop blaming the only people who actually try to educate our kids. If we all read with our kids and ask “What have you learned today?” at dinner table, there wouldn’t be any education problem.
4
Education was one of the most important pillars of civilization to our New England forebearers. But the luster that once accompanied learning has been tarnished by time--and in some cases effort.
For instance, the Republican party has spent the past twenty-plus years trying to convince Americans not to trust the intelligentsia. College professors. professional journalists, scientists, and serious readers, lovers of high art, etc. have been denigrated and accused of being wrong, liars, brainwashers, elitists, and "fake."
GWB was proud of his legacy "C" at Yale. Trump's grades were so bad they're hidden.
To that add the billions paid to people who dribble, rap or smile prettily for a living, and the neighborhoods where being smart is not just uncool, but dangerous. Then add onerous testing for the benefit of politicians, overwhelmed and underpaid teachers, digital everything, 24/7 entertainment, and top it off with the indentured servitude that accompanies college, and is it any wonder that there is no longer respect for knowledge and education--let alone reverence?
Kids can look around and see how far others get by paying someone to write their papers, plagiarizing, or being charming. What kind of fool would bother to really read the text?
No enjoyment in learning, and no respect for the learned, is a grim combination. As we head into a new decade I fear things won't be improving.
6
I just remembered a story from the "Education Week" from about a month ago about a Seattle School district that has decided to include in its math curriculum a sociological component devoted to teaching the students how mathematics has been appropriated by the Western culture as a tool of oppression:
https://mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?cid=25919801&bcid=25919801&rssid=25919791&item=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.edweek.org%2Fv1%2Few%2Findex.html%3Fuuid%3D75D7CDC4-EC5C-11E9-ACCF-8AF258D98AAA
Here is a direct link to the curriculum plan itself: https://www.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/public/socialstudies/pubdocs/Math%20SDS%20ES%20Framework.pdf
Some of the learning goals and themes include questions like: "What is my mathematical identity?" "How important is it to be Right? What is Right? Says Who?""Can you recognize and name oppressive mathematical practices in your experience?" "How can we change mathematics from individualistic to collectivist thinking?" "How can we use math to measure the impact of activism?" "Can you advocate against
oppressive mathematical practices?" "Can you suggest resolutions to oppressive mathematical practices?". And so on. Sounds like they have prepared a thorough plan for training mathematical social activists. It's just unclear if those activists will be able to add two fractions without a calculator.
19
@Berto Collins
Luckily, I have heard that China and India are doing the same thing. Otherwise, this allocation of scarce educational resources might have undercut our competitiveness.
1
We've effectively created an education system -- among the most expensive in the world! -- designed to teach the lowest-potential students to read and do basic math, while leaving higher-potential students behind, forcing them to go to college in order to get the bare minimum education they should have had in 8th-grade.
The US desperately needs to emulate all the education systems that are more successful than us, which is pretty much all of them: demanding curricula; difficult-to-attain college degrees; and free, available-to-everyone vocational schools that run the gamut from plumber to programmer.
Instead we force anyone who wants a decent education into college when they're barely prepared for high school. Meanwhile, universities struggling with lack of funding must dumb-down their own curricula in order to increase retention.
Everything about education -- like so much else in the US -- is backwards.
14
@Michael-in-Vegas
We no longer accept that meritocracy is a good thing. Once the objective becomes leveling the outcomes, the end result is to pull down the top while only marginally improving the bottom.
Imagine assembling an Olympic team the way we try to do our education. We would devote a full time coach to those who are uncoordinated, disinterested, and have never played the sport.
6
"... even though the country has spent billions to close gaps with the rest of the world."
American's understand - but never really fully grasp - that there's a point at which some things money can't buy.
Money can buy a student a hot lunch, an up-to-date textbook and provide a pay raise for an inspiring effective teacher (and also give a mediocre tenured one a pay boost to boot)
But it can't buy a parent who makes their kids education job one - it can't buy off a student who doesn't take school seriously to begin with and it can't buy an educational "system" –
9
It's time to evaluate the parents and understand if they are doing all that's needed to support their children's school work.
7
The results of the 2016 multiple-choice election test are all the indicator we ever needed that the nation is undereducated.
5
Free college for all will help this, right? Maybe we should look at a system of lifelong remedial education?
7
Cell phones and video games. I teach reading and students absolutely refuse to read. They "hate" to read as they spend hours on their phones. Require video game makers to have text embedded to play their games. Also, a high tech "ignorance" tax.
6
As a supervising teacher, when I ask how Ramone is in second grade testing on a pre-kindergarten reading level, the explanations would make a grown man dizzy.
He had 100% on all his spelling tests iThat 's 1/3 of his grade. HuH ? That's rehearsed memorization from Thursday night to Friday morning. Ask him to spell or write the same words on Monday and gauge the transfer of knowledge. ( never gonna happen)
Ramone has 100 % in homework, that's 1/3 of his grade. Yes, I know that Mom is doing all his homework for him, but it's all perfect, so how can I grade it as less ? Well- have you quizzed the class the next day on the homework to see who retained the lesson objective ? No, that would lower the school's test averages and the director would see that something isn't adding up.
He always raises his hand, even if his responses aren't correct so I have to give a100 for class participation.
Sp I ask How do YOU as his second grade teacher account for his low reading level and what can you do to remediate it? You know there won't be any home supprt. Response is a big shrug and "Listen, I don't know what went on last year but I have 22 other students to tend to. Maybe Ramone will just pick up some vocabulary by socialization and exposure and it will improve his reading. Retain him ? I can't suggest that- it's not allowed !! "
8
Cultures that value education and intelligence have educated and intelligent citizens.
11
America's children value entertainment far more than education. The live for their connection to electronic devices like smartphones, iPads and computers. Instead of using these very valuable devices to consume knowledge, they use them to waste their time and brain power following social media and watching ridiculous videos. If they spent their time reading books just imagine how much smarter they - you? - would be.
3
When will they ask teachers how to improve education instead of asking governors, state education chiefs and school reformers. Any teacher can tell you what must be done. Why ask people who are not in the classrooms.
7
Not to worry! Our economy needs far more Walmart greeters and store stockers than people who can write and compute.
8
How about a Times article that reports on the thinking of the true experts on teaching and learning: experienced classroom teachers?
7
Ummm - maybe it’s the tests themselves? You can throw billions at the problem, but rabbits still ain’t gonna be able to fly - but they can sure make more rabbits, by gum, and with billions in food and stuff, they’ll be even “better” at it!
2
So much focus on the poor performers and little consideration for how our "good" students are performing and making their way in the classroom. My observation has been that there is an overemphasis on the poor performers and special needs to the detriment of the better performing students. With all of the distractions in the classroom by the ESL and the unruly students, what is being lost in terms of the students that matter, those students that will be a future leaders, doctors, engineers? Very little consideration is given to how our kids are doing academically and emotionally and I get the sense that the schools today are overly focused on educating the poorest among us with special status given to the non-english speaking immigrant. I believe OUR kids are suffering in all of this but the current elite don't give a damn.
7
@Linden Arden thank you for saying this. Years ago I was curious and enthusiastic to witness the (then) new trend of lumping everyone together of varying skill (and behavior) levels. Unfortunately, after 7 years, I can say that it does not work. The better students suffer and the teachers can only do so much. The adhd children have different needs than the advanced ones. There is nothing wrong with admitting that everyone suffers when they’re all lumped together. “Differentiation” as the trend is called has failed.
4
Daniel Koretz, an expert on testing and a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said recent test results showed that “it’s really time to rethink the entire drift of policy reform because it just isn’t working.”
SAT scores started dropping in 1969. I'd say look at all education 'reforms' that came out of Eisenhower's post-Sputnik push.
We need to be willing to look at how much of the problem starts in the colleges of education.
Poor black children in the segregated South had horrible educational opportunities but quite a few went on to go to college and lead the civil rights movement.
What has changed in how prospective teachers are taught since Sputnik?
And, as a country, we can't be so narcissistic we refuse to look at what works in other countries.
86
@emm305 Bright women began to realize they had more lucrative options.
17
@emm305 SAT scores do not support this argument. In 1969, 5.9 million high school grads entered college. In 2019 it was 14.67%. In 1969 that represented about 50% of all hisch grads; the % has risen every year; today we're at 70%.
1
@emm305 It seems to me the rise of television is a stronger correlate than anything Eisenhower did.
7
Millions for sports coaches, nothing for librarians. That's our country.
380
@Dennis Mancl Trillions for wars, K-12 teachers living poorly.
32
Twenty years ago I went to a number of public school introductory evenings in Berkeley when looking for a kindergarten for my daughter. One was particularly memorable. The teacher was talking about starting kids on letters and numbers, and I asked how she accommodated those who already knew the basics. She answered that it was good for them to hear the alphabet and letters all over again for a few months, while all the less prepared kids learned their ABC's for the first time.
Like most other Berkeley parents at the time, that convinced me to send my daughter to a private school.
9
@Someone else
See how early the seeds of inequality are sown?!
1
When I was in high school, I was a terrible math student. I learned a lot, though. How? Teachers gave me bad grades on tests AND HANDED THEM BACK for me to keep and use to study before the next test. Math, as everyone knows, builds on earlier knowledge and skills. I was always behind, learning from what I missed, but I did learn.
My sons did poorly in math. Teachers did not hand back tests. I went in and talked to the teachers about getting the tests back so my sons could use them to catch up. "NO. Absolutely not. I do one version of the test and can't do more than one. I can't hand them back because they will be shared with other classes."
What is different now than when I went to school? The teachers? The teaching class load? The propensity of the students to cheat? I think modern education is centered on the teachers and not on what is most likely to work best with the students.
6
In many districts, kids are allowed endless retakes. Kids game the system, in short. I wouldn't let my test out, either.
3
Phones should be forbidden in the classroom. If a student has a phone outside of their locker during the day, it should get confiscated. Period. No exception. No caving in to parents.
Parents should be limiting their children's screen time at home.
All adults need to grow a spine when it comes to technology and screens.
And yes, I am a parent.
11
YES
The nightmare stories about phones I hear from teachers at all levels about phones, even teachers working at the college level.
Zero tolerance on phones in classrooms should be implemented from the very beginning.
5
Nations whose students score well in core subjects usually have attitudes vastly different from those in the US about education. If we are to have an honest discussion about the shortcomings of our public education system, we can't overlook our attitudes. Our attitudes are largely opposite of those found in nations with the most successful schools. Those nations value teachers, require them to be well-educated and pay them well. Schools are well funded. Communities take pride in the high quality of their schools. Teachers are respected by parents and students. The authority of teachers is supported by parents and the community. While there are pockets in the US with similar high regard for teachers and the value they provide for children, those pockets are few and far between. No matter what the next "revolution" in American education will be, it's likely to be no more successful than those previous while our attitudes undermine the success we strive to achieve.
8
The emphasis on the causes for the mediocre PISA scores by our 15 year old students focuses on everything but their studying habits. Personally, I needed a very quiet environment and the absence of any visual distractions. I am sure I am not an exception. Few students have the intellect and concentration to ignore such distractions, certainly I didn't. I attended 7 disparate schools in three different countries before high school graduation, interrupted by war, emigration and the learning of two new languages, the latest English while completing my last two years at a public high school in Ohio. So I can make a case that the quality of the educational infrastructure is not necessarily a determining factor for a successful education (I subsequently attended an urban public university and earned a PhD at an ivory college). School children nowadays are even more tempted by distractions than a few decades ago, particularly by social network activities, games, etc. I see these temptations fulfilled in my own grandkids, who fortunately have parents that try their best to minimize those distraction, but not quite satisfactorily enough in my view.
3
Return to grouping by capability.
Bring back a strong system of vocational education. Encourage apprenticeship programs. Take a look at Germany for a path to follow.
End requirements for degrees in education, and hire teachers with degrees in the subject matter being taught. I am tired of our children having chemistry teachers who don't know chemistry, Spanish teachers who cannot speak the language, and math teachers with scant knowledge of their subject.
Don't change the math curriculum every year.
Excellence in teaching requires excellence in pay.
And for heaven's sakes, treat academics with the same respect you accord athletics.
19
@Judith Agreed, Judith. Well stated.
1
@Judith One issue with the teachers not being proficient in math or science is that people who do have that knowledge do not teach. They go to industry or move to teaching at a university or college. In our school district pay for teachers is not based on subject knowledge. A master's in chemistry or math will not get you more pay than a master's in education or english.
2
@Judith thank you, Judith. You are correct. Lumping students of varying skill and behavior levels together has failed everyone.
2
The key to this problem is two things that we are not willing to provide: 1. money (for better, completely redesigned textbooks and curricula; for teacher training; for smaller class sizes; for enough supplies, the list goes on) and 2. time -- time to develop the new curricula, to thoroughly train the teachers, to build new schools, and so forth. Unfortunately, to do this well takes years. But this is America -- we want the answer now, or by the end of the year at the latest.
The Common Core in math, for example, would require a complete redesign of all math curricula from first grade through high school. The publishing companies would have to throw out their existing textbooks and start again, from the ground up, to truly implement Common Core. Instead, they just pretty up the pictures, tweak the text, add a few new problems, and say they are Common Core compliant. I'm sure the same happens with reading curricula.
1
Let's start by following Finland's example. Only the top 10 percent of undergraduates would be allowed in a master's-level teacher training program. They would then serve a one-year internship under a master teacher. They would be paid a salary in line with other professionals. They would be respected as the professionals they are.
I have taught for over twenty years. I took a dramatic pay cut to become a teacher. I have a master's degree in my subject (not education) and am a National Board Certified Teacher. I spend many, many hours reading the latest research, crafting rigorous lessons, providing feedback to my students, attending professional development events. Even if I teach for the rest of my working life, I will never make much over $50,000 a year.
The things that are wrong with our education system are solvable.
They will never be, however, as long as politicians and "reformers" keep imposing the "solutions." Here's an idea: Let's listen to the actual people who walk into classrooms every day.
19
@A Teacher
Agree about the reformers, they have wrought havoc and harmed our children.
Your state pays teachers too little. Doing so devalues the role teachers play in the lives of children. In NJ, we are are the target of many jokes about our high taxes, but our teachers are paid considerably more than what you report.
2
@A Teacher you don’t have to go as far as Finland. As I mentioned in another comment here, people might be surprised to hear that Finland sends educators to observe my son’s highly-successful MANHATTAN public elementary school and have been doing so for many years.
"About a fifth of American 15-year-olds scored so low on the PISA test that it appeared they had not mastered reading skills expected of a 10-year-old...Those students, he said, face “pretty grim prospects” on the job market."
My husband and I are small business owners and with minimum wage employees. Many of our employees clearly have bright futures and move up the ladder quickly, and then move on to better opportunities. Many other employees can barely show up to work on time and are clearly unmotivated to do anything with their lives, and have no critical thinking or leadership skills. They float from minimum wage job to minimum wage job doing poorly, but being hired anyway because unemployment is low, and employers have to take what they can get (until they can find a way for computers to replace them).
There is an idea that businesses are getting welfare from the state by being allowed to pay workers less than a living wage, which requires those workers to seek welfare. I am a liberal and used to subscribe whole-heatedly to this thinking. Now as a small business owner, I see that there are large numbers of people who simply have to live on welfare. Either directly through the state, or through businesses (by the state requiring a higher minimum wage then their skills are worth). Most of these people have sad family lives. It's all about parenting. And because of that, it is really hard to see a solution. How can the government make better parents?
14
@Monica: Too many Americans believe that having children automatically makes themselves adults.
4
@Monica
I’m glad you finally saw the light. It makes me very sad to think about the waste of human potential no matter where there talents may lie. Some kids never had a chance. It’s not zip codes that determine your future but parents!
5
As my bio states, I live in Darien, where people are generally proud and even boastful about the quality of our public schools. I am also on a town committee that held a poetry contest for seventh-grade students. When I was asked to read the submissions, I was continuously surprised that the contributors were not in a grade where the caliber of their work would be easier to justify. More than one student just plagiarized work from poets who members of the board easily recognized- behavior that not only showed laziness but underestimation of our intelligence. I do not have children yet so it was an enlightening and unsettling revelation of the quality that can be found in a place where, compared to so many schools, every imaginable advantage and state-of-the-art upgrade is provided. I see so many online wars about ultimately superficial things, including breast or bottle, if they aren't kept away from a diet solely consisting of shallow and mindless stuff and have adults who aren't themselves shallow and, as we often encounter, unable or uninterested in speaking about anything of substance. I attended a specialized high school and was first in my family to graduate college. A key factor was, and my friends in similar circumstances have agreed, parents who prioritized learning over been seen scheduled in activities to look smart and busy and understood that the cultivation of a mind is a lifelong project.
6
@Bookish
As you illustrate, integrity isn't learned by having every conceivable advantage. The "poets" you describe have learned plagiarism instead.
1
@blgreenie True. The few out of the group was a few too many but the overall quality of the efforts were underwhelming.
Let's make a comparison with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. When one need isn't met that is at the base, every need above it struggles. The same is true with education. America needs easy, affordable health care. America needs affordable day care. America needs affordable school lunches that are nutritious. America needs better social programs to catch the kids who don't have good parents. Fund those programs! Stop blaming educators and students. This is a social disease.
869
@RCJCHC
Couldn’t agree with you more! Developmental trauma (those initial 24 months of a baby’s life) are SO critical to the development of a healthy psyche that if neglected, it’s a pretty uphill climb to reverse.
Trauma, the ‘gift’ that keeps on giving. If only policy makers understood this, we would be in a MUCH better place.
51
@RCJCHC I would argue that families need to earn a liveable wage, one where one parent can work and the other can stay home and tend to children, have time to read to them, etc. I have said this for years: raise the minimum wage to a liveable wage ($25 an hour) and so many of the social ills that plague us will evaporate.
49
@James I agree that raising the minimum wage would help a lot, but it isn't going to make problems "evaporate". Effectively, more people being able to afford things raises the demand curve, which in turn raises market prices. There's a lag in the market, so as long as we try to keep pace with those increases, people will be better off. And in turn, businesses will have hordes of additional customers, meaning the economy will benefit, too. But it's not a one-shot deal - it will require a lot of attention, particularly in the early years, to ensure the increases in wages stay ahead of the increases in prices, without going so far ahead of them that the downsides conservatives love to tout come to outweigh the benefits (e.g. wages increasing so far ahead of prices that businesses suffer from the aforementioned lag, with increased costs before the demand curve has time to increase revenue)
8
The sole reliance on teachers and schools is not enough to raise performance. The academic culture at home matters too. Too many parents are failing their kids by not encouraging and challenging them enough. We do not need to be tiger moms but the opposite end of the spectrum is equally detrimental.
46
@Golden Doodle Too many parent are forced into working double shifts to pay for child care. We can solve these two problems simultaneously- hire them at child care centers instead of Amazon factories.
6
@vandalfan
That’s weak. I’m glad my parents didn’t make any excuses.
2
To put this in perspective, Australia is in a similar position, having collapsed to OECD average despite spending billions.
So the answer cannot be as simple as money. From my observation of my own children’s progress, I suspect curriculum has a lot to do with it.
2
Not surprising... this is a culture which values trucks, football and guns above literature and science. Trying to educate students in a culture which values entertainment and sports above teachers or schools, is like trying to air-condition a house with the doors wide open. When the air conditioner breaks because of burnout, the house quickly returns to the outside Temperature. Until we change our values and lower the temperature of anti-intellectualism, educational achievement won’t change.
18
Cell phones and kids are one of the main problems. Heck, cell phones and adults are also a big problem as it means less time speaking to your children about their day.
I was recently at Yale Smilow Cancer Center for treatment. I got on the elevator to go to my appointment and it was filled with people in scrubs - doctors, nurses, technicians etc. ALL of them were glued to the phone in their hands. It was a scary sight! At least 9 people all looking at a phone. None of them were speaking to one another.
I half jokingly said "I hope when your are in the OR you don't all stare at a phone" and they barely acknowledged the joke. Just kept on punching in the text messages. I am betting dollars to donuts not one of the texts were about their patients. Sigh... we are going down hill awfully fast and no one can figure out what to do. I am scared it will produce a half dozen more Donald Trumps in the next few generations. When the leader of our nation never reads books, how can we expect our kids to take reading seriously?
Parents, part of this problem and the solution has to rest with you. Make sure your kids READ and make sure you read to them when they are little. I did and both of my children are successful, one an Attorney and one owns a small business. I am so glad I instilled a love of reading in them early.
6
I am a physics teacher in Connecticut who went to school in both China and US. My colleagues and I see this every day. This is not an education problem. This is a social problem. As a nation, we don't respect intellectuals as much as TV stars or ball players. This is not something money can fix. There has to be a cultural change.
I have seen many minority students from poor immigrant families who work hard and win academic awards in school. I have also seen kids who are intelligent but don't want to make any effort in school and fail in school. It has nothing to do with education policies. The students have to do the learning. Teachers can only guide and help. Laws and regulations cannot make kids learn. Parents do.
As an Asian, I know parents who spend hours every day to help their children improve their math skills. I don't know any Asian parent who does not require their kids to do extra math in elementary and middle school. When my colleagues and students tell me that "Asians are good at math". I know for sure it is not genetic. It is cultural.
33
@YangGang
Asian American parents know that many fields are not widely open to our children Media, politics and entertainment is still gate kept by the elite or familial relationships. Academic excellence based on merit is the only way to break into the middle class. Unfortunately these doors of opportunity aren’t getting smaller as government policies aimed at social engineering seek to put a thumb on the scales of fairness.
3
When my son took algebra in 7th grade (which is 1-2 years ahead of the public school curriculum here), he was exceptionally frustrated because he felt like he was working hard and other kids in his class were “getting it” more quickly. He was accustomed to being at the top pretty effortlessly. Learning algebra did require more work than he’d had to put in before, but what made him willing to do it was my explaining that the kids who seemed to be getting algebra easily had already taken it. After school or on weekends, most of them at Kumon. To each their own, but I’m happy my son was on a soccer field when he was 11, not taking extra math so he could get better grades when he took the same math class in school a year later. He ended the year excelling at both algebra and soccer.
2
Soccer is a great game! Builds grit too.
When I taught 100- and 200-level history courses at several local colleges and one university (couldn't find a full-time job on any campus because of an institutional reliance on low-paid "adjunct" faculty--a part of the educational problem!), most of the students in my courses were ill-prepared to read the textbook, write research papers, or display ability in critical thinking.
From that experience, I began each first class meeting by asking students how many of them had books in their homes or reading actively going on around them. Only about 25 percent of the class raised their hands. About the same results were true when students were questioned about library use in their families.
Then I became aware of how little value our society has given to being a good thinker, or reader, or writer such as in the t.v. or film offerings our young people are exposed to.
What is seen there: being intelligent is not valued, period. Being violent, loud or obnoxious--that's cool; being sexy or powerful (usually holding a gun)--awesome,
All the programs and billions of dollars spent on student achievement takes place as though the school experience is an isolated realm in which young people suddenly drop everything they're being "taught" outside the campus and classroom.
And that's the problem. Our students are being inculcated with very powerful daily ideas and examples of what is important in our lives--and it's not reading or math, or being able to think.
10
We started homeschooling in 2007 with our oldest. Part of the reason was the poor math and science teaching we felt our kids were receiving. Now, that child is a graduate student at age 20 doing research in AI and machine based learning. I don't think his path would have been paved well by continuing with the watered down math and science they were giving him in the schools. Both parents have STEM careers. I feel bad for those whose parents are not able to do the same for their kids. We never thought we would homeschool- the schools forced us to do so because of their substandard curriculum choices. I still remember the last straw- math homework "If math were a color, what color would it be and why?" Seriously?
7
@Kathy - That is beyond insane. You can't make this stuff up.
1
Wait for it: profound social transformation, economic crisis and transition, communities mired in poverty and inequality, a deskilling digital culture and public health crisis, and a political culture skeptical of all knowledge, we can rest assured, will be solved by more phonics and STEM in schools, and, of course, more testing. After all was said and done, no child was left behind - a whole educational system was.
6
Over the past 20 years, we have seen huge advances from India, China, Korea and other "developing" countries. Their best students are "world class", and are consistently at or near the top of my graduate school classes, which attract very few American-born students.
While those countries have greatly expanded the opportunities for their citizens, who have benefited immensely, the US is in decline on many metrics used to judge economic and social development. Despite our collective wealth, the US is going in the wrong direction on life expectancy, infant mortality, access to health care, educational performance at the primary and secondary levels, infrastructure (roads, bridges, transportation), inequality, food insecurity, homelessness, transparency, and corruption.
The guy in the White House is an avowed non-reader, a white supremacist, and a corrupt businessman. When young people see how he has achieved his fame and fortune, it doesn't exactly make them want to hit the books. Other commenters have pointed to the need to address people's fundamental economic and social problems. You can't read above your grade level if you can't see a doctor when you need one, don't know if there is enough money for dinner, and don't have a regular place to sleep. Until those problems are adequately addressed, I expect the US to continue its downward trends.
3
@Bluevoter
How did the man in the White House contribute to the problems you describe in your last paragraph? These issues did not crop up in the last three years. Aren’t parents the ones who are ultimately responsible for their offspring? If not parents, then who? I ask this seriously for the benefit of the children who are struggling in bad family situations and have been for multiple generations.
5
@Bluevoter these problems came about during the Clinton admin, which embraced globalism, and the gutting of the industrial base that lifted Americans out of poverty and offered American youth a stake in the economy. Trump had nothing to do with that. Shrub Bush was as bad and Obama was about enriching himself at the expense of our poor and middle class.
1
It’s not so hard to understand the problem. If you want to know how well students are doing on standardized tests, just look at the students’ zip codes. (Yes, there are some charter schools whose students score well on standardized tests. But it is fair to ask whether these schools are essentially test-prep centers. And the typical standardized test of reading/writing, with its frequent multiple choice questions and formulaic essay questions (“In the space below, write a well-developed essay explaining the author’s view on the use of penguins in the military. Be sure to use evidence from the passage”) is not an adequate measure of higher-order thinking.)
The Common Core isn’t helping. Despite the article’s suggestion to the contrary, the Common Core, at least in English (I’m a public school English teacher), is narrowing, not enlarging, curriculum and instruction. The Common Core standards are repetitive and rather than simply ambitious or demanding, are sometimes age-inappropriate, as if experts in child development were not consulted in the Core’s formulation. Take this standard, for example: “Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.” This is one of many standards for third graders, who are eight going on nine. As their teachers know, third graders are fairly new to reading and are on the cusp of reading to learn versus learning to read. I could give other examples.
2
The problem with our educational system is obvious and it isn't really the schools that are the problem. It's the kids. No seriously--it is the kids, and thus, the parents, and the society in which those kids are raised. Deal with it America--we need to raise our kids better. That means spending quality time with them. Set up fun, challenging things for them to do. Teach them an instrument. Read to them--alot. Keep them away from screens-maybe a sesame street episode every once in awhile. Teach them how to respect authority without blindly following along. That will amount to, at the very least, a B student. The schools will take care of the rest.
6
I don't think it should cast doubts on the "efforts"; institutions can only work with the material they're given. With the browning of America, lowered test scores in inevitable. I know of a school in Carol Stream, IL, that changed from white to Hispanic in a remarkably short time. The administrators and the teachers stayed mainly the same, but the test scores went into rapid decline. Did the teachers and administrators suddenly go bad? I'm sure some would say that it's because they no longer care or couldn't "relate," but the test scores mirrored Hispanics nationwide. I will leave it up to others to decide whether it's genetics or culture, or both, but it is an uncomfortable and undeniable fact. Ignoring it is pointless.
2
Do teachers get much time to actually teach material anymore, specifically not on "the test"? I know teachers in two states with identical complaints of being forced to teach to the test and spending an ungodly amount of energy on testing.
2
What do Americans value? Perhaps not education.
Maybe entertainment, beauty, wealth. but not education.
10
I am a professor at a public university and I don't find that the performance is stagnant. In fact, it seems way down in reading, writing, comprehension, attention, and mathematics. The decades of passing everybody and lowering the requirements on everything are beginning to poison the entire education system, including the higher education. Good luck improving it!
8
Demographics. The US population is vastly different compared to 50 years ago.
6
Of course the math scores are appalling. What do you expect when teaching children "depth in mathematics" means having them using number lines and draw pictures to do addition and multiplication until fifth grade? Is this how they teach math at top independent schools? Nope.
6
A couple of generations ago, there was little space between teachers and parents. Nowadays many teachers are viewed suspiciously by parents as insensitive oppressors of their little darlings.
6
Take a moment to look at the US from an outside perspective for a moment. The US has failing infrastructure, failing schools, and as much inequality as there has been in a century. Corruption and bribery in politics is legal and common (euphemized as “lobbying”), and nepotism is commonplace and even accepted. Deaths of despair (overdose, suicide) are at an all time high. Forty years of mediocre to bad presidents and a hollowing out of our political process have left the country very, very sick. If something doesn’t change very soon America will be stuck in an irreversible death spiral while still controlling the most powerful military on the planet.
1
What i love about articles like this is we get to all speculate as to the reason are children are being left behind academically. Everyone points the finger at each other and the blaming goes on and on... the reality is that as Americans education has never been a priority it just isn't. There's no money in making sure everyone in this country gets a quality education and at the end of the day what's most important in America is what will make us a buck. Americans just don't care about the average kid getting a quality education and it shows in how we treat the teachers and students and schools in low income communities.
5
Why NOT ask the slackers to work harder?
I know America is a country of individualism and personal responsibility. People avoid asking people to do hard things. BUT education is NOT rocket science. Slakers must be more engaged and must try harder.
Just look at the high school graduation rate in recent years--atrocious. It is declining among boys!
@yuzhou88 : High school graduation rates are, if anything, too high.
1
Let’s find out which methods were used to educate Trump supporters . . . just to narrow our options a bit.
1
Put all that money into teacher salaries.
2
@David I would gladly go for that if we can get rid of teacher's unions. No? I thought not. Oh well.
1
But Americans denigrate intellectuals and scientists don’t know nothing. What do you expect?
4
Millions of uneducated Americans in 2016 voted for a lying idiot to lead the world's most powerful nation. He denys climate change, NATO, etc. Yet we are concerned about improving test scores? No wonder the decline of this nation is imminent.
6
What population group in this country can have children for free? No insurance cost. No deductible. No copay. Free.
Medicaid enrollees. We essentially subsidize child bearing for those least likely to be well educated, least likely to help their children become well educated. This includes illegal "immigrants" who are eligible for Medicaid to pay for having kids.
Meanwhile the cost to have and raise kids for all others is very expensive and involves major tradeoffs.
Ask any teacher what it's like in urban classrooms. They'll point to "poverty" as the cause of the educational backwardness. Why, yes it is. And nothing keeps adding to this problem like importing and incentivizing it.
Darwin Award winning national policy!
8
Someone needs to take a serious look at how many unnecessary activities, which have absolutely nothing to do with academics, fill the school day. While it is o.k. to have a few seasonal parties or social activities a year, are we allowing too much of this? Are schools becoming "family fun zones"? I have observed the same thing occurring in the workplace much more frequently. The menu of social activities just keeps increasing along with the subtle pressure to attend and participate in everything. The result is that the real work is done after hours...which I deeply resent. Some of the work may not be completed at all.
6
I'm not an education professional, but how is it that we have "a dearth of instruction in basic skills like phonics" in the USA in 2019?
Phonics was emphasized in my elementary education in the 1960s. I know some educators advocated other theories, like the "whole language" approach, but I guess those turned out to be duds.
Maybe we do need to return to common sense approaches like phonics.
8
@Unconventional Liberal Not just phonics.....we need cursive hand-writing, basic arithmetic without calculators, and real English grammar and vocabulary development.
I am appalled by today's ignorance......a signature? "What's that? How do you write a signature?"
"Sorry, I don't know. My calculator's battery needs changing."
"There coming later and when thay tell me after passing this the bridge on there way"
1
I am a newly retired elementary teacher with more than 30 years experience, and I agree that the USA’s education system is a mess. And everyone needs to take a share of the blame, from students, to teachers, to administration, to institutions, to bureaucracies that hold the money strings.
You can put all the reforms you want in place, but when a teacher gets into a classroom behind closed doors, it’s ‘the luck of the draw’ for students and parents. Many teachers are excellent and spend countless extra hours creating their own plans, websites, study units, while juggling 20 different learning levels in their classrooms. Kudos to them and their lucky students.
Unfortunately, there are also teachers who themselves struggle with reading—who don’t like to read and don’t know how to encourage students—or who themselves can’t complete some of the elementary math problems.
Start by making teacher training programs more selective and rigorous. Figure out a way to elevate teaching to a highly respected profession. Put money into programs that encourage and welcome parents into schools from an early age. Most importantly, get students invested in and involved in their own learning, setting manageable goals for themselves instead of encouraging with ‘A’s and ‘B’s just because it’s easiest. Pouring billions of dollars into modern schools won’t help improve the American education system without a serious mind shift from all interested parties.
7
We need a national federally funded campaign aimed at getting teachers the kind of respect they get in counties with higher test scores. Children in those countries come into the classroom, take their seats, remain quiet, and listen to their teacher.
This change has to start in the homes where children will be told that their teachers are the most important people in their life. They are the ones who are preparing you to choose the career you want. The change in classroom behavior may not materialize for years, but for the sake of our children we must make the effort. This would also revitalize teachers who have little faith in the current system.
BTW: A hike in teacher pay is long overdue.
1
When I lived in Manhattan decades ago
you would see many people reading books while waiting
Public Transit and while they were on Public Transit.
Now all I see are people peering into their cell-phones
with teenagers being the worst offenders.
What percentage of people read a book or an thoughtful
magazine article every day ?
I would be interested in knowing if all the nations provide
scores from students from all Socio-Economic backgrounds.
Meanwhile, ban cell phones in schools, and bring back
discipline.
14
@John Brown
Well, you can read a book or the NY Times on your phone. I'm just sayin'.
3
One way to help is to make sure that primary school children don't make it to 3rd grade without being able to read. Have good teachers with small class sizes in K-2, and plenty of auxiliary reading specialists who can pull kids out for extra help if they need it. Focus on every single child.
Reading and math, reading and math, reading and math.
10
As septuagenerian preparing to mentor local high school students in geometry and albegra I was struck at how complex the text books have become. When I was deep into math over 50 years ago, the texts books were in black in white, rich in text, graphs and explanations and chapter tests.
Today's text book - very colorful, almost distracting, presenting materials in many difffering ways and seemingly unable to provide a clearly stated and methodological presentation of the particular subject.
It took me some time to be able to come to grips with this "new" way of learning - maybe we're trying too much to keep kids attention and not enough time on basic teaching of math.
And finally, kids attention spans are just not there - too much distraction and too many competing forces for the mind's attention - kids not eating properly, drugs, suicide, video and social media everywhere - kids are no longer allowed to simply be present.
10
@Bill Wise - and don't forget many teachers are dissuaded from using textbooks at all, leaving kids to sift through endless handouts.
3
While some may get comfort from the idea that at least US students are performing at an average level in these PISA tests, but when you consider that we spend on education roughly 40-50% more than OECD countries to only get average results the real nature of our educational problems become more apparent.
4
As a teacher, the obvious elephant in the room are the cell phones (and after school, the other screens). I'd like to see a study that monitored use of phones--numbers of messages sent/websites accessed, etc.--during actual instructional minutes. I think people would be amazed at what their kids are doing when they're supposed to be doing something else.
Then there's the sharing of work vis cell phone images, and the mental health issues, too.
Before we spend billions more--I *do* have a few ideas about class sizes and after school support/study programs--could we maybe try a few pilot programs of parental controls on students' tech. being the focus?
Mental health of teacher would benefit, too, by the way.
6
Bring back the "Teacher is God" respect for the profession and let teachers teach! The administration should be a support team governed by the people of the community; the teacher should be allowed to practice his/her art and craft freely, so long as the community supports the content, innovation, and methodology. It is impossible for creative teachers to deliver content effectively in restrictive, prescriptive environments!
Each student is unique; each teacher is unique; each academic field requires its appropriate approach to teaching and learning.
We--teachers and students--are not robots. We are people. We think, we create, we collaborate, we succeed.
3
Instead of teaching local history and patriotism, why not start teaching Americans to think for themselves. There is a glaring absence of philosophy in the curriculums (perhaps intentional).
6
@Greg: Considering the consequences of thinking for oneself in the US, that might be considered child abuse.
2
I've been an educator for 15 years. No place is the growing disparity of wealth and opportunity more glaring than in America's public schools. The commodification of education (starting in pre-school!) where the wealthy and well-connected can buy an education for their children is nothing but a pure example of the moral and ethical corruption of capitalism run amok.
Public schools should be the jewel in this country's crown. Instead, those schools have become places where the poor and under-privileged are warehoused and set up for failure. Common Core is not culturally relevant and therefore does not inspire learning, intellectual curiosity or growth. Test scores are a reflection of a student's connection with the curriculum and whether or not the curriculum affords them a sense of who they are and their place in the world. Common Core is racially and culturally biased and, along with standardized tests, should be done away with in favor of much more inspiring educational opportunities for our youth. Get with the program, America!
@Lauren P - do you think schools in countries outperforming us are worried about cultural relevance?
1
Countries that are serious about public education fund it with broad based taxation and administer it nationally.
1
@Steve Bolger According to our Constitution, states have control of education.
Remove DeVos; she's worthless...........
1
This may seem irrelevant at first, but I have been house-hunting recently, which means that (thanks to the Internet) I have been looking inside many, many homes. True, it’s a subset of homes in the Mid-Hudson region in predominantly middle-income areas. However, being a retired teacher and avid reader, I have been astonished to notice how few homes have bookshelves or any books displayed. I might see a small bookcase in a child’s room, but most living room, dens, even home offices have huge television screens and/or monitors, but no books. (No art, either. Nowadays people seem to display large mirrors and stenciled phrases, such as “Home is where the heart is.”) I know that people read on their tablets, but more and more I hear people say, “Oh, I just don’t read. I don’t have time. What for?” Our own President brags that he never reads anything. If learning is not something that is valued in our society, I fail to see how we can expect our children to do it, no matter what teaching methods or standards are employed.
5
There are many possible reasons for our schools failing students. One is that companies spend an incredible amount of effort to avoid paying taxes, a funding source for schools. Teachers are underpaid, and abused for "wasting" tax dollars. Rich communities are unwilling to share their wealth so poorer communities can have quality teachers and materials. The list goes on and on, but these are some of the problem areas.
2
If you want to maintain control of the people you need to control their level of education. You don't want too many people who can think for themselves.
6
@Greg
Quite right.
2
The results of standardized test scores are pretty consistent across the board. On average, students of Asian descent do best, followed by kids of European descent, then Hispanics, Native Americans and blacks. Kids from upper income and middle class families do better than working class and impoverished families. Kids without disabilities do better than kids with disabilities. And, as on this test, the top quarter of students — probably taken from among the high achievers listed above, also do better. Kids raised by two married biological parents in a stable home do better and kids do about the same in school as their full biological siblings.
Test results are influenced by all of these things: DNA, environment, culture, upbringing, the child’s temperament. Teachers aren’t miracle workers. Money alone isn’t enough to fix problems with the child’s family or home environment. I also wonder if other countries tested all of their kids or just the top performers.
13
If a large American corporation's board of directors was presented with numbers that showed declining sales, no profits, no strategy for a turn-around, they would fire the CEO and call up the bankruptcy lawyer. Happens all the time.
Public education's answer to this is to double-down.With our money. Find a new (and expensive) silver-bullet. Get the politicians involved (and reward their patrons in the teachers unions).Make classrooms places of indoctrination. Stifle dissent. And the numbers don't budge. How could they? American parents, beyond the wealthy, have no right to exit this system--in fact, they are legally required to send off the kiddies to an institution that, by its own numbers, is failing. It's a public monopoly, although most citizens can't see that. And, like all monopolies, it will fight like a cornered rat to prevent any diminution of its market-power.
Until we understand this reality, nothing will improve in public education. Nothing.
2
Be it “a common misconception that socioeconomic achievement gaps in the United States were much larger than those in the rest of the world,” the nations scoring highest tend to be ethnically homogenous. (See graph of rankings at Washington Post version of this story.)
Also, higher-achieving nations give high professional status to teaching that the U.S. does not.
College students: Be a teacher! Be intrinsically eager to contribute to excellence in child development because you know your dedication is shared by educators in later grades of your school system—being confident that educational excellence is a local continuum that you proudly advance.
Be paid well! Have the community provides adequate resources. Have everyone admire your career choice.
And wake up, GOP: Living with humongous national debt due to vastly favored tax dodges for the extremely wealthy, then turning to lower educational attainment for Republican support in elections, keeps the U.S. on the down road of global competitiveness and leadership in the 21st century.
Educational excellence takes a thriving village. And it takes educational leadership in good government—especially in the Oval Office.
I love all the armchair education experts on here. AHEM, as a teacher teaching reading, English, ESL, literature and history with 15 years experience teaching rich and poor kids in the States, in Central America, in Asia, and in Europe, I am well positioned to comment on the issues facing American students that the kids in other countries don’t have.
First, culture. Americans in general disrespect and disregard the importance of education and being highly educated. The home environment that children come from is extremely important, and the value their parents place on it. Kids I had in Guatemala who lived in shacks and had to walk age 6 or 7 for an hour through mud in the jungle to go to school because their parents instilled in them the desperation they will face without school, were well behaved and eager students. It’s a lie that you have to be rich to value education.
Two, structure. Kids are creative or not creative. Disciplines like math, grammar, phonics, Latin, memorisation exercises, later the scientific method and writing neatly do not stifle creativity. On the contrary, it gives kids a structure from which to form ideas and learn to think clearly. Picasso could paint like a photograph. Music takes hours of disciplined practice to master. Then by all means provide plenty of free time to explore their creative side. But eliminating structure and discipline is literally harming your children. It’s pure laziness on the part of parents and educators otherwise.
12
@Teacher - I teach grammar explicitly to high school students. I quiz them on it and am pretty relentless about it. I have been repeatedly second-guessed for doing so, but I will not stop until I'm ordered to by someone above me. Some students balk; many are furious they are learning this stuff for the first time in their teens.
I've been reading about the educational"crisis" and all the different programs put in place to raise tests scores comparative to other nations for the past 20 years. At the same time, class sizes have gotten larger, rates of grade retention are pretty much non-existent, summer school classes have been eliminated in many states and districts, and kids, and now their parents, have their faces in screens the majority of the time, while reading in the home is an anomaly. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know how to fix this. Break students into groups according to their level, reduce class sizes, if a kid fails a class, summer school, and it they are behind in everything, they get left back, nd stay back until they catch up. If a student is low IQ and unable to be in a regular classroom, he must go to a S.E. class. Why is this so hard to grasp.
4
Wait! Wait just a minute! Wasn't all that money Bill Gates dumped (force fed) into the American public education system supposed to have turned things around by now? Were we not supposed to catch and surpass those other countries that outperform our students?
The plan all along was to break the once robust US public education system, then have billionaires like Gates say - "see! It's broken (never mind that my well paid politicians defunded and broke it), but I can fix it"!
So we let Gates "fix" it. And to nobodies surprise, he didn't! Because he's just a crook out to make money for himself and his contracting cronies.
Standardized testing. Performance based funding and pay (as if education can be evaluated and measured, like the number of computers you sold last month). On and on. All the transformational (translated - useless) changes Gates and Company made to public education never made a students education any better. It was never meant to. It just made Gates and his cronies richer.
It was a con job all along.
3
To expect the average of US 50 states with over 300 million people to perform on par with the best cities like Shanghai, city states like Singapore or the best EU country like Finland is somewhere between naive and arrogant.
America’s states should be measured separately. How is Massachusetts, New Jersey and Alabama doing in comparison with Finland, Singapore or Shanghai.
This says absolutely nothing.
3
From the article (potential causes identified by "experts": "school segregation, limited school choice, funding inequities, family poverty, too much focus on test prep and a dearth of instruction in basic skills like phonics".
It couldn't possibly be poor instructing, overwhelmed classroom sizes, a meek future outlook for students, underwhelming job opportunities that require reading unless you plan on graduating from college, lack of school resources like simple books, relevant texts to keep students interested, a complacent faculty, lazy students?
Maybe, just maybe, creating another new program to teach kids how to take better tests is a dumb idea. Maybe, just maybe, alot of these kids know simply learning to read is a moot skill for them - if they do no graduate college they might as well stay at a fifth grade reading level because no one will hire them regardless.
Maybe society needs to stop blaming poor reading skills on everything except a poor future outlook these students (and teachers) already have.
Let's wake up already.
1
It's widening with the less intelligent students, not at the private or parochial schools. Uh, less immigration, anyone?
6
What we need is a trained, dedicated, professional educator in charge of the Department of Education, not some half-wit billionaire's wife who wants to replace public schools with charters, who's only qualification is donating to republicans, was unable to answer most of the education-related questions during her confirmation hearing, and stated that teachers should carry firearms in case of bears.
2
As a HS math teacher, I often quote the Grateful Dead: "You ain't gonna learn what you don't wanna know." In terms of student enthusiasm or interest, I sadly often teach to an audience of none.
And to paraphrase Bill Clinton, "It's the curriculum, stupid." Are we assigning problems 1-20 in a textbook or presenting students with complex, interesting, and individualized projects?
Unfortunately, money alone will not solve this problem.
6
There used to a show on TV called "Are you smarter than a 5-th grader?" Perhaps we should insist on making all the teachers in every middle and high school themselves take the end of the year 5-th grade tests in math and English. If more than half of the teachers fail, close the school as unsalvageable.
2
"the achievement gap in reading between high and low performers is widening. Although the top quarter of American students have improved their performance on the exam since 2012, the bottom 10th percentile lost ground,".....I wonder to what extent this divergence is just another contributor to the observed income disparity. There can be no doubt that higher educational performance leads to higher incomes later in life. Further, for all their deficiencies, our public school system provides the opportunity for a good education. Maybe the problem isn't that we have bad schools, but rather that we have bad students. And maybe the problem is that bad students come from homes where education is not valued. Maybe this isn't a school problem but rather a parent problem.
4
The reason why the US has fallen behind is clear to me. Local school boards are in charge of education. We have districts where it's still difficult to teach evolution. Education needs to be a federal function in the US. It is too important to our nation to leave education to individual communities.
When the USSR launched Sputnik, we had an an immediate federal response, the National Defense Education act and the Science and Mathematics Study Group. Since then, we have fallen further behind. Funding for education cannot come from widely varying local school taxes. In the 21st century, this must be a function of the federal government. How long will we wait to get the US back on track?
2
Real example: my brother bragged about his neighborhood's "top" suburban high school and all the AP classes his son took as an A student. His son recently sent me a thank you note for his, and he made 6 (yes, I counted) grammatical errors in his 2 to 3 sentence note. How is this possible? He seemed to have drafted a carefully written note, yet he is apparently unaware of basics like capitalisation. Wow. "Top student!...honors classes!....awesome high school!" And yet.
137
@kay day. In the US we spell it: "capitalization."
23
@kay day: Ask him to compute 1/6 - 1/7 without a calculator.
17
@kay day,
Read Kevin's comment below. The entire system has been dumbed down. Kids who should be bounced out of school are filling basic classes. College prep is really community college prep. AP is low level college prep.
We are so concerned with equalizing results across all the various population groups that we are pushing policies that undercut mainstream student achievement.
My biggest concern is that we aren't pushing our best and brightest as far and fast as we should. These will be our future leaders. These will be the folks we'll depend on for effectively competing with China and other countries less concerned with how well their poor students are doing.
46
If too much time passes, the under-performing students never catch up...in school or life. The deficits continually pile up and these lead to poor decisions. It is possible to overcome these issues, but it requires considerable effort over many, many hours/months/years. Most people who are in this situation are not inclined to do the work that is necessary to improve their lot on life.
1
The Columbine High School shooting happened in April 1999, and according to this article, "The performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000." Of course there are many factors contributing to the stagnation, at school and at home. But American students have been dealing with the newer stresses of potential and actual mass shootings, and active shooter drills at school, during the same period. That must detract from the school atmosphere and undermine their sense of well-being, and thereby inhibit learning in some important ways.
4
I have been teaching for about 15 years in a variety of school districts (rural, suburban, inner city) and have never seen or heard of anyone taking or administering the PISA. The Common Core tests are ubiquitous and the results should be taken much more seriously.
1
Here's the real headline: "American School Age Children Rank Low in Safety, Health, Well-being, and Upward Mobility, but Highest in Education". Look at the data on OECD countries, US ranks 12-20 on these dimensions, highest (12th) in Education. So, in fact, American education is over-performing. However, if you control for poverty, US is 3-5th for affluent and in the 30's for people in poverty. So, yes, we are under-performing when it comes to serving already marginalized student populations. But, what are the health, safety, well-being and other measures for this population? Surely, lower than for education.
It's hard to achieve world-leading outcomes in education when every other aspect of your society is nowhere near that.
The US education system is succeeding at creating a bifurcated labor force matched to our economy--a very few high achievers and a large pool of dehumanized labor for service jobs. When the economy needed lots of corporate middle-managers and scores of skilled laborers, our education system (K-16) produced that. The labor needs of international corporations now necessitate outcomes. It's obvious if you care to look.
2
This is a combination of many of the factors other comments have raised:
1) Ability levels - the idea that any teacher can appropriately differentiate for 30 kids in one class that range from special needs to gifted is absurd. The kids don’t care about tracking. They know which kids are smartest, best athletes, musicians, singers, etc. Eliminating tracking was never about what was best for children, it was always about not offending the parents' egos.
2) Poverty - Try reading a book if your stomach is grumbling or all you’ve eaten for weeks is cheep carbs or your sleeping in a car. Or as my father used to say “ how can you expect a child to learn to read if the only literature in their home is a calendar”. Success for struggling kids - especially in poverty - requires massive social service intervention. How about we start with paying people a living wage?
3) Standardized Testing - The obsession with testing driven education is depriving children of the joy of learning and teachers the joy of teaching. This is nothing more than a profit driven scam with no educational benefit. Good etchers can evaluate where kids are and what they need - if they have the resources to do so.
4) Teacher compensation - Every teacher in America should have a starting base salary of $50,000 that is then adjusted up based on cost of living index of their location, And they should forgiven student loans if they teach in challenged districts.
7
@maxmost
Melodramatic but that is all. I never had a single student who slept in a car. Yes, some were hungry when they came to school (and I pushed. successfully for a free breakfast program and arranged the funding thereof) but that was because of lousy parenting. Any kid who has a bag of chips for breakfast -- and many did -- weree eating a "food" that, ounce for ounce, costs more than a simple slice or two of buttered toast. None of this is about money.
Children in America are educated exactly according to the desires of their parents. It has nothing to do with the "sleeping in their car" sort of myth.
5
The country needs to VALUE our public schools. This will entail voters replacing state/national representatives and senators that are products of our public schools and do not place their own children in private k-12 schools. Does anyone know this statistic for our current national officials? Remove tax incentives when choosing private education for our children.
Loosen remove federal mandates, especially since most are unfunded by the government, and return to state and local control of our schools.
Our state universities must recruit the best and brightest of those with the natural gift of teaching. The gift includes broad empathy, ability to quickly identify with a broad range of students and developing a bond of trust, creative abilities when it comes to planning and implementing lessons to motivate students and encourage risk taking in learning new skills. Teacher candidates should have early experience in a classroom to ensure they actually like children. Nothing like doing student teaching right before graduation and it’s associated debt to figure out that you don’t care for your career choice.
The universities need to implement/re-implement the basic skills exam for students prior to their 3rd or 4th semester of college to insure they have the necessary skills before moving on in Teacher Education programs.
Encourage public schools to offer Pre-Teaching classes as part of their Career Technical Education offerings.
Encourage more men/minorities into teaching.
2
From a retired education professor who never really convinced anyone: There are overwhelming research results to demonstrate that kids need direct instruction and practice to mastery. It's really that simple. It doesn't mean they can't also be creative, also do research, read novels, thrive in art and music and sports. It just means that in elementary school they need to master skills and develop strategies that will help them all through their education,. I see it in my own very bright but bored and spoiled granddaughter, 5th grade, who is limping through math, where she often gets no feedback on the work she does at all, let alone immediately, when she needs it. There's no energy, no sense of the joy of achievement in public education. We are definitely not #1. A change of attitude and a tutor/assistant in every elementary classroom could change the world.
7
What do test scores matter? The results are inevitably racist, classist, and a demonstration of white privilege. The best policy for this country is simply to keep spending more and more money, regardless of the results of standardized tests.
At least the above is the argument of the Lett, who are quite willing to blame society for the failure of students to achieve at levels comparable to students in other counties. For the Left to entertain other conclusions would require a mental adjustment of stupendous proportions, a mental journey that only a few can take.
And of course, the Left is unwilling to admit the obvious: we'll have better schools when we have better students.
5
@octavian
"The results are inevitably racist, classist, and a demonstration of white privilege."
Ah, that explains why they do well in Shanghai.
4
@octavian And where are these "better students" going to come from? There's a direct negative correlation between poverty and academic achievement. Those other countries don't allow their families to fall into poverty.
Teaching to the test makes school boring. The brain wants stimulation, not the rote memorization that goes along with teaching to the test. Give the kids books that are exciting for them to read. Show them how math works in real life. They could go outside and make calculations for the size of a school garden or a playground. Instead they're sitting around having the test drilled into their heads.
Make school interesting and they will come.
@Linda And they would ace any test you could give them because they'd be thinking literate adults rather than programmed robots.
@Linda - do you think you are the first person to recommend this? Kids do not find books exciting if they can't read. Kids do not want to apply math if they are terrible at math.
My guess for the decline? The cell phone and the Internet have taken over the minds and attention of the young.
10
Half the country (think red) doesn't want an educated populace, doesn't believe in science or facts. Why would anybody be supposed we are failing to educate.
2
You are absolutely correct regarding the red half. The trouble is that the other half (the blue one) wants every student to get a high school diploma while learning mostly how to hold hands and sing kumbaya. Learning algebra is hard and makes the students feel bad, so let’s axe algebra. All tests are inevitably biased, classist and racist, so let’s get rid of the tests. Teaching Homer, Dante and Shakespeare promotes white privilege, so bye-bye Hamlet. Giving the students bad grades hurts their self-esteem, so let’s get rid of the grades too. And so we arrive at the point where the answer to “What is square root of 81?” is “A math question.”
4
@Berto Collins - in a nutshell, yes. I considered, and ultimately decided against, teaching Huck Finn this year - for all the reasons you mention here. It's just too much trouble. The upshot, of course, is that the kids are denied one of the finest novels to come out of our country. Homer and Shakespeare are, fortunately, still on the curriculum, but there's a school of thought that novels from the last twenty years are more "relevant" than stories that have been around for millenia.
As the trump administration (administration, or maybe syndicate) is gaslighting the American Public (and Noam Chomsky warned us about this in 'Manufactured Consent'), Betsy DeVos, devoid of any experience or relevant education to lead a federal department, has put an emphasis on religious indoctrination in the classroom, instead of her mandate to install and reenforce intellectual and life skills into the minds of American children.
The ONLY reason B. DeVos became the Secretary of Education was due to her substantial contribution to the 2016 trump campaign, so why should the American Public expect her to bring integrity into her duties as a cabinet member of the trump administration.
4
It's directly tied to the corporate takeover of education. Substandard "learning packets" are peddled to school districts and teachers are forced to teach from the material. Lazy teachers love them and administrators love them because of the kickbacks. Often the corporations have a few connected teachers on board to make them look legitimate.
These substandard packets and the cozy kickback deals were exposed and going back to the 90s there was suppose to be an investigation. Of course Congress got paid to drop the investigation.
They were first peddled in the poorest districts but moved their way up to all but the richest and most elite schools. They also make sure they are not used in advanced or specialized classes. I was appalled the first time I saw these prepackaged so called learning materials. They are just awful. When teachers discussed why my children did so well on tests I explained they did not study such garbage at home. I made sure they had books and materials that were relevant and taught them old fashioned basic methods. Unfortunately many parents do not have the time or opportunity to do this for their children.
3
It is amazing to me that a number of commentators on tv have poor grammar; teaching grammar, reading skills and basic math are the elements of a functioning human; it should start at home, so we have generations of failure when the parents are basically illiterate.
2
If academic standards and rigor are continually allowed to slide, how much will companies need to compensate the few remaining people who can actually think and want to work? The root cause of this mess is that parents, teachers, students, and school administrators are trying to take the easy way out, make school all about fun while passing everyone. BOTTOM LINE... STUDENTS NEED TO STUDY...AND SOMETIMES THAT ISN'T FUN....BUT TOO BAD!!!!!
5
This is so sad but it's what I see in my university classroom--students who can write well and understand the materials, and those who are completely lost and cannot comprehend what they are reading. They get in to the university after community college but do not belong at a university. They need remedial reading and writing. What will happen is that they'll get bad grades, drop out or be pushed out, and then they'll be stuck with paying loans from a minimum wage job. It is criminal and I hate being part of this system. We are cheating our children.
5
This situation requires innovative leadership. Don't count on DeVos or Trump to solve the problem.
3
Government schools are a proven failure. Millions of lives lessened because of lack of education. I say try vouchers. It can’t get any worse!
3
I guess Americans can’t do what other first world nations can do—provide quality public education. We aren’t so great.
1
This is great news for Republicans! Their longtime strategy of keeping control of public education at the most local and parochial level possible while underfunding education and denigrating teachers is really paying off! Rich kids who can go to private schools generally fare much better, while the lower orders (aka the help) are kept uncompetitive and ignorant enough to consistently vote against their interests. Who says Republicans aren’t cagey?
2
@pottree I agree. During his 2016 campaign, Trump famously said, “ I love the poorly educated.” Republicans thrive with the dumbing down of America. People who don’t read or think critically are very malleable!
Republicans have put so much value on being an uneducated redneck, which passes on to their children, which they tend to have more of. Liberals tend to go to school for longer and voluntarily so college must be a liberal conspiracy! Getting good grades still isn’t “cool” so why would students try on exams, especially when their parents are skeptical of college? I am a very liberal progressive democrat and my parents were staunch republicans who told me regularly they didn’t trust college and didn’t care if I went, as long as I passed high school. This meant I could get straight C’s or D’s as long as I got to the level of schooling they themselves achieved.
Secondly, schooling is literally proving itself to be useless in the US economy. As long as you can code well and sell “your brand” on social media, you can be the next Zuckerberg.
Students know that school doesn’t matter because adults are constantly telling them it doesn’t!
2
Intellectually lazy parents produce intellectually lazy children. Every subject taught has been dumbed down. Why learn when it interferes with play? The game generation has been with us for 20 years. The lowering of educational standards began in the 1970s producing a population that cannot recognize their general knowledge and literacy deficiencies. The burgeoning of administrators in K-12 and college siphons off funds that ought to be going towards lower class size and more teachers. Kids enter college with 4th grade vocabulary and reading ability. Hire more administrators to solve the drop out problem, and they encourage teachers to solve the problem by giving passing grades to failing students. This is the American tragedy.
3
Inasmuch as the data is not analyzed by race, it is not really informational.
6
The truth is that the statistics are as misleading in education as they are in healthcare.
When you actually look at the data you can see that when you normalize socioeconomic classes and representation of different concepts (often in the same subject) on the exam the discrepancies narrow and often reverse.
Studies are helpful if you read and understand them and dangerous if you don’t.
An admittedly dated article but illuminating nonetheless:
https://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/january/test-scores-ranking-011513.html
Education happens in a context. The context for the last 12 years has been the Great Recession. Turns out parental job loss or poverty wages, and the resulting home instability, lack of access to good food, stable sleep hours, long commutes, home internet, etc. hurts school performance.
https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/impact-great-recession-student-achievement-evidence-population-data
4
How do we rank producing "Social Warriors"
3
I'm a white priviliged male teacher. The gaps, achievement and discipline, will never change if this nation does not have a serious uncomfortable messy difficult discussion on race, racism, structural racism and white fragility. To all my white brothers and sisters, the system is rigged in our favor and WE perpetuate, knowingly or unknowingly, the system, which makes us complicit in racism. #disrupt_the_system
Books before computers.
4
It’s like the ‘ war on drugs’— billions of dollars spent—no results.
Only education is a live entity—precious, children’s minds. Billions spent and so many kids are ignorant.
Europeans revere education as do the Russians.
Get back to the syllabus of the 1950s. Bring back mandatory history... stop the glitz and testing.
Give back imagination to the kids.
2
No wonder Trump is seen as a wonderful fella - he can't read or write, either!
1
Are we really supposed to be surprised that central planning and spending more on administration, unions, rules and tyranny over students and teachers with one-size-fits-all government education camps isn't working out?
2
Maybe it’s because they’re too worried about being shot at school or ridiculed on social media. We need a societal reset.
4
Is there a link to the PISA results? I looked, but wasn't able to find one.
2
This administration can’t execute on any front because the cabinet is filled with a rotating series of billionaire unqualified cronies.
Only the least capable, most sycophantic incompetent and corrupt grifters surrounding Trump with choruses of praise and yeses survive.
Those with a shred a dignity, a modicum of talent, and even an ounce of ethics would run from this lawless administration backed by Putin and his proxy terrorist states (North Korea, Syria, Turkey, etc).
Trump must be impeached or bring down the entire Republican Party in Congress and statehouses to mop up the blatant corruption and Russian beachhead in the United States of America.
Common Core was a welfare program for Republican tied testing companies. Low information voters tend to vote more Republican. Two birds with one stone!
3
Education starts at home.
2
The lesson of the failure of lesson's is in every home; Television.
3
Get the Department of Education out of the hands of a religious zealot and operative, and into the hands of the people.
FUND EDUCATION!
1
When yer boomer parents are childish materialistic suburban consumer pod people, what's yer motivation to actually work?
3
Reverse psychology works on a simple mind... somebody should tell Trump that Obama was the worst polluter of the environment in American history... Trump would start cleaning up the environment tomorrow.
1
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.”
-- Issac Asimov (1980)
5
To quote J. David Bamberger (look him up - you'll be glad you did), "The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary."
2
I'll tell you where I sit before I take a stand. My spouse is and has been a teacher in both public and private K-12. We raised three kids, two of which are close to completing 4 year degrees, and one of which our goal was just to keep him alive until he reached 21. My advice to my employees and younger friends is this. If you have limited resources, don't waste your money saving for your kids college education. Save every penny and get them into a good private school at least until they are ready for high school. The domino's for college will fall into place with a solid educational background. Public school teachers have there hands FULL with bureaucratic oversight, teaching to the tests, absent parenting, teaching to the lowest common denominator, bloated administrations sucking at the teat of educational establishment while teacher pay languishes in the sea of bureaucracy. Without fail in my experience, the secret sauce of the successful student is HIGHLY involved parents. Regardless of what what the PISA test outcomes, we all know that the those on the lower rung of our economic ladder will be left behind when it comes to getting a quality education. I just want to see them get a fair shake.
Kids just aren't getting it in our inner city schools.
2
How long until Trump starts insulting Macron's wife as old and ugly?
1
Since 2000? And what has infested our culture since then? Smart phones make dumb kids.
1
Import some teachers and see what happens.
Oh dear,, immigration again.
Continuously testing and grading students will never succeed until parents, educators and administrators are regularly tested and graded with the same tests.
Oh, yes - test and grade elected officials too.
My public high school in Montana during the early 90's offered two levels of competitive debate, major plays and musical productions, a full range of athletics, multiple levels of band, orchestra and choir, woodworking and mechanical shops, and had three art teachers at a school serving a little less than 1500 students.
In contrast, the similarly sized public school where I now teach offers almost none of those services. The situation begs the question, what is the purpose of education? The schools I attended as a youth were places a wide range of people could entertain and discover a broad variety of interests in preparation for a broad variety of productive lifestyles. Not so much today.
5
The comments below point are very good. Improving education is essential for the country, but it will require attention to more than schools and teachers.
1
Those initiatives are all geared toward teaching to the test, not meaningful learning. The Federal Government ties the hands of the states by imposing never ending Byzantine requirements for federal funding. Gym, recess and art (the stuff kids enjoy) all get eliminated to meet these requirements.
2
What if our society actually valued education, teaching, and the written word? One could make a start by paying teachers a living wage and by making reading and literacy an ideal that is promoted across the social spectrum. I would bet that the majority of very smart teenagers at the top high school my child attends want to be computer programmers. Their older cohorts are getting business degrees--the most popular major on U.S. campuses.
3
Local control became the mantra of the right wing in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. It's really based in the view of those who sincerely don't believe that every child in America deserves a free, world-class public education. Local control means we don't have an American education system, but 50 state systems divided further into literally thousands of local school boards.
Local control ignores that algebra is algebra, that Shakespeare is Shakespeare, that the acceleration of gravity is the same, whether in North Carolina or North Dakota. Local control demands that the body of knowledge and skills represented by a high school diploma varies from state to state. But mostly local control means that local people don't want their little Susie to have to go to school with "those people," who don't deserve that world class education.
And our students suffer, diminishing their (and our) chances to succeed in the 21st-century global economy.
4
@Kevin Brock
Local control means that their taxes pay for their kids.
@Kevin Brock Local control also means ignoring evolution and downplaying slavery as a cause of the Civil War.
I substitute taught in public schools during grad school(since 2014) and what I've noticed is a lack of foundational knowledge. I've seen 11th graders take out calculators to do basic multiplication (5×7, etc). Many students have no sense of grammar and couldn't tell the difference between a noun and a verb. I've been told that rote learning inhibits creativity and prevents the students from expressing themselves freely. I have trouble seeing how students could effectively express themselves or grasp increasingly complex concepts as they progress through school without any sense of the basic structure of language. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to why concrete learning has been abandoned in favor of abstract thinking from the start?
10
@Sub - I think because it's easier to fake, both as student and teacher. It gives the appearance of mastery with no actual mastery. Those discrete skills you mention are correct/incorrect. We don't like that certainty anymore, even though kids ultimately get a great deal of satisfaction out of knowing that stuff.
1
"Education experts" (whatever that means--usually people who work for test publishers), governors, state education chiefs, philanthropists, and school reformers. Anybody else notice who is missing from the list of people chiming in on this? Teachers. God forbid we ask the people in the trenches for solutions.
8
Other countries don't spend as much money on academically irrelevant expenses such as sports and athletic facilities. They also don't have college athletic scholarships. Take that money and put it into teacher salaries, academic enrichment, and smaller class sizes and results will improve.
4
@jz Even though the nearby town has a major university, the high school can't afford to send novels home with the students. They sit and read them in class and then leave them behind so the next class can read them. There is no discussion of the books they read because there is no time. Schools used to have enough copies of books to send them home with kids. No more.
The same high school that can't afford books recently built a football stadium that looks like a professional league's stadium. No money for books but plenty of money for sports.
2
You write, "Mr. Schleicher said that differences in school quality affected the performance of American students less than it affected the performance of students in many other nations — meaning that in the United States, there is more achievement diversity within schools than across schools." One possible reason for this is that in the United States the great majority of primary and secondary schools would rank low in school quality than those in Europe. There is therefore less variability in school quality to measure.
On the solutions side, other developed countries have national curricula. We can't even get people using the Common Core for math. It could be that the local education system has failed us.
2
We don't have an American education system. We have 50 state education systems, further divided into thousands of local education systems. We don't have a set of national standards for secondary education, so that a high school diploma from North Carolina doesn't mean the same thing as a high school diploma from North Dakota. The fourth grader whose family is moving from New Jersey to New Mexico is likely to be lost in attempting to figure out the differences in curricula from one to the next.
The point at which public education in the United States became "broken" was when individual school districts, especially across the South, were desgregated. The school system I grew up in did that in 1969, 15 years after Brown v. Board of Education. And in that very same year, a private school opened in our rural South Carolina county, schools that we now call segregation academies.
The sad fact is that too many people in the United States simply don't believe that every child in America deserves the opportunity for a free, world class public education.
4
As a teacher, the most damaging trend that I've seen is that parents with means put their kids into tutoring centers from Kindergarten on. These kids end up academically ahead of other students and end up in Gifted and Talented programs that start way too early. These students continue to move ahead of the rest of the students and end up taking advanced courses that the other students are completely left out of.
Back when I was an elementary school student in the 80s, everyone in the class studied the same material. Late bloomers, like myself, had a chance to catch up and end up in advanced classes (that you couldn't sign up for until junior year in high school). These days, if you're not in a G&T program by 3rd grade, you're probably never going to catch up and you'll be doomed to classes with the lowest performing students.
A small segment of privileged students benefits enormously from this situation, while everyone else stagnates.
3
@ymd What you seem to say is that motivated parents who prize a good education above all else for their children and are willing to sacrifice to obtain such education are somehow the villains.
An excellent education is available "free for nothing" in virtually every American public school. Some parents insist their students apply themselves. In addition, many parents go the extra mile to obtain additional tutoring. etc., for their offspring.
The mediocre and heedless population will always fall to the bottom -- and should do so.
1
I'm a retired high school teacher. I began with my district just as standards were being embraced in the early 2000s. With no background in Math, I am limiting my comments to reading. I believe when reading improves, (most) everything else will fall in line. I used to conduct what I called ' class read,' where each student read a paragraph or so. It was my tool for checking the reading skills of the students. I don't care what the experts think, (many of whom have never been classroom teachers, I found it to be a good tool.) The better readers were the better students.
One question dealt with frequently in our district was the use of test scores as a tool to check kid's improvement or lack of. The district actually wanted to use them as part of the teacher evaluation process. Our union was not amused. As always the righties want to blame the unions for everything.
More teachers would be part of the answer. More quality of ancillary materials would help. Many times I rejected the materials because many or most of them were written at the 5th grade level and I was teaching 9-12. That's the scoop, at least in that district.
2
Doesn't education begin at home? Maybe we should go back there and take a good, hard look at the state of the family and its support of education. In a certain strata of society isn't it true that education is now looked down upon? The word, "elite" is bandied about and compared to "educated" as if it is a crime. Maybe it's time to reexamine society's goals in the context of the economic divide.
4
I will keep saying it til I'm dead or it's dead: standardized testing is a major, very profitable industry in the United States, one that significantly takes away from meaningful teacher-student interaction and self-directed learning. Time that students could spend reading quietly with fiction they're interested in or exploring math concepts hands-on is replaced with near-constant test prep, which not only actively disengages students (and teachers) but doesn't promote any deeper understanding. Consider that tests are meant to assess knowledge, not impart it. How can you prepare someone for a flurry of tests when they were given the test prep as a substitute for the actual knowledge?
It's not as simple as ceasing standardized testing, because the companies who profit off them don't want that. Pamphlets, flashcards, prep books and software, practice tests, the tests themselves... every time a school buys these things, an unseen face makes money, and schools are pretty powerless to say no because school funding and teacher pay are hitched to student outcomes on these tests. I once asked my lit teacher who writes the FCAT, and he flat out said "I don't know." It's a totally corrupt system.
3
"And the achievement gap in reading between high and low performers is widening. "
Closing top-performing schools (the brilliant education initiative by de Blasio) will do nothing to close the gap.
Low performance is not the fault of the students - it's the fault of their families. Make sure kids live in stable, healthy two-parent homes and you erase most of the gap.
3
After a short perusal of the comments, I find I agree with most of the thoughtful and insightful people who care enough about kids to write a comment. (Yes, we need healthcare, high-quality nutrition, and smaller class sizes with teachers who really care!)! But I also see a glaringly obvious hole that I know has only gotten worse since I was a high school teacher. The drug and opioid crisis is affecting kids' abilities to retain information. They are to zoned, zonked, or tired from use or from their primary caregiver's use. If they are using themselves, the drugs they are taking may have a side effect of affecting short-term memory besides all of the other ramifications of drug use. If the kids legitimately CAN'T learn or test well due to drugs, we will continue to see little improvement overall no matter how hard the kiddos try individually.
One potential key to improving student outcomes and test scores (and yes I realize pigs have a better chance of flying): banning phones and social media before a certain grade level--say, college (and even that I'm wary of).
If nothing else, I think it would decrease the misery of many students going through their formative years. The effects of these phones and apps are just beginning to be studied---and the picture being painted isn't pretty: Higher suicide and depression rates (especially among girls) and overall more time spent thinking about how great some other students "profile life" is--as opposed to actually thinking, talking, and learning important basic skills.
Yes, I know learning outcomes and assessment have been a problem long beforethe smartphone. But in keeping with the running theme of "big-tech" exacerbating existing problems at ever layer of our society--it's difficult to imagine ithem not having some significant effect on learning outcomes.
1
"You're wrong!"
That's what's wrong with our educational attempts. Revisions are always according to someone's opinion. Not measured, tested, objective facts.
It's unequivocally a very difficult arena to navigate. What is needed - is a nationally supervised and measured system of - experiment.
We could find out. But that requires both freedom to experiment, with ideas that run counter to whatever dogma is currently in charge; and unbiased analysis of results. Then- repeated, refined, experiment.
It's called "science"; something we pretend to teach; but don't. It's also the information mechanism that is 100% responsible for everything you do or touch today. Well; except "education".
Maybe the problem isn't the students or the schools, but the test itself.
1
It sounds to me like these problems need to be fixed at the Elementary School level.
What are we doing by 2nd grade to ensure 99%+ of students have reading and math at a 2nd grade level?
We need identification and intensive intervention to make sure students catch up. By middle school it's too late.
3
This is not a problem that we can solve by just throwing more money at it. As a local school board member, I have learned that if children do not read at a third grade level by the time they are in the third grade, they will continue to have often serious problems in school. That fact must guide messaging to the parents, especially parents who are not yet involved in their kids' education. This fact must also drive academic discipline in school, especially in grades 1-3. Children with difficulties reading must be identified as soon as possible and receive the assistance they need to get up to speed. Finally, there is a big deficit in reading among many children with Spanish as the language spoken at home. I have heard from more than one teacher that the best thing the parents can do for their children in those homes is, "Turn off Univision." In other words, immerse the children as early and as much as possible in the English language.
5
America does not believe in investing its wealth in education and healthcare for her citizens.
Education spending is a political football - besides, if a family does not have stable access to healthcare, you can throw your edu stat's out the window.
America believes in a good life for the rich and survival mode for the rest.
But, no money is spared for military spending.
Here are the dividends.
3
@Terry Phelps Tired of hearing the obsessions of the wealthy and powerful described as what "America" wants or "America" believes in. Most of us want change. Few of us have the power to do anything but work our jobs well and vote, even as the wealthy and powerful inhibit the power of our votes and work hard to take away our jobs and livelihoods.
2
@MWI I understand you are sensitive to this, probably because it's basically true. Half the nation sees socialized medicine as the end of the world, sorry, but it's the truth.
"There is no consensus on why the performance of struggling students is declining. "
Possibly because there has been no competent and honest effort to analyse why the performance of struggling students is declining?
Most reporting on K12 performance seems to be propaganda supporting policies of spending more money, rather than analysis of why.
Aren't the most important factors innate intelligence and early parental involvement?
Where is the analysis of change in demogrphics in the 2019 Mathematics and Reading Assessments?
1
Reading and especially writing are extremely difficult to properly teach when the teacher faces four or five classes every day comprised of approximately 25 students each. Writing well requires the very old-fashioned "theme a week" approach and then close, patient, and personal attention from a teacher, who really needs to work individually with the student, pointing out grammatical, usage, case, and other errors, but also emphasizing strengths in the student's writing. It is simply impossible to effectively teach writing when teachers teach a daily total of 125 students.
4
125 students? Last year, I taught 168.
I don’t remember the last time my teaching load was only 125 students.
1
There is an old, old saying. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Without the students being motivated by the school and the home and our society, there is no reason for them to learn. Once they are motivated, they will learn. However, we must remember that there are both good and bad ways to motivate. The threat of being beaten or berated is sometimes effective, but not conducive to healthy education or healthy individuals.
2
Everyone has the answers and nothing ever changes. We throw money , who actually knows where the money goes, but we do know it is not going to students.
Bloomberg yes the genius who recreated the NYC school system didn't have any answers outside of closing schools, adding smaller schools based on his School Chancellor who was a lawyer, logic
We have to many people in charge who know nothing about education ,nor communities, nor a holistic approach to children. Cant learn if your hungry, do we brother to address that, no Trump is cutting food stamps. We have made being poor a crime and the list goes on.
Maybe now that a new set of scores staring us in the face and we will have a new administration coming into office we can have educators working together ,including all aspects of society to address our children's needs. What we have done for decades is not working.
Betsy is taking up space and setting us back fifty years. Any presidential candidate needs to have a structured plan. The GOP have ruined education in their states and now is the time to truly examine who is running these school districts. Unqualified educators should not be in the classroom or designated as a chancellor or anything else. We can not blame this on teacher training programs till we examine the entire process. As we can not blame Teach for America
democracy, future depend on getting education right.. Put the technology aside and lets get busy, the answer is within us to find
1
Why does having a diverse population explain our poor performance compared with other countries? What does diverse even mean in this context? Racial diversity? Economic diversity? Many immigrants, unlike Finland?
It can't be economic because the study accounted for that and specific mention was made that poverty rates were similar in high performing countries vs the US.
As for racial diversity, I won't even entertain the preposterous notion that one race is smarter than the other.
Finally, is it our large immigrant population dragging scores down, perhaps due to language barrier issues? I don't know. I may be an N of 1 but I came to this country speaking no English in Kindergarten and by second grade I was one of the top students in my class. This was also the case with many of my immigrant friends.
So I don't buy the diversity defense. There must be something else at play here.
1
I teach in Florida. When I started 29 years ago, English teachers had 4 classes of 25 students (100) and were required to teach writing under a state-mandated program. We had to keep portfolios and there was a minimum basic skills test to graduate from high school. Schools were improving.
Today, after 20+ years of "education reform" started by Jeb Bush, centering on secret high-stakes testing at most grade levels and paying schools and teachers "bonuses" based on those tests, English teachers now have 6 classes (150) students. We also have less time for planning and grading.
Bush, DeVoss, and the rest of their ilk, use the test scores to grade schools and give out vouchers for private, religious schools that don't give the same tests. They say Florida is a model, but the opposite is true. Their policies have failed, in fact, have hurt public schools immensely.
Teachers and our unions have been ignored. This is the result.
8
Who cares? If our economy needs well educated workers, then we have the H1-B visa program to backfill with foreigners.
This ain't rocket science. Here's a few radical ideas:
1. Long term birth control for teenagers, so we are not averaging in millions of poor children born to poorly educated single mothers.
2. Teach and reward parents on what they need to do to produce achievers.
3. There are plenty of university studies in psychology and education and successful schools in the US and other countries. People know what works better, but there is no will, just politicians.
Come on! If the nation really wanted to significantly improve student outcomes, it has the means and the know-how, just no rationality and will. Money is not a measure of rational decisions and effort.
3
Too much angst! In a democracy, communities not only will get the government they deserve -- they will get the educational system they deserve. Parents who are determined that their children receive an excellent education will have well-educated children. Parents who are indifferent to the education of their children will have children who are indifferently educated.
If public schools do a bad job then caring parents walk away from them and enroll their kids in charter/magnet/private/parochial schools. "Caring parents" usually are married and live, together, with their children. Such parents read to their children, value education, limit access to electronic media and support in-classroom discipline. Most of all, these parents model what an educated adult should be for their young.
Indifferent parents are usually single mothers, are often poorly educated themselves, roost in front of a display screen most evenings, rarely read and -- take this to the bank -- are defensive, confrontational and insulting toward teachers who make academic demands.
The indifferent parents find allies in school administrators who are full of ideas PC ideas and, in addition, are temperamentally scared of their own shadows. If one teaches in an inner city school (as I did for decades) one knows that the moment one enters a classroom one is on one's own.
This is just reality -- life is Darwinian. Let those who don't want to learn leave school at age sixteen. Sauve qui peut!
3
Americans are profoundly entitled people. We see our rightful place as being at the head of every table. We expect to be shot callers. We want to swagger around like Elon, not to be one of the faceless drones calculating thrust vectors and the like. We demand our leisure time. I mean, leaders and creators have to recharge, right? Grinding is for other people. We are Americans!
This, of course, has informed our approach to education. No need to labor over the basics. A perfunctory acquaintance is enough. After all, you won't be doing the actual work. And homework and study are obstacles to appropriate socialization as leaders of tomorrow. The kids have to get out there. They have to start to build their networks. And through team sports they will learn to work with others, but most importantly, to lead. We sneer at"test prep" (formerly known as practice and review) because there is no place for drudgery amongst the privileged.
Later, Johnny wakes up to find that he does not merit a living wage because it turns out that there is only one seat at the head of the table, and that seat has been taken. Gotta love the American Way!
Um, huh, I just looked at the actual test results and the US is pretty much on the average of all 'normal' countries for Reading, Math and Science.
The handful of top scorers are countries where you really do not want your kids to grow up in.
2
No one wants to address the broken families problem. Kids need two parents so there is enough parenting time available to keep the kids on track. Single parent "families" are not really families. They are family fragments. I'm sure teachers will tell you that way too many kids come to school unprepared to be students. You can blame the social media and gaming overload - which is a big problem. Often, kids are abandoned to social media and gaming because there is not enough parenting time available in single parent households to give enough guidance to the kids. Two-parent families work well for kids much more often than single- parent family fragments do. Sorry my fellow libs, we should be discouraging single-parent "families" by any means available - including by shaming and by shutting down too-easy governmental support.
3
@Norm Weaver Twenty years teaching in inner city schools taught me the same lesson -- children from single-parent families generally do worse academically.
But, does this really matter? Someone, after all, has to prepare our fast food, stock our supermarkets and towel-off our autos at the car wash.
How can "the rest of us" possibly care more about single-parented children than the parents themselves?
1
@Observer Of course most of the parents really do care but - sadly - sometimes we do care about those kids more than their parents do. We should be doing everything we can to discourage single-parent "families". Deterioration of our social culture over some decades has resulted in the overabundance of single-parent families. Then - of course - those families produce kids who fail in our education system regardless how much money and other resources we throw at them.
I appreciate the sarcasm in your second paragraph. At the same time it is pathetic. We have too allowed too many people to fall into this category.
1
What tremendous surprise - money doesn't get results in education. I think the worst thing you can do is put underachieving students in with high achievers. It's a recipe for class disruption, poor performance by all students, and possibly worse.
If you want positive results in education, you have to reward the good behavior and penalize the bad behavior. And that includes the parents. If they don't care, the kid probably won't care.
Perhaps it would work if the kids and parents viewed doing well in school as their job, for which they get paid. Whether that's getting their current benefits, or getting extra benefits, is open to debate.
The current situation also clarifies the silliness of "free college tuition for all". If the primary school system is failing, how can you possibly expect anything positive to come out of 4 more years with no strings attached?. Kids who are smart and motivated will always find a way, whether it's state school, grants, scholarships or working to save money for school. Those are the kids that will really apply themselves and get something out of school. Not underachieving kids who got a free ride because it was offered.
2
I see the phrase "throwing money at the problem" used quite frequently in the comments here. What exactly does this phrase mean?
Is it the same as "spending additional funds in a intelligent way"? Is the same as "I don't want to pay more in taxes"? Is it the same as "Money is not being spent wisely"?
Whichever of the above (or something else) you mean, please say what you mean instead of this meaningless phrase.
2
Are American students wasting all their time playing youth sports? Do students in other countries spend so much time padding their sports resume for college applications, even if they have no hope of playing professional sports?
What if colleges did not consider sports in their admission processes at all? Who knows what students could achieve with 15 or 20 more hours per week to develop their minds.
1
@Djt - I don't think sports are the issue here. I suspect your low-performing students aren't playing, say, travel soccer.
1
We just had a State House pass legislation that a student can't be penalized for providing an incorrect answer if that (wrong) answer conforms with their religious beliefs. We have a representative of the White House (Conway) publicly claiming the existence of "alternative facts". We have a culture that believes paying taxes for anything other than the military is "government waste". And we are surprised that American students can't distinguish between fact and opinion?
3
It turns out that you need to spend money on public education to get well educated students. Who knew.
2
I hardly get into this debate anymore. The product of a household headed by schoolteachers, I and my 3 siblings were raised in an environment where attention was paid daily to the merits of being educated, of reading, of learning about the world we all live in, of holding up our end of the "democracy requires an informed electorate" bargain. In adulthood, it took me a while to realize that our house was in the minority as compared with American households in general. We are and have been for our entire life as a nation proudly anti-intellectual and, increasingly, willfully ignorant. What good does it do to throw money at schools when fewer and fewer students live in a household where the value of being educated is even understood or acknowledged, let alone seriously pursued? And now we've had 15 years or so of a ruinous technological shift that exacerbates this problem hourly. This is a problem stemming from an American cultural ethos. Period. Teachers and school budgets can only do so much, but no more in such an environment. Look at who's president; need more be said?
5
I think that it is time to look at toxic environmental causes, like lead poisoning, and the rampant overuse of pharmaceuticals such as ADD meds and anti-depressants in our youth.
You can only blame the teachers for so long.
1
We've been defunding education and demonizing educators for at least the past forty years. Seriously, what did we expect?
2
A challenge for everyone: Spend the next week reading and watching news sources from other countries, and watch a few dramas and a few comedies as well.
It becomes very clear, very quickly, that U.S. media of all kinds is dumbed down. Blaring and without nuance or expectation of any previous understanding of history, current events or reflection.
Critical thinking and expectations of an informed and educated populace is gone.
Opinion and fiction are now as valid as facts.
Intelligence is viewed with suspicion and discounted.
Shouting and insults are reasoned debate.
Around the drain we continue to circle.
3
In these dismal results, I see a reason for Trump's ability to win election and to pose a serious threat in the 2020 election. How could a constantly lying demagogue with the most abusive behavior of any politician in our history convince so many Americans that he is competent enough to make America "great again" (whatever that is supposed to mean.) The answer lies in the lack of critical thinking ability among our miseducated students, where 15 year olds scored below 10 year olds in reading skills. The products of the failing elements in our education system seem are unable to gain the top jobs and would settle into some low paying job. These sub-standard schools have existed for a long time and their products are now older adults. Isn't it true that better educated people tend to oppose Trump--seeing him for what he is, while the less educated flock to his rallies, screaming support?
3
It isn't the teachers. It isn't the money spent. It isn't the educational "system". It's a society that devalues learning, nuclear families, and personal responsibility, and glorifies athletics and rudeness.
3
America has 2 huge problems that are 'eating our lunch'.
We're spending the most per capita....in the world....on
1. Health care
2. Education
And yet our 'results' are well below average in both.
Something must be done about both these problems.....or the future of America will be grim.....economically.
It doesn't matter if it's a Republican or Democratic plan....or both!
It just has to work!
Or am I missing something here?
1
“OK Boomer” comment...
I come from a blue-collar, working class family. My earliest memories include my parents telling me that I had to have at least 2 more years of education than they had. That meant completing at least 2 years of college.
I attended a private, parochial school from 1st through 8th grades during the 1950s-1960s.
There were 2 classrooms for each grade, and my 1st-grade classroom had 61 students in it (the other 1st-grade classroom had 62 students). Those numbers dwindled some by time I was in 8th grade, where each 8th-grade classroom had 44 students.
The teachers were supposed to control their classes, using discipline as necessary. As long as that discipline wasn’t physically abusive, parents sided with the teachers. The expectation was that students were in school to learn, not goof off or cause trouble. If you got into trouble at school, you could expect to be in trouble at home.
Homework! Every day and on most weekends, this was real homework, completed at home and not during some in-school study period. When in class you were being taught; homework-at-home reinforced what you were learning-in-school. And, the teachers didn’t tolerate late or missing assignments.
The message was clear: disciplined studying and learning is a student’s “job.” That message served me well as I completed my Bachelor’s, Master’s, and doctoral degrees.
4
It's because Americans do not value education. No amount of money will fix that.
We are obsessed with personality, celebrity, easy success, and looking the part. Our heroes are the college drop-out tech geniuses and Kylie Jenner. Kids do not value hard work and those who pursue professions that require it are mostly in it for the money.
3
Consider the wisdom in allowing every child to have a television set and low-key communication device in the classroom. Kids spend most of their time watching videos with their phone hidden under the desk. Math Shmath. Who needs it when you've got Billie Eilish and skateboarding videos.
We allow it because we don't know how to take away their phones without being screamed at by kids who are wholly addicted to their mini-lords. Education is being held hostage by the fact that teachers are afraid to touch $800 electronic gadgets for fear of liability.
The problem can be solved though by integrating a system currently out there where students put their phones into a pouch, they are then snapped shut and can only be opened electronically at the end of the day. The phone stays with the child. Wouldn't want to remove the sight of their heroin substitute now would we? Might get ugly. I suggest we get serious and stop letting them use this drug at school.
And never forget the power of simple unconscious protest against the system by those who have been crushed by racism in this country. Until we start teaching about race, not just about exceptional minority success stories, but about race relations, critical race theory and the like, we will get nowhere. Teachers must be taught first then the students. See: "How To Be Less Stupid About Race" by Crystal Marie Fleming.
Finally, integrate Authentic Learning as best you can into every school. Not Project Based, but Authentic.
3
American students hardly have any homework and they are not being challenged in school. There is no real pressure to perform. These results are no surprise. Compare to hyper competitive places like China and India which have real admission tests to get into University. Heck, even Europe has those because not everyone can borrow to go to college.
@Tyler - the issue with homework is that it's so easily gamed. Cheating is rampant. It often ends up just inflating a kid's grade.
I grew up in England in the 1950s when teachers were highly respected. They chose reading materials and taught according to their own knowledge and interest. They were highly educated and sometimes eccentric, and our parents would never have dared to tell them what or how to teach. As I understand from reading the history, teaching has never been a respected profession in America, and was once left to semi-educated teenagers. The result: language teachers who don’t speak the language they’re teaching, writing teachers who still stick with some version of the absurd five-paragraph essay. And a bunch of millionaires and politicians dictating a top-down reform approach with minimum input from actual teachers, all based on an imaginatively and intellectually constricted system of idiot rules and meaningless metrics. Give teachers power, respect and professional wages, involve them profoundly in the discussion and you’ll get serious educators in the classroom and a system powered by joy, creativity and genuine intellectual curiosity.
2
First. Huge numbers of immigrant kids from poor families continues to overwhelm education (and American healthcare) statistics. Second, folks stuck in terrible, low wage jobs impedes learning by their kids and disorder in schools.
3
Education is a difficult problem, because everyone sees it through his/her own lens. Aside from funding, there are so many disagreements at so many level. Folks argue over content, such evolution and Civil War. Dress code. Disciplinary action. Co-ed or single sex. Etc.
1
“Education is the lighting of a fire, not the filling of a pail.” William Butler Yeats.
Pay teachers more, inspire young people to teach, induce inspirational teachers who have left the field to return, identify and promote leaders who are role models, and, although they did not cause the problem, replace this federal administration that is incapable of improving education in America.
2
What's not mentioned in discussions of the causes of the stagnation is the cumulative effect of the tests themselves. How many hours of frustrating time on an unfamiliar computer do you think it takes a disadvantaged kid to conclude that s/he is "dumb"? And it starts in the third grade or earlier. The yearly test here [SBAC] can take a third grader up to twelve hours spread over multiple days, offerings multiple days of experiencing confusion and failure. Plus, other tests are given quarterly, each an hour long. Testing and test prep displace instruction and we already have one of the shortest school years in the country. As we say, weighing the pig many times doesn't increase its weight.
1
When these reforms were being pushed by business leaders over twenty years ago, professional educators--you know, the people who actually do the work--told you this would happen. If anything, the results are a good as they are because educators work hard to teach despite a regressive education system. Teachers have been right. The business "reformers" with their value-added models and market-based reformers have had a whole generation to do what they said they were going to do. They have failed. Can we let the educators actually decide upon education policy now? Please? https://madsociologistblog.com/2018/05/10/its-standardized-testing-season-again/
The dumbing down of education obviously is not working, we are graduating dummies without critical thinking skills. "Some education leaders said they saw no reason to drastically change policy directions." Some education leaders need to be shown the exit door.
2
I remember shuddering when Trump, during his campaign, declared proudly, "I love the uneducated!" and his fans cheered. Never before have I heard someone running for office describe one of their planks as more ignorance. Despite Trump's Ivy League education, which he brags about without noting the irony, his own education didn't take. I was a university professor for years, and his teachers should be ashamed for graduating him (probably changing his poor grades because of pressure from the administration due to his father's money and/or threats.
3
How can they improve their basic skills performance when they spend their entire lives glued to hypnotizing electronic screens?
1
Please, show us the data. Not just the writer's and other people's interpretation of it.
"Students were asked to determine when written evidence supported a particular claim and to distinguish between fact and opinion..."
This skill is a prerequisite for reading the NY Times (and most other publications).
2
Sorry folks, it's American culture, bequeathed to our children by American commercial television. Until we deal with cultural norms our young will not progress. And our schools cannot be asked to do that too. It begins in the home and examples set by leaders outside the home--not much hope there.
1
The major problem we have in this country re education, unlike most other developed countries, is our failure to provide educational development at the earliest stages of brain development. We still don't require education until first grade, late in brain development. When will we in US educate all our children from early stage brain development onward, not just those who can afford to pay for private schooling?
2
As someone who was raised in the US and then relocated abroad, it always seemed to me the USA government does not want people to be smart enough to read between the lines. They have done a great job at stunting children. And how do we expect kids to process words and read when they are bombarded with pesticides? Come to Canada and you will find many pesticides are banned here.
I could go on an on. I was a Reading Instructor in the south for eight years and now going into teaching in Canada. Educators are respected more. Healthcare is valued more. Start with the basics, see the results improve.
3
The U.S. considers the educational systems of the world inferior and so refuses to apply their solutions. Most parents want to decide what their children learn so that they will end up thinking as do they. So all the ways of countries that produce good results simply cannot be adopted.
Teaching a generation takes a couple of decades and it must be well applied. That means having teachers who know their subjects and how to teach. That means paying teachers as highly educated and skilled professionals. It means having a curriculum that educates people to learn throughout their lives. We don’t do any of that. We even cater to parents who want children to see the world as did people give hundred years ago.
1
@Casual Observer, moreover, the average person believes s/he can "fix" education, presumably because s/he was once a student.
I have watched parent after parent express frustration as new techniques for basic arithmetic functions are introduced, but since it's "different than the way I was taught," they believe something is wrong with the curriculum. And they transfer their frustration to their children.
I think math specialists should be assigned to teach elementary school math. We tend to start in Jr. High, but many elementary teachers are not comfortable teaching math concepts.
1
@GBrown - the issue with new techniques is that it's difficult to help one's child with homework. By all means - teach the current way. Don't presume parental help, though.
2
I think it all begins at home. If education is stressed within the nuclear family, that child will perform better than in homes where that encouragement is absent. There may be socio-economic reasons for this emphasis or lack of it but I believe that is the heart of the problem.
4
I find myself reticent about accepting these studies at face value. Here in the States this information is garnered from a series of exams spaced out over numerous years. The students are told upfront that these exams will have no bearing on their grades or their ability to graduate- but please do your best. Why would they? In other countries they are gleaning the data from placement tests and exams designed to determine if a student is ready to graduate or for placement in a University.
These are two totally different attitudes for students to have for taking a series of exams- No reason to really try versus I want to graduate/get into University.
3
Based on the homework coming home with my 1st Graders, I'm not at all surprised by these results. The homework is nothing more than busy work. It's neither challenging nor engaging. I want to be supportive of the teachers and the school, but there seems to be a large disconnect in the education process. There's far too much emphasis on behavior control, "staying on task and completing work," and grades. We've forgotten the bottom line: learning.
3
We do have examples where individual schools have dramatically closed the achievement gap. But we don't have a mechanism to bring what works to scale. Instead it's what a district and state decide, and what they can fund. Under Obama we did have a federal grant program that invested in research-based programs that worked (Investing in Innovation), and that were ready to scale, but you-know-who cut that program. As one who works in the education field in Baltimore City, the problems are complex, and the solutions need to be as well. In Maryland a commission (Kirwan) has spent the last two years creating a blueprint and funding recommendations that will chart the course of education for the next decade. But our governor is fighting the recommendations tooth and nail. As a nation, we don't value education. The 50 teachers I work with every year are overwhelmed and exhausted from the demands. Is it any wonder that this patchwork of educational interventions throughout our nation isn't working when we don't want to implement or fund what DOES work? And when the complexities of concentrated poverty and their effects on education also go unaddressed?
4
K-12 certainly has failed to educate students so they can think for themselves, know what I learned in civics and U.S.history, understand how to manage finances, know what a "fact" is.
What good is it to require students to learn the types of math they'll never need as adults when they can't estimate, understand statistics, create a spreadsheet and analyze data, go to the grocery store and figure out which choice is the least expensive?
Even if those scores were higher, do they test what is most necessary for individual success and societal health?
1
Having started school in the 1960s, I am very familiar with well-intended but ill-implemented fads taking over education. The New Math (based on set theory) left me with significant gaps in my basic arithmetic skills. In middle school I found a book by Isaac Asimov that elucidated the way numbers worked and taught me ways around the deficiencies. Roberts English (based on linguistic theory) left me with a muddled understanding of basic grammatical concepts and terminology, which was only remedied when I took French in high school.
In college, I studied enough real set theory and linguistics to understand what they were trying to do in elementary school. But I still don't understand how anyone could have believed they were an appropriate basis for teaching important basic concepts in elementary school. I feel most fortunate that my mother taught me to read before I started school.
Reading about "Common Core" and "accountability" (i.e., standardized testing), and seeing textbooks with little numbers next to each paragraph corresponding to items on a checklist of state standards, gives me deja vu. But today's students aren't just victims of the latest fad. They're also victims of "management by objective," borrowed from Corporate America. In my experience, management by objective is dangerous. The exclusive focus on a narrow set of objectives and metrics means too many other things are ignored or even damaged. That likely contributes to poor "achievement."
4
It doesn’t sound like a complex problem to me. When in school if I had studied more, worked harder, I would have gotten better grades. The same applies to students today - they need to do the work. No one can do it for them.
3
While we must obviously do much to improve our educational system, let's also pay attention to how students in some high-ranking countries are traumatized by rigid systems and pressure-cooker expectations to do well, and let's avoid doing that.
6
Here's your answer: "decades of bipartisan education overhaul efforts, costing many billions of dollars, that have resulted in a string of national programs"
To borrow a phrase, all education is local. We keep trying to solve this nationally. If we let teachers do what they know is best for their students - even if that's different in LA than in Topeka - the students will thrive.
If everything is "standardized" we all sink or swim (most likely sink) together. If everything is localized, we will find the examples of what works, and then we can adapt (not just import) those lessons for others.
1
@JoeK I disagree. The high school diploma issued in Virginia should represent the same body of knowledge and proficiency in skills among graduates as a high school diploma in Idaho. Algebra is algebra in South Carolina and Montana, and on and on.
I agree that individual teachers are in the best place to determine how to teach individual students, but "all education is local" cannot continue to be the mantra if our kids and grandkids are going to compete and win in the 21st-century global economy.
11
It is just the opposite in our competing nations where students gain greater proficiency. Local control of education is a throwback to the days of the family farm and earliest industrial revolution.
1
@Kevin Brock I should have been clearer. My point is not about “what” should be taught (yes of course algebra is algebra), but how to teach it. With our current system of standardized curriculum taught to standardized tests using standardized methods in standardized grade levels, we have taken the art out of teaching, robbed our system of the ability to innovate, and produced these expensive lousy outcomes.
Nothing will change for the better until you put competent people in charge of local education. That begins with the Board of Education, members who are put there through political affiliation. The board is made up of people with little or no experience in education, and these are the same people responsible for hiring a superintendent for the school system and assigning principals to schools. Need I go any further? Replacing such a board is the first step in fixing our public schools.
2
@charles macelis
I sometimes feel as if the most energy in education is put into finding ways to disempower and disenfranchise those of us who actually know how to teach.
At many schools, being a teacher automatically marks you as an enemy of the administration and, therefore, practically ineligible for promotion or positions of authority. Those positions go to random corporatists whose only qualification is having made a lot of money. For some reason, that makes you qualified to do any and every professional job, skills and education be damned.
I, myself, probably need more experience to qualify for some of those positions, but I watch brilliant, ethical, creative mentors wriggle under the thumb of inferior "superiors" every single day. And you know what? There's nothing any of us can do about it.
1
As a former teacher working in a very low socio-economic area, I had the shock of my life at a faculty meeting one day. The teachers were asked to read passages out loud. A young teacher from Chicago and I read first, then the local teachers started reading. I had known for years that they struggled with teaching math, but I honestly believed that they could read. I would have estimated the reading level at fourth grade. My heart broke--not only for them, but for all the students they were teaching. I had never experienced anything like this, but it left me wondering how often this happens. It also proves that America has areas where the poor just don't count!
14
@JC I have never encountered this problem myself, but I did hear of a story at my last school district. Apparently a teacher outside the English department suggested only English teachers proctor tests because it required reading out loud, and they declared that that particular task was too difficult for them.
1
@JC - wow. My state continues to lower the threshold for Praxis (competency test), so I can imagine we'll face the same issue here at some point.
Standardized testing is good at making broad comparisons between groups or between individuals and groups. It can't answer the "why?" behind those differences, though. Testing is overused, yes, but it's also used to answer questions it just can't answer.
I say this as a test prep pro and someone who likely couldn't have gotten into a competitive college without test results to FORCE schools to disregard my very humble rural background (my grades and the grades of my peers weren't respected by top-tier schools, but the SAT? That they understood). In other words, testing has served me well, personally and professionally.
As a summative experience and as a portfolio piece for those who may be disregarded otherwise, I think testing at the end of high school can be a good thing, but it should mostly be used to measure whether learning is being transferred over time within a system, rather than as a constant, off-topic add-on to teachers' more specific, student- and subject-informed assessments.
4
While the increase in funding seems to be the case, how does all this square with the reality that for years now, several Republican governed(Red)states have been continually cutting funding to public education where even the most minimal of supplies needed for classrooms go wanting and teachers in these states are among the poorest paid in the country who are either leaving those states for others with better funded systems or are departing the profession altogether?
I would submit don't look to Betsy DeVoss for solutions any time soon since, if she had her way, all public dollars would be re-directed towards her rich friends who own private school conglomerates.
4
Most countries have a multiple tier system. If you do not pass the appropriate exams, you will be put into a lower tier. The United States, on the other hand, is much more egalitarian in that sense. While many high school students take advanced placement courses, they are still combined with students that come in at various skill levels. As a teacher, I don't think that this is necessarily bad, but I just want to point out that we are comparing two very different education systems and it's no wonder that it looks like we are falling behind other countries.
8
I was an illustrator of school text books soon after phonics was replaced by the "whole language" theory. While illustrating the programs I could see that children, especially underprivileged children, who may not have had an environment at home to help them, were going to have a lot of problems learning to read. I remember children in the 1950s learning to read in one or two days when schools were using phonics. I also saw the birth of a new problem when the theorists replaced the old, straight forward, math with "the new math." While illustrating these text books I couldn't understand why they were complicating something that was so simple and straight forward.
13
It is well known than in many countries, students take an entrance exam into middle education, after elementary school (grades 1-6). Those who do not pass are relegated to vocational-type schools. The question: are vocational schools excluded from the PISA test? If yes, the PISA test is not given fairly. The discussion needs to address this point.
10
Maybe it's time to rethink the system from the ground up rather than trying to constantly tweak something so obviously broken.
Perhaps grouping students by skill, achievement and ability makes more sense than age/grade. Unless we're ready to invest in more teachers to get the teacher to student ratio as low as possible (which we should do regardless), it only makes sense to group students based on thier abilities in each subject rather than grouping them by some arbitrary number, like age. This might not be the answer, but it's how we have to look at the problem instead of constantly trying to address the symptoms.
Also, as others have stated, we simply pass kids along, regardless of their actual achievement. Why have a level/grade-based system, something that inherently promotes effort and achievement, if you don't have to actually put forth any effort to progress?
We've become so overly concerned about children's socialization and not hurting their feelings that we forget that schools are there, first and foremost, to teach academic subjects.
It's obviously a much deeper and more complex subject than a simple comment can ever hope to address, but the problems with our system are with the system. Throwing money at a burning house just burns more money. Build a new house. Build a better house.
Do away with this archaic system of instruction altogether. We can do better.
5
@Mike We used to group by ability. It is easier to teach a group of children who are at the same level than a group of children at many different levels. Somewhere along the line it became politically incorrect to group by ability. Now we have kids who can't keep up because it is going too fast for them and groups of kids who are completely bored because they already know the material. I would love to see tracking come back. That would help kids at every ability level.
2
I am an immigrant and i have found that culturally, education is considered "elitist" here. Also, the quality of public educators is very iffy - we have had excellent teachers for our kids and we have had teachers who hide behind the Union's protection. There must be a incentive program (such as bonus) and a peer/supervisor review for teachers to make them accountable. You cannot have great education without motivated teachers and a mindset that encourages challenges.
10
It’s wild to me that every article about education comes down to the same played out talking points.
As a former teacher, we know what works. We scream it from the rooftops.
Fund schools properly.
Fund students properly.
Fund teachers properly.
If your school building isn’t crumbling to the ground, if your students are well-fed and have the resources they need to learn, and if you have hired enough teachers to have decent class-sizes, you’re going to have better test scores.
I taught in New York City at a school that was built around the turn of the century. I had 32 students, 14 of whom had special education requirements and four English Language Learners. I regularly brought in power tools to fix things in my own classroom and I spent close to a grand every year on educational materials and supplies for students. The money just wasn’t there. I did what I could with what I was given but I know that if my school had proper funding I could have reached those students so much more efficiently.
If you want to improve the education system in the United States you need to alleviate the poverty that comes hand in hand with it. Full stop.
19
For the last five to eight years, Great Awokening educators and librarians have been hung up on representation of traditionally underserved groups in children's fiction and nonfiction, without realizing that the underserved children still don't know how to read, and in fact are reading more poorly than when the campaign began. Correlation is not causation, but paying attention to the wrong thing is still paying attention to the wrong thing.
10
We should remember the educating our children is not solely the job of our schools. So long as parents continue struggling to obtain even just mediocre childcare, must work multiple low wage jobs over long hours to take care of their families, and even have to sit through hours of traffic to get to and from their jobs, the education of our kids will suffer.
Teaching requires time and attention. Everything we do that keeps parents, family and the community with their kids will help those kids.
11
The underlying problem is that we do not have a consensus on the purpose and priorities of formal education. Is it to enhance the mental lives of our children, to train job seekers, to inform and prepare citizens for the important responsibility they bear in a democracy, to instill moral values, or what?
As well, children respond to what they see adults respect, and as long as entertainers, whether online, in the movies, or in the White House garner more positive (or negative, often) attention than do teachers, the kids will be looking at their cell phones in class and just counting the minutes till the end-of-the-day school bell rings.
9
@Steve Fankuchen:
IMO, it is mostly “or what”.
The main purpose of K12 education should to be to impart basic knowledge and basic intellectual skills that the students need to successfully function in modern society. That means teaching them how to read, how to analyze and summarize a complicated text, teaching them basic math and how to learn math, teaching them why the sky is blue, why the seasons change, where Manila and Zimbabwe are on the map, why warm air rises to the top of a room, why a lemon tastes sour, why the US has 50 states, why there are 9 justices on the Supreme Court, and what the Civil War was fought over. Things like worrying about the students’ psychological comfort, teaching them how to change a tire, to bake a cake or to program in java should be much, much lower priorities. The employers will train their employees and teach them the relevant specific job skills. What the employers need are job applicants with sufficient basic knowledge and basic intellectual skills to make them able to learn those specific job skills. As for teaching the students “moral values”, let’s not even go there. That’s the parents’ job and their prerogative. Teaching (and enforcing) reasonable rules of conduct is the most we can expect the schools to do in this regard.
2
@Berto Collins
Thanks Berto for engaging. By and large I am in agreement with you as to the purpose of schools. However, to accomplish that we must find a way to produce a broad and deep discussion that will lead our communities and society in general to agree. That's the tricky part.
2
I just finished teaching for 25 years. I too saw the deterioration
of respect and honor afforded teachers.
After all teachers are not held in high esteem or respected
in America.
After all it’s the amount of wealth and where you live
now used to measure a persons worth.
Haven’t you seen wealthy parents try to buy their child’s
way into college? Get real do you think an administrator would
be on the take?
4
I teach at the college level. Many students simply do not want to learn. They don't do the assigned reading, don't complete assignments, don't take notes, don't participate in class - the list goes on. Many spend the entire class period on their phones. Many have depression and/or anxiety, many are addicted to drugs, and many left high school without learning how to read, write, or think. When you try to help them, they often respond with indifference or anger. We need to address the psychological and social factors at play. Our children are drowning. To make matters worse, colleges continue to lower standards in order to attract students, yet students continue to fail to meet them. We are on a downward spiral.
27
They don't teach classic literature, mythology, or poetry, in high schools anymore. This is a lack of an emotional education. It must be hard for them to be curious and interested about what they're being taught if they don't expect it to be meaningful.
4
Why are they in college if they don’t want to learn? Why not learn a trade or more to the point fund community trade schools so people who don’t want to learn in college can learn how to do something they like and earn a living. We need tradesmen and women more than over represented college people who don’t know anything and graduate in debt. Other countries can manage it why not the U.S?
3
@John Doe This indolence is rooted in indifference and a sense of entitlement. No wonder that the children of immigrants outperform native-born Americans, who have no appreciation for their good fortune.
3
In the US we have an unfortunate confluence of some traditional counterproductive cultural attitudes towards education with political educational fads that make the situation worse. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon culture emphasized practical skills over scholastic studies. Learning for the sake of intellectual curiosity and of advancing knowledge has been frowned upon and viewed with suspicion. Modern educational and social fashions focus on the students’ feelings, their self-esteem, and eliminating any whiff of unfairness and bias. Student success is defined as moving from grade to grade and ultimately getting a degree. This has led to relentless grade inflation, social promotion (advancing academically failing students to the next grade), dumbing down of the curriculum and of the tests. High academic achievers are viewed with suspicion and distrust, as “elitist” and anti-egalitarian. Asian students, even from poor families, still do much better than average in the US system because their families push them to succeed academically. But everybody else has been sliding lower and lower.
5
As yes, those Anglo-Saxons founders of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale the backwaters of higher education.
These universities - used historically to educate ministers - did advance other arts. Are you familiar with Paradise Lost? Or the theory of evolution?
As a group they may have been more focused on practical knowledge, as this is what most people use to survive but they also taught reading and writing to common people to ensure they could read the Bible or draft a Mayflower Compact.
2
We need to start making schools face the cold, hard fact that if they have a 10th grader who performs at a second grade level, then they need to be taught separately, with both level- and age-appropriate material. Maybe we can't bring them up to speed by the time they end 12th grade (note that I don't say graduate), but getting them up to a 5th grade level is surely more productive than having them fill a chair in a class which is boring and humiliating for them, and disruptive to the rest of the class.
Teachers, and principals of teachers found to be practicing grade inflation to pump up graduation rates should be immediately fired without pension.
10
We may be spending “billions” on the problem, but here in Alaska it seems like politicians see Education as a budget that exists to be cut every year. Fire a few more teachers, bigger class sizes, fewer special programs... Education should be viewed as sacred, but somehow people think it’s wasteful.
3
Baloney.
These average scores do not measure what they purport to measure.
The majority of the decline reflects changing demographics. Specifically, the influx of millions of low-educated immigrants is driving down the average.
I don’t mean this with any bias or animosity. But simply put, PISA achievement varies substantially by race. This is well-documented by government statistics at www.nces.gov.
This doesn’t mean that immigrants lack potential or can’t catch up at some point. It simply means that they are at the moment lowering the average.
Good people can disagree on how to deal with this issue. But let’s all correctly understand the issue.
(By the way, the same is true of measures of income inequality. The addition of millions of low-wage immigrants to a rich country increases inequality. It’s just math.)
9
@John This is completely untrue. Pls see https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/upshot/immigration-america-rise-poor.html and the original source: https://economics.princeton.edu/2019/10/25/immigrant-mobility-abramitzky-boustan/.
"research linking millions of fathers and sons dating to the 1880s shows that children of poor immigrants in America have had greater success climbing the economic ladder than children of similarly poor fathers born in the United States. That pattern has been remarkably stable for more than a century, even as immigration laws have shifted and as the countries most likely to send immigrants to the United States have changed."
3
@ThinkingCdn
“…greater success climbing the economic ladder than children of similarly poor fathers born in the United States.”
Sure, but that misses the point. Or more exactly, it proves what I’m saying.
The article compares immigrant children with “similarly poor fathers”. But the vast majority of test takers do not come from families that are as desperately poor as most immigrants. The majority of test takers come from families that significantly more wealthy than most immigrants.
The data show this. White students, who probably have a low percentage of immigrants, score significantly higher than Hispanic students, who have a very high percentage of immigrants. But black students in the U.S., who generally come from lower income families, have scores similar to immigrants.
The point is that if low-income, low-education immigrants comprise a larger percentage of test takers, two things will result. The mean will decrease and the variation from top to bottom will increase. Again, this is just math.
"The performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000"
If the scores are stagnant it is only because the tests have been become increasingly less rigorous since the 1980's. The reality (obvious to almost any educator who doesn't simultaneously think the world is 5,000 years old) is that 50% or more are functionally illiterate. Some can actually read some of the words, occasionally understand a non-compound sentence, but have no clue about what they've read.
It way past time that the US has to start translating all books into text-speak if we want 2000 years of world literature to survive. The idea that this country is going to now pony up the funds required to reverse 40 years of the dismantling of our curriculum is a pipe dream, and when these kids grow up and are asked to fund education, the answer will be, "Huh? Whatever".
4
The biggest problem is that all that money is being spent on the wrong things. It should be spent on more teachers for smaller class size, with bonuses for excellence. And get rid of 95% of the standardized tests.
Classroom content should include things that children are interested in and are engaged in doing. Not just some formulaic writing or math that has nothing to do with their daily lives.
2
Practice, practice, practice!
I was a college teacher of engineering.
One day, I mentioned the importance of curiosity.
I mentioned the saying of a former student:
"Curiosity if the route to knowledge"
Then, one of my current students said:
"Practice does not make perfect.
Only perfect practice makes perfect"
The student insisted that he had made this up. He was a golfer.
I discovered that this saying was from Vince Lombardi (football).
I suggest that a key reason US students are not succeeding is a lack of the effective practicing. In sports, practicing is a must.
But in study, students and teachers, under pressure may avoid it.
Now, with computers, it is easy to offer practicing materials.
But students and teachers have to be willing to make the effort.
www.SavingSchools.org
Long past time to place students in academic tracks early based on achievement. The remedial kids shouldn’t be in classes with the average kids. The average kids shouldn’t be in classes with the talented kids.
7
The problem is us. It's our society. It's the students.
Until we admit that and face the truth, money will accomplish nothing. We can't fix the schools until we fix ourselves.
4
I unplugged from TV in 1978 and my daughter, born in 1983, still thanks me for raising her without it. She experienced no sense of being deprived since the moment she left the house TV was all around. She's now an educated, savvy adult who had a childhood devoid of most screen manipulation to buy things, and she still prefers to read for her entertainment.
I've traveled a lot and for years have hosted international travelers, and most are SHOCKED when they learn how we finance our schools --- the poorest communities have the least money for education and the wealthiest get the most due to the property tax for school financing. "You people have it all backward!", my visitors exclaim. "The poorest people need better educational funding than the rich", they say.
Yep.
7
Other nations ask children to read stories, books, and novels and then write about them. We ask our children to read passages and fill in bubbles. Even my daughter in 11th grade AP English isn’t reading novels. This week, she is searching for “rhetorical devices” in a passage.
Other nations teach penmanship and grammar. We don’t even bother.
Other nations expect students to understand principles of mathematics. We push math fads and ask students to memorize methods for bubble tests.
Other nations accept that ability differs between students, and adjust the pace of instruction. We pretend that everyone can learn in lockstep and place blame on (insert group) when reality hits.
Other nations have a national curriculum and fund all schools equally. We duplicate effort across thousands of school boards and deprive the poor of resources, extolling the wonder of local control on both counts.
Other nations have a safety net. We let people walk a tightrope and blame them when a gust of wind knocks them off.
Other nations educate. Knowledge is the goal. We prep for bubble tests. The threshold score is the goal.
We don’t even understand that bubble tests are easier for educated students.
Other nations take care of their populations. Here, you’re on your own in the shark tank.
And we wring our hands and wonder what’s wrong. It must be the (insert group to blame)!
12
The winning recipe is the parochial school template: hire and support skillful teachers, keep class size manageable, promote parental involvement, and maintain discipline.
4
The underlying problem is that we do not have a consensus on the purpose and priorities of formal education. Is it to enhance the mental lives of our children, to train job seekers, to inform and prepare citizens for the important responsibilities they bear in a democracy, to instill moral values, to provide a sense of commonality, or what?
Children respond to how they see adults act, and as long as entertainers, whether online, in the movies, or in the White House garner more positive or negative attention and/or respect than do teachers, the kids will be looking at their cell phones in class and just counting the minutes till the end-of-the-day school bell rings.
Any perspective on how much bettered worse that US charter school students did compared to non-charter school students? Given the poor US performance, and the lack of improvement from previous measurements despite expenditures, it would be somewhat useful to know how that internal distinction to educational methodology panned out.
@Barry
30 years as teacher taught me that parents and family are the keys to successful students and schools. Parents with means choose private or parochial schools, or they move to an area with high performing schools. Charter schools often succeed because they attract children of involved parents probably cannot afford these options.
Nobody wants to hear it, but it’s our society. Failure to value education and poor student behavior start at home and create an insurmountable cultural obstacle. I agree that we need to value, prepare, and compensate teachers better, but that alone will not overcome the sea of students who have learned that school is to be endured instead of seeing it as the key to their future. And while YOU may have raised your kid to value education, how well do they behave when the common denominator is low? Bueller? Bueller? Examples are always more powerful teachers than words. We have exceptional students, but they shouldn’t be the exception.
4
For complicated broad topics such as education, I tend to cut the articles some slack as readers comments elaborate the issues well, as they do here, even as I agree and disagree. Continued thanks to the NYT for supporting readers’ contributions.
2
When I was a child (I'm 74 years old) when we had a homework assignment to "use the correct word" in a sentence, we had to copy the whole sentence the teacher wrote on the board into our homework notebooks; then rewrite the entire sentence with the correct word on our homework page. When my oldest son was in school in the early '70s he got a ditto sheet where he just had to fill in the correct word. This was the beginning of the dumbing down of American education. Compounding the problem is the vast funding difference between schools in poor communities and those in wealthy communities—not to speak of the financial struggles of the families themselves. It's not rocket science—education must become a priority! Schools—not jails, bombs and war—should be our priority everywhere!
2
My experience suggests a major problem our children aren't learning is the education of teachers and our distrust of brains.
While a student at UC Berkeley, I realized few of us majored in education; the ed majors were mostly at the state college system. In California, there has been a two tier system with the universities more competitive than the colleges. Could there be a selection factor here?
My daughter said her private high school teachers were on par, if not better, than her professors at UCB. I think it significant all of her teachers had degrees in the subjects they taught, not in education.
It seems our culture increasingly scorns learning. We've always made fun of absent minded professors. Now commentators in public media warn us before starting any thoughtful comments that they're getting into the weeds, that they're going to be nerdy or wonky. These are dismissive words that reflect and deepen our dislike of education. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?
Every few election cycles there's a proposition to raise money for public schools. I think what's the use? I would push for better education for teachers, requiring at least a sub major in the subjects they are qualified to teach. And can we stop putting down thinking in depth with words like getting in the weeds. They're not weeds; they are the gold.
1
According to the BBC World Service as presented by Dan Damon on their morning radio broadcast, Estonia does well timing teaching to follow student's development of their capacity to handle academics successfully rather than subjecting many students to a self-defeating negative experience - reportedly waiting until the magic age of 7, assumably stimulating pupil's global neurodevelopment and socialization before 7.
A teacher I know, who teaches 5th grade, is sometimes overwhelmed with disciplinary issues, especially with children who have mental health issues. Mainstreaming such children is detracting from the education of the other students. Discipline is so limited and gentle by school policy that it is often ineffective.
7
I am not a public school teacher, but to me the problem is obvious. We have taken power away from the teachers to teach to their students, grade their students and discipline their students. They get told by people who have never been in a classroom on how to do their jobs. Why would any quality person go into the teaching field today? Give control back to teachers with supervision and guidance from the principal. Quit blaming teachers for the failure of parents to raise their children properly. We need more shame in our society.
3
@Robert kennedy Not shame but respect.
The main cause of America's education mediocrity isn't the government programs that get rolled out periodically, or new high-tech gadgets, and it certainly isn't the children themselves, their parents, or their teachers. It's poverty.
This should not be surprising in a culture that places far more value in money and fame, especially if attained through dubious achievements like the Kardashians, pays far more to athletes and movie stars than professors and other intellectual disciplines, and increasingly denies rationality and facts in favor of alternate realities (including all types of escapism), with the help of certain political groups who have a vested linterest in keeping its citizenry uneducated.
Our society reaps what it sows.
1
Poverty produces poor educational outcomes. Alleviate poverty and test scores will rise. It's no accident that the worst states for educational performance are those with the greatest populations of children in poverty.
Those are old time Americans for the most part. But set your way back machine to the Lower East Side and Brooklyn of 100 years ago, where poor, immigrant students - many from non English-speaking homes, the kids of piecegoods workers and peddlers - were routinely at the top of academic performance, and then went on to good undergrad education for free at CCNY (although most were systematically excluded from the halls of Ivy). I see much the same dynamic playing out today (although on a much more affluent level) among newly-arrived Korean families, among others. There’s a lot to be said for family expectations and the discipline to learn... and perhaps even more to be said for being able to see a positive endgame, rather than a defeatist so what? High performing immigrant students don’t seem as worried about being socially ostracized for academic efforts since they’re already on the outs socially and they have nowhere to go but up. At the same time, if being tall and a football team star is the acme of social success for American kids, why waste effort on book grinding - most especially if your horizon in life does not extend beyond next Friday or homecoming. It seems many American kids can’t even imagine a life stretching before them, and preparing for it, and so they’re doomed before they begin.
3
Would be interesting to merge these findings with those reported today by Paul Krugman regarding life expectancy, health and well-being in red vs blue states
1
"Students were asked to determine when written evidence supported a particular claim and to distinguish between fact and opinion, among other tasks."
Fail this test and Make America Great Again!
2
More money to teachers. Less money to Pearson. Much much less money to Pearson.
4
PARENTS PARENTS PARENTS! The culture in our country has changed from "expectations on the student" to "expectations on the educator."
We blame the curriculum, the teachers, the school, the money, the salaries, the texts, the class size. Blame, Blame Blame. We're never getting out of this mess until we take a big mirror to the parents. As an educator myself with four teens in my own home, I can assure you that the parenting the goes on BEFORE AND AFTER a child enters a school is the factor nobody is comfortable talking about. Blame is the game of parents who don't take any accountability. It's OUR fault.
7
The schools are doing as well as they can to help students with limited resources and teacher salaries that are a shame and a discouragement to able young people. Society has to do a lot of work to do improving vast structural racial and economic inequalities, a very frayed safety net, a healthcare system that fails more people every year, and helping people with drug addiction and mental illness. Schools cannot be the total lift we give to kids if we are squeezing their parents in every which way.
Help your kids read: all of us reading the Times on a phone, tablet, or laptop, put it down and go buy the the physical paper.
There is no mistaking that Mommy or Daddy with a newspaper (or book, magazine, etc) in front of her/him/them is focused on reading. The same cannot be said of a handheld, laptop or obscured computer screen.
In the past, plenty of kids felt ignored by their preoccupied parents with heads behind the opened newspaper. But at least they knew that their parents were reading, not playing solitaire or watching a ball game or movie or looking at pictures of kittens or checking Facebook or whatever else one may do via a computer devise.
4
Education is a state responsibility and most states are doing a terrible job. The difference between being in a "good district" and a "bad district" are huge due to taxes being collected at the district level. Most states do nothing to improve these "bad districts" for fear of losing votes from the wealthy in "good districts". On top of that, funding for state colleges and universities is being decreased due to the backlash against "elites" aka learning.
I often hear parents brag about how well their kids are doing is sports, but never about academics; priorities?
We as a nation have subjected children to the greatest scientific experiment ever: exposing young brains to screens. We have given no thought to the cognitive, neurological, nor psycho-social ramifications.
Children from birth need dialogue with caring adults: that reciprocity creates the neural lingual pathways necessary for language. They need singing, babbling, rhyming, wordplay and the relation must be dialogic. And they need books as tactile objects which they can control and they parents to hold them while they hold the books, to read to the child, to be read to by the child.
And if a child does not come from a linguistically rich home, the school has to address the deficit. Singing and reading and writing are social activities; learning is social. The hand, the mouth, the eye, the brain: all must be stimulated into motion to create connection whether neural or physical.
More teachers, more books, more music, more art: the answer is so simple. Ditch the screens.
4
Does this surprise anybody? There is a strong movement against education in this country. "Elites" are seen as evil for having college degrees. We are living in the Upside Down for sure.
2
What does work? What does it cost? Parental involvement, Class size 15 or less.
1
It’s one of those cases where everyone knows the answer but no one dares say it. Political correctness rules.
3
No rational thought here, no opinions supported by facts and arguments, just political wars between left and right.
(I lean towards the left. When you're comparing people with equal incomes, then I'll look for other problems with the US education system. But mostly I look at the evidence.)
I'll do a Google search for Valerie Strauss and Diane Ravitch to find out the significance of the new PISA results.
Fred Hechinger, where are you now when we need you?
Too many bored students? Not enough exciting teachers?
1
When one of our political parties makes denouncing and ridiculing the very concept of education one of their fundamental policies, is it any wonder that the overall educational system of the country is struggling? When that party attacks any teacher who tries to bring actual facts into the classroom rather than teach that party's fantasy world; when they almost daily assault teachers as overpaid moochers; when they demand that the Bible be used as a science textbook; when they insist that actual recorded history is nothing but "alternate facts"; what can anyone expect?
4
Our failures are multiple. A failure of the culture and the family to value hard work and time invested in education and the overvaluation of money and speed to accomplish improvement has resulted in a generation of American young people who are deluded into thinking they have been cheated. Like every other part of our society, we have spent twice the amount of money to accomplish much less than the rest of the world does. We are on a steep road down to intellectual oblivion.
US in general has a low work ethic trend. Both parents work. No one is there to police after school hours, to take away the iphone and play toys, and make sure quality homework is completed. Kids can't even spell because the iphone does it for them. Their diets are terrible; they don't get proper sleep; and usually live with a single Mom. If life isn't exciting and fun, they are not interested.
Why are we blaming the educational system? It's the parenting. Let them all fail.
3
If they ever decide to allow educational reforms by educators, rather than by politicians with little or no knowledge of education like Republican Amway distributor Devos who supports defrauding students at private colleges or Republican George Bush, maybe things would improve. Republicans have proven over and over again that they do not support public education. Until they get out of the way and stop their attempts to destroy public education, it will only get worse.
1
Just as youth is wasted on the young, high school educations are wasted on kids who don't understand what the alternative will be. Set 14 year-olds to a couple of years of low skill labor, then offer them further education.
7
Simple fact of life is this: IQ varies from person to person and that usually determines how well one understands the subjects. That is my experience when I taught at the University level and as a TA for many years in grad school. As my Math professor used to say that one needs to have ideas before one can communicate and language is just a means to communicate.
My observation having seen my kids and my friends' kids is that people with higher IQ tend to marry people with higher IQ regardless of race or religion. And, that usually begets children of higher IQ.
4
As a parent of 5 kids who has been going through this for the last 20 years (with 4.5 more years to go) it's frustrating.
The basic issue is that they don't teach Math any more. I'd call it "reading with numbers". They don't spend the time to get the basic concepts practiced and memorized before they start applying them in story problems. By the time the kids start getting into higher level math (trig, pre-calculus, geometry) they are struggling because they can't do the basic concepts without pulling up a calculator. They struggle to grasp equations because they can't easily pull from memory how multiplication and division works so it just becomes a never ending cycle of frustration.
It's just like sports -- all the fancy plays in the world will not help you if you don't have a good grasp and discipline on the fundamentals. For math, we need to go back to that fundamental approach.
3
Interestingly my sons' school follows a curriculum based on common core in math and my second grade has spent an insane amount of time on fundamentals. The use cubes, legos, I don't know but lots of different manipulatives and they spent a ton of time on the fundamentals like how many combos make the same number, etc. My son is a very strong math student and he's super bored with so much repetitive fundamentals. The school is amazing though and he's in math enrichment too.
2
All we need are three things: 1. smaller class rooms (especially K-5), 2. a big reboot of special education - it is too expensive for our public schools and spends too much time diagnosing problems and meeting with parents and not enough time working with the students on the margin (the students above the bottom 25% but below the top 50% get almost no resources even though they are a large population and have the best chance at significant learning improvement) ... they would greatly benefit from relatively easy interventions and smaller differentiated classes, and, finally, 3. common core math has got to be dialed way back and the common core centric math text books thrown away. Students need a basic math foundation and a high level of proficiency with basic math skills that common core assumes students master through "critical thinking" team exercises ... those exercises do benefit at grade level and advanced students but leave the other 50% of students behind.
2
To what extent do our cultural values support education? We honor the rich and famous, not our artists and intellectuals. At the level of our shared culture, we tend to cast education only as a means to acquire wealth.
If the only goal of education is to get a better job, is it any wonder that children who rightly recognize their limited futures fail to see the relevance of academics?
If learning is not valued as an end in itself, we're asking our teachers to achieve goals the rest of society does not generally support.
3
If I wanted to lobotomize a nation, I'd give every child an I-phone with access to infinite distractions, stop teaching cursive writing, ridicule book learning, make varsity sports the center of school attention, make college economically inaccessible to half the population, pay university coaches more than university professors, and permit superstitions to run their own brainwashing "schools." Democracy is only as strong as its public education system. Trump's presidency is an indictment of our public education system, and a harbinger of our decline.
10
@ William Burgess Leavenworth You beat me to the thought. It’s the degree of social distraction that strongly influences whether education is valued and to what extent it is independently pursued during and beyond childhood. I’m a Child Psychiatrists and have observed this very phenomenon innumerable times, hating the fact that we’ve come to rely on expensive (and incompletely accessible thanks to insurance company profit motives shaping access and reliability) therapies and medications to intervene on the seemingly unending stream of economic/societal distractions drawing attention spans away from education, emotional, and personal development. To see kids and adults take pride in relying on their “guts” more than easily assessable education sources, makes the US often feel like a dystopia. It’s a shame that we collectively focus on faultfinding (e.g. teachers, schools, parents) instead of going a step further and analyzing this as our zeitgeist. Even the poor among us have the privilege as children/teenagers of being a protected class who can literally live for leisure. With two working parents being necessary in contemporary society, parents are often too distracted by work/life to adequately monitor education and intellectual development directly and too financially insecure to pay for all of the resources required to replace their direct guidance (if they have that at all to give, as poverty is often trans-generational).
I'm a recently retired, 7th grade teacher of English at a Title I school. Since Day One, I've used novels to drive my curriculum, books we read together, in class. They change the 'standards'. and I change a couple questions, but the novels remain and drove my curriculum. As the only 7th grade English teacher in a K-8, this gave the entire grade a common vocabulary, a shared vicarious experience, and it made reading fun for kids who didn't read. I also required 20 minutes of independent reading, every day. 20 minutes equals 1 million words a year. In my class, I had a library of dvd's, and students would earn a 'movie pass' if they read a book - almost any book - and completed an easy report. A 'movie pass' entitled them to borrow any movie from my library. The kids in my class who bought in to my constant '20 minutes a day' harangue, made remarkable improvements on the statewide SBAC test. Now, I taught writing essays and text-based answers as well, but it was all based on the novels we read in class. There's nothing better than giving a kid a shot at what I've got; a kid with low self-esteem, with unemployed or drug addled or missing parents, a kid attending a 'ghetto' school reading their first books, writing their first essays, doing well on their mandated state test, and getting the feeling that, 'Hey, I can do this...' Administrators, curriculum coaches, standards all come and go, but my approach remained a constant - read a book, in class and at home.
6
In the late '60s, after graduating from a Northeastern college of high repute I enrolled in the University of Heidelberg, where I was surrounded by graduates of European high schools. At that time, a university-bound European high school graduate had gone to one more year of high school than their American peers, was fairly fluent in at least 3 languages, could read latin and perhaps classical Greek, had taken math through calculus or at least analytic geometry, and knew more about world history and western literature than the average American high school graduate. What they didn't have was a strong background in varsity athletics or spectatorship. Until we treat our public schools as though Democracy's survival depends on education, we will sink into ignorance, superstition, and eventually, the third world.
12
You said it.
Meanwhile, in another universe several hours south of you (Cambridge,MA and it’s Route 128 high tech suburbs), I had years of experience working with tech academics, engineers, scientists, and medical doctors, many (if not most) of whom studied with professors who were Heidelberg graduates. Most could not write a straight English sentence, let alone a cogent paragraph, and almost always capitalized all Nouns, as is done in German. They may have had a leg up educationally and been whizzes as quadratic equations and imaginary numbers, but when it came to writing - zilch.
1
We're living in pressure-cooker times. The stress of working to provide even a basic standard of living is taking a toll on children. They feel the stress and anxiety. There's no time for families to just "be." A family gets home at 5 or 6 p.m. if they're lucky enough to have a parent that doesn't work multiple jobs. How is it possible to eat, do homework, and get kids to bed at a reasonable hour? Forget play, talking, and simply relaxing.
The government needs to do more to support all parents through stronger safety nets/healthcare, paid family leave, and regulation of the always-on, productivity-first corporate culture that takes more than it gives.
Teachers are doing all they can and more. The underlying problems reflect deeper societal shortcomings that are uniquely American.
7
@Danielle - those times started for me long ago. I remember crying, crying, as silently as I could, worried that we would lose our house - coming home to my Father ranting about the loss of his job day after day after day. Mother would come home from her job & pour herself a glass of wine. Or two. .... is it no wonder I did poorly in High School?
Perhaps the "content doesn't matter; it's all about 'engagement' and skills" movement got it wrong, and what we need is a return to the idea that one cannot "think critically" without knowing something about... history, science, math, etc.
My sons' elementary social studies curriculum, for example, consisted almost entirely of writing a play about explorers, painting a mural of the Erie Canal, and making a claymation video about the conquest of the Aztec. They learned very little actual history and almost no science.
One of my son's middle school science teachers literally said, "I don't care about content. I am all about process." My son transferred.
7
Big surprise. Instead of focusing on standardized tests, a focus on teaching would be more productive. And teachers salaries. And lowering classroom size. And making all schools the same the way they do in Finland.
1
It is a pity that the article does not provide a link to the actual results of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) test. For those who are interested, here is the link:
https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2018/#/
3
#1- Our total country is and has been"dumbing down"for years. People are totally misinformed and lied to.They have a low level of focus so need quick simple explanations.
#2-Some leaders encourage this ignorance,"love the uneducated".
#3-WE do not pay our teachers, do not support them and we do not support the schools (how many attend PTA?).
#4- Many do not value education("elites are bad").
#5- WE deny science and scientists (genetic engineering climate change) and have a very ignorant and verbally challenged President supported by a dangerous propaganda machine that does not support education or teachers.
#6- Families do not value books, reading or promoting discussions or even assuring homework.
15
The reason for the low test scores are cultural, both in terms of our society and the way our schools work.
America does not value learning, generally speaking, and does not encourage reading or awareness or use of mathematical reasoning skills. In fact, both of these pillars of academic development are denigrated routinely in our culture. Many schools now don't even use textbooks!
School administrators simply do not care about the most important thing in a classroom: behavior. As long as they don't have to be bothered by it - and they don't ever want to be told about it or asked to deal with it in any way - they ignore it. But poor behavior by any prevents learning for all.
Screen addiction is a huge issue. It has lowered student willingness to read and to think. It has vastly increased the social pressures on teenagers since they have immediate access to social networking sites at all times, and that distracts from learning.
The tests themselves are pointless. Students have no incentive to do their best on them. The scores do not affect their marks in class, do not affect advancement to the next grade, and do not impact whether graduation from high school occurs. In short, the tests are irrelevant to a student. Ask the kids: Many of them just randomly guess on the tests.
Teaching, and take it from one who did it for more than a decade, is too under-compensated and the work environment too chaotic to draw the best of us to the classroom.
5
@CastleMan: My thoughts exactly, you hit the nail on the head!
1
According to the Urban Institute's website, in 2016 state and local governments collectively spent $905 billion on public education: Elementary and Secondary Education ($625 Billion) and Higher Education ($280 Billion).
Other state and local government expenditures in 2016 in addition to education were hospitals ($280 billion), police ($175 billion) and roads ($175 billion).
State and local revenues from State and Local Income taxes, Sales Taxes and Property Taxes totaled $1,256 billion in 2016. (income taxes = $376 billion; sales taxes $377 billion and property taxes = $503 billion)
I hope these figures will help to inform the discussion.
2
Only when parents of all levels of society respect our educators, and truly appreciate the importance of having their children put education first in their lives will positive change take place.
6
Parents, love of learning starts at home. Read to your children, and read yourself. Encourage critical thinking and challenge of authority, even if that authority is you. Learning is not about passing tests or getting into the best college; it is freely exploring the world of ideas and making informed choices. In the US, we try to raise worker bees, not creative thinkers, and we see the sad result of that effort.
8
The school system is such a mess that is impossible to even know where to start. As a high-school student, I thought I was doing well (after all, I had a 4.0 GPA), but when I got to college and began my engineering courses, I realized that while my classmates were ready for freshman-level physics and advanced calculus, I was only operating at a 10th or 11th grade level and struggled to catch up. I graduated with a degree in chemical engineering, but certainly wasn't near the top of my class.
It wasn't until my post-graduate years that I "taught" myself how to learn. My teachers, for whatever reason, weren't capable of doing so: it took me years of reading the classics (literature and philosophy) to teach my brain how to think. I had never been encouraged to do so previously.
When I decided to get my MBA, I had a similar epiphany. I wanted to get into a top school and needed to obtain a 730 GMAT. My logic skills were rudimentary at the time, but by studying hardcore GMAT thinking prep, I learned to how read critically and apply logic to complex problems, both written and numeric. Again, this was all self-taught, with the help of a study course, but I am now in a top MBA school and near the top of my class.
It is unfortunate that I had to teach myself how to absorb information and process it correctly. Looking back at my K-12 years, I would now classify it as babysitting, not learning, time. What a waste of prime learning years.
8
Who are these education experts?
I am wondering because I am a public school teacher but never once did they ask me what works or does not work in the classroom that I teach.
But these education experts are influential enough that curriculum and books are changed at their suggestions (or should I say whims?) across the nation.
Government should talk to public school teachers who are teaching in the classroom not Phd grads from the Ivy League who can't even survive a year of teaching in a Title 1 school--if you want change to happen.
6
There are so many reasons education in this country is a joke. In no particular order, here are a few:
Funding: funding schools with local dollars collected from real estate taxes or sales tax is not a recipe for success. This is especially true for neighborhoods where a significant number of kids qualify for free lunch.
Class size & student/teacher ratio: It's expensive to leave no child left behind. Research has always indicated that smaller classes are better for children.
Teachers should be adequately compensated and given funds to supplement their classroom materials.
Society needs to respect teachers and education in general.
The practice of promoting children who essentially fail grade level must be stopped. Is the 'stigma' really worse than a lifetime of being unable to read??
Spend less time testing(!) and more time enriching existing curricula and augmenting support services.
More academic and social supports. And then some more.
Forget STEM and Common Core if your kids can't read!
Reading is fundamental.
4
Let's look at the elite private schools for inspiration. Do you think they go for Common Core? I think not! They have connections to help their students get into the best colleges. Do you think they have grade inflation? I would imagine so. Let's follow their lead and all will work out.
Maybe it's in part a matter of desire, of both parents and students. Households that value education, regardless of economic status, seem to do better. Clearly, economic status makes it much easier to focus on education, but that said I know middle-income households where apathy reins and the kids don't do well, the parents yell at the kids for not doing well, but at base, neither the parents nor the kids care. Because too many in society doesn't really care - and it is insidious at every level - do we want the President to be smarter than us or "someone we can have a beer with"?
3
I retired in 2002 from teaching "at-risk" students in public school and the juvenile corrections system. Looking back on the decades, the glaring era of change that sticks in my mind was when we as a society began giving every kid a trophy for showing up. I'm not exactly sure what is going on today but, I know that a lot of kids graduate from high school and are functionally illiterate. A diploma for everyone.
2
This will not change until the cultures and home lives from where the students originate changes. If kids don't think it matters, or isn't cool, if they succeed in school they aren't going to succeed no matter how much money is spent on trying to educate them.
1
Drugs, alcohol, anxiety, and mental health issues. If the parents or students have any of these, classroom performance significantly decreases.
1
The US sample size which demographically represented 4,800 students from 215 schools took the test, which is given every three years. Considering our total population of 9-12 graders is 1.47M. More data is needed than this small sample size.
2
@TGM This! The same problem holds true for China---at least with prior PISA administrations, China was represented by Singapore or Beijing. A child in a rural school in China is not outperforming the average US student.
1
The most important factor in student learning is the interaction between teacher and student. It is also something that the educational system can directly improve as opposed to the myriad of social factors that make student learning more difficult and is largely beyond the control of any school district.
Bottom line - One has to point the finger directly at our schools of education. They do a terrible job preparing teachers - to teach not only the fundamentals in reading and math but higher level content specific courses as well.
One example is their anti-science approach to the teaching of reading. The unfortunate graduate from the ed schools goes into an elementary classroom without having learned the basics of good literacy instruction. Teachers can't teach was they don't know.
Our education schools' intransigence have left not only students but their teachers behind. It's one of the bad building blocks of our low international scores.
And the social implications are enormous with low income students bearing the disproportionate brunt. For example, 3rd grade reading scores are one of the factors considered for future prison populations.
Our schools of education need to be held to account.
1
I have trouble putting too much stock in conclusions based upon the testing of "a demographically representative sample of 4,800 students from 215 schools took the test". Were these 4,800 students "representative" in the same way that the voter pools used in 2016 polls were representative? Moreover, which students were tested in China? Our education system obviously has its problems, but I would not make any sea changes based on the results of this test. It's also fairly ridiculous to make any sweeping generalizations about US schools when time and time again it has been shown that some states prioritize (and fund) education while others don't.
We all know the solutions: higher teachers salaries, give teachers authority in the class room ( students are not scared of consequences of their misbehavior in the school and class).
Do you think Chinese students can get away with disrespecting their teachers and not doing their homework ?
In US, schools pay more attention to sports then studies. Top athletes are celebrated not the top students. It is opposite in China and in Asia.
8
Nancy
Durham Maine
I am a retired special educator who has expertise in the teaching of reading. Every comment I have read appears to offer some aspect of intelligent and thoughtful knowledge and thinking about the problem. The reasons for lowered scores are many and complex. The methods introduced beginning with the Bush administration and carried forward by the Obama administration only created more problems. The concept that everyone should be able to reach an exact level of knowledge by a certain age, and that, that specific knowledge can be assessed with tests, is flawed. Gross testing has been greatly misunderstood and misused in the United States. The developmental levels of individuals (from birth) vary, as do the culture, life experience, family experience and economic structure. All of these greatly affect how that individual learns and grows, and how that individual performs on a test that is primarily computer administered. (Is it even appropriate to even mention here that the testing industry has received the greatest financial advantage through testing policy.) Until this country recognizes and works to ameliorate the aspects of this that can be addressed, we will not make progress. I also must address the introduction and effects of technology on our society and the individual. We have yet to accurately research how this may have contributed to the acquisition or lack of development of skills in children, or to its' affect on brain development.
3
The education problem in America is a direct consequence of the poverty epidemic that affects every aspect of life in the most wealthy nation ever to exist on Earth. The income inequality that is exacerbated by utterly irrational GOP economic policy is having disastrous consequences on the future generations of this nation. Those who are reaching the end of their lives are setting the stage for the next 100 years of American history to see a declines in every aspect of life in this nation - education, access to healthcare, efforts to keep air and water clean, and income disparity. We have utterly failed to invest in the future of this country and the consequences are more visible in the field of education than anywhere else. Effective education relies on fundamental truth and honesty between teachers and students. Under the minority rule of the GOP, The United States is becoming a nation based on lies, much like Turkey, Russia, and North Korea.
@P. McGee Which came first...the chicken or the egg? Maybe there is so much inequality because our schools have been in decline for so long. It is difficult to earn a nice living if you are illiterate. It is way past time to evaluate what is not working with the curriculum and try something different. If kids don't learn during the school year, then they need to attend summer school.
Having instructed U.S. and Europe, it is necessary to note differences in goals; Europe intends lifetime work skills, aptitude based pursuit as agreed with youth, parents, counselors, subsequent 8th grade.
All students receive full university or vocational equivalent experience, beginning as early as 11th grade, secondary. U.S. goals intend no such outcome, and obviously this author intends avoid realities involved with that discussion.
Pretty grim prospects for jobs? I would say it is a grim prospect for democracy when citizens can't tell the difference between fact and fiction, or information vs. opinion.
Overall, I agree that this is a question of will and motivation. Surrounded by plenty, these children may feel a sense of entitlement to that material life, perhaps devoid of the virtues of effort and humility. A sad denouement to a story that was first written by people who valued the right to read the truth and believed in the virtue of work, indeed that man's work is done first for God's approval.
1
As with all problems in the US, the lack of a solution can be explained by asking "Does this impact the rich?" As the wealthy skirt the issue by sending their kids to private schools and can afford tutors, it does not hurt them, and therefore will not be fixed.
Same with healthcare (private doctors), climate change (buy New Zealand citizenship), traffic (private helicopters), and gun violence (layers of security).
1
@SeattleGuy The rich do not cause all problems. Also, taking all money away from all rich people would not solve all problems.
Some problems can be fixed with a little bit of personal responsibility and elbow grease.
As an immigrant from Europe, having a master's in math, two children in middle school right now, and getting observations from my wife visiting different schools as a school nurse, I see only one reason for disappointing test scores:
Poverty.
If parents are exhausted working two jobs, there is no time left to help their children. Students that get their needs met perform in the US as well as in other countries. The harsh poverty rampant in the US does not exist in Europe.
8
@Marc I'm from rural poverty. The issue is not poverty,its respect for teacher. If I didn't respect my teacher, listen and do the work asked of me, there would be discipline applied at home and at school. That is not the case today. The classroom today has many students who feel free to tell the teacher off and disrupt, many times by physically attacking their classmates, and their parents back the child, not the teacher. Johnny and Janey aren't going to learn to read if they never take any instruction from the teacher. As my grandmother noted, you have two eyes and two ears but one mouth. Use them in that ratio and you might learn something at school. Otherwise, do everyone a favor and go work in the fields until you are ready to learn.
3
It is my experience that the administrator ... those that want to affect “change” ... are driven more by aspirations and desires than data and reality. Teachers, on the other hand, are in the trenches, and their aspirations are tempered by reality.
Maybe more of the billions spent on education could be redirected to public schools and the emphasis on states' rights to teach Bible science could be replaced by national standards. I say this as I retired teacher with 50 years at the front of classrooms.
The real answer to this problem is reinstating the Head Start program passed by LBJ and other programs designed to support poorer families with children. That should include prenatal care, post natal care, preschool, kindergarten and local affordable day care centers.
The payback on this approach would be enormous.
3
Numerous factors underlie the problems in America’s schools, as noted by other commenters. Two factors have stood out to me through volunteer work that takes me into urban and suburban schools and through opportunities to observe classrooms abroad. First, schools in less than wealthy American school districts usually look worse than prisons do - what message does that send to our children? Second, overseas I routinely see children paying rapt attention to the teacher and being fully engaged in what they are learning. I see much less of that attitude in American classrooms, wealthy or poor. Apart from deciding that our children are worth better schools and resources, we also need a serious change in expectations of students and their parent(s).
Family poverty, by itself, has nothing to do with it. My grandparents and their peers raised their babies during the Great Depression; my parents’ generation did just fine.
My early school years were spent at a British school on an overseas territory island. We shared books, there were no lights, no cafeteria (we ate from our non-refrigerated lunchboxes outside on the parking lot or the grass), the restrooms out back were horribly maintained, and we had to bring our own toys for recess. Yet, we learned.
I suspect the dismal achievements of American students has more to do with a lack of interest in learning, both by students and their parents, reinforced by school systems that do not allow teachers to set consequences for misbehavior. I realize other reasons exist, but they exist within this framework.
3
The widening education gap mirrors the widening income and opportunity gap between the professional-managerial class, approximately 15% of the population, that is thriving, and the middle, working class, and poor who are economically stagnant or in decline. While improved curriculum, school organization, and teaching methods can raise test scores, they can’t compensate for insufficient public school funding and kids who live in neighborhoods with few options for the tech/professional jobs concentrated on the coasts and largest cities. Many, if not the majority of schools, are trapped in a downward spiral of low economic opportunity and low education performance. You don’t need algebra to scan a bar code.
The problem and solution is not about money, it’s cultural. When kids go home and there’s no encouragement and enforcement to study, do homework, and generally promote curiosity and learning, no amount of investment will solve the problem. Investment can help in some cases, but not solve.
4
How about if we invest those billions in housing, food and medical care for poorer families? Stable parents, food and housing are critical to learning, too. Stop putting money in the pockets of testing companies.
3
I am a very recently retired high school teacher. There are obviously myriad reasons for stagnating test scores. I can single out one in particular: complacency among many students - and often their parents. If students are allowed most or all of the electronics they want from their families, what do they have to strive for? Nearly all of my regular track students had smart phones despite a large number of them earning no better than a C; in fact, quite a few were more than fine with a low to mid D, as long as they got to pass the course. I wish more parents would set a reasonable goal for their students, like earning at least a C or B in all their classes and then taking away phone privileges for a whole quarter until the standard is met. I had a very few parents try such tactics and it nearly always worked like a charm - it got their students' attention in a serious way. Their parents have to work hard to earn wages; why should their students not also have to work hard in their job (school) to earn what they want - phones, clothes, electronic games, and so on? I wish more students were motivated to work hard for their long term opportunities, but many just aren't when parents haven't been hammering home that message. Way too many parents are unwilling to lay down these parameters and stick with the messiness of their teens' anger until their behavior changes. Absent such parenting, a frustratingly high percentage of teens do the absolute minimum needed to get that D or C.
5
RE: "...Everybody gets a trophy..." complaints
My kids played Rec level; soccer when they were little and moved on to school sports in High school. They were pretty good high school athletes. They were Lacrosse players.
However, when they were little and playing Rec Soccer, they finished every season with a Tournament. In the Tournament, the teams were bracketed by their regular season records-strong v strong and weak v weak.
Everybody got a trophy, even if they finished last in the weak bracket.
They loved it. All the kids loved it. Their parents loved it. The Awards ceremony was a neat thing. There were team pictures and family pictures and pictures with grandparents.
I am a very competitive guy. I am a lawyer and am regarded as a serious opponent. I come from a tough nabe in Philly. wasregarded as a serious opponent then, too. And I was one.
It did not bother me at all that my kids got atrophy if their team happened not to finish first. And I coached some of those teams, too.
MY kids have not grown up namby-pamby.
None of their friends seem to have done so, either.
There is literally nothing wrong with little kids who might otherwise never geta trophy getting one after a tournament.
The United States’ education system does an excellent job at educating its diverse population. Trying to measure us against foreign countries never made sense. The population breakdown of these other countries do not make for a fair comparison. Also, some of these counties only test their best schools. If the United States just measured its best schools, we would score in the top of the spectrum. Massachusetts alone ranks at the top of the world scores in math and science.
We shouldn’t stop trying to improve. But, I wouldn’t get too panicked about it.
4
there's another thing that almost no one talks about. most of the kids in Europe go to school 220 days per year. American Kids Only Go 175 days per year. does it not then make sense the our students would be about a year-and-a-half to two years behind at the end of their high school years. the 10 week vacation cost our students dearly in terms of remembering what they have learned and in forward progress. more days in school over a long. Of time matters. for some reason nobody ever seems to figure this in, they just dumped on American teachers.
3
What if one of the reasons for these disappointing results is the lack of stability or consistancy in schools?
I worked in schools for years, and saw so many programs and initiatives and consultants and acronyms come and go, year in and year out. An entire industry has evolved to find problems in need of the "solutions" they peddle. Thousands of nonprofits have sprung up to "support" schools, but require schools to need their support in order to operate. Many programs that are actually successful with specific groups of kids are "scaled up" and their tailored approaches are forced upon an entire student body they were not designed to serve.
We know many children thrive with clear expectations, structure, and clear limits. Why not try to put those things into place at the schools, themselves?
2
I'm a mother of two - aged 19 and 10. There has been a shift in teaching methods in the ten school years that separate my children. Happily, for the better.
I have been teaching for about 40 years. I know of not a SINGLE teacher nowadays who thinks that we're not approaching a crisis.
Most teachers are very much afraid of giving very low or failing grades to students who clearly deserve them. In the eyes of administrators and (sadly) many parents, such grades are the result of the deficiencies of the teacher, and never the student.
I came into teaching naively thinking that all students wanted to learn. While many do, many others simply don't. Until we deal honestly with that reality, no progress will be made.
30
“Because the United States lacks a centralized system for teacher training or distributing quality instructional materials to schools, Professor Koretz said, states and districts did not always effectively carry out the Common Core or other initiatives.”
There it is in a quote. Teacher training is the crux of the problem. Without good instruction, it does not matter how good the teaching materials are.
2
Educational excellence requires teacher excellence. To achieve teacher excellence we need to recruit the best. Without better pay and real respect for the job, those people who could excel at teaching will not go into or stay in the profession. Until this changes no amount of money or new programs will succeed. Not everyone can teach well and those who stick it out in spite of not earning a living wage are to be commended for staying, but even those teacher who are excellent and currently teaching are so diminished by disrespect and being yanked around by the system they work in that it becomes very difficult to excel at their jobs. Teaching excellence required excellence teachers and the best way to bring this about is to recruit the best, pay them well and then trust them to know how to do their job without constant micromanagement.
9
My mother taught high school in a wealthy district from 1967 to 1992. She said that as the number of administrators grew the school went down in quality. She also said that the students changed over the years. In her early years of teaching the students were polite and respected their teachers. In the eighties, many newly rich families moved into the district and the students were rude, snobbish and treated the teachers like they were servants. When kids were disciplined their overbearing parents stormed the school wanting to know why their children were disciplined. The administration bowed down to them and left the teachers holding the bag.
The school was considered the best in the area because of their high scores, but as quiet as it was kept, 80% of the students had regular tutors and attended prep classes for all the standardized tests.
9
Im a college professor. The basic bottom line is that I see students come in each year. Students from well to do families do better than kids from lower middle and poor families. There are exceptions but few. Its not one thing there are many causes. Lack of help at home, poor health care and diets, bad schools and teachers, inadequate school funding, common core teaching to the test. There is no one solution to a multifaceted problem. The basic gist of it all is the rich do better because they have everything.
2
I'm going to sound reactionary here. But maybe we should just not worry about grade levels, which are norms with bell curves. And just grade students on skills achieved, with note for what has changed YOY. This would allow students of similar abilities to be grouped together without respect to age.
It would also allow us to evaluate schools and teachers for their ability to advance a student, without playing catch-up on the base line.
Age-norming is only half useful in an increasingly diverse population. And it is pejorative for those on the lower side of the curve.
7
They have asked politicians, textbook and test publishers and they have pointed their bony fingers at the classroom. If we need new textbooks and a whole new approach, perhaps the textbook companies could refund taxpayer dollars for the books they sold us last go round.
Everyone is asked except the teachers. I am retired now, but saw the absurd pressure to teach to a test, instead of letting us test what we were teaching.
I favor some uniform assessment so school districts in different states can compare, Those assessments should occur through out the year, and the results should be instantaneous so students, parents and teachers can discuss how to bring low scores up. There is no reason why a computer scanned test took over three months to send a school the results, when every teacher who uses a multiple choice test can get their students graded during lunch and some hours at night.
Give teachers back their respect and authority. There are problems, but American public school graduates are over half of the students at any Ivy and many more qualified students are turned away due to lack of space.
6
Why are some results reported from single discrete cities/states, but others only from an entire nation? Might rankings be different if the US reported Boston or Massachusetts separately? It looks like that is what China does.
1
As a teacher of English who has recently been forced to select from a narrow range of new, Common Core "Programs," I can speak to this from experience. To begin with, we dare not call these textbooks, as the book must now come with a complete online component that includes composition. The Program's paper, codex version is a floppy disposable--which makes sense insofar as they can be annotated easily and extensively without fear of destroying a valuable textbook, but they feature about 1/2 to 1/3 of the total number of works listed in my old textbooks' lists of works and authors, and those works that are included now tend to be much shorter. In place of quantity of literature is a surfeit of exercises meant to promote "close reading," but which have the effect of being incredibly laborious, repetitive and boring. Students are learning that studying literature is a matter of flogging a short piece of writing or an excerpt into tatters or pretending to read a longer piece and then talking about its social justice applications, which is the main mode of discourse now. The teachers I know in the Junior and Senior classes at my high school tend to check out the disposable textbooks, sorry, programs, put them in a cabinet. . . then never use them. I teach at one of the top high schools in California, so we have other resources, but a poorly resourced school in which teachers have to rely on disposables would be a place the joy of reading goes to die. Thanks, David Coleman.
13
@Nemo
So right on. Taught a Ramona school in Oxnard with little
or no resources, yet had great teachers. Finished at school
across town with extra resources, active PTA, extra funding, no wonder they exceeded state levels
1
As a parent of three public elementary and middle school kids, it is hard work. They are in classes with 28+ kids with one teacher. It is impossible for all the learning to take place in that setting alone. When I get home from work, I go through their school work and home work. I want to see what they missed and/or don't understand to go over it with them. On weekends, in addition to all their activities, we make time for Math and ELA practice and they all score 4's on their state tests and read above grade level,
Is it hard work? Without a doubt, is it worth it, definitely. Parents need to start taking the time needed to raise their kids. We all have to play our part to stop this bus from rolling downhill.
7
Here are some observations from a 27-year veteran high school teacher, recently retired:
Stacks of books in the high school school library were removed to make room for a “maker space,” which is basically a crafts area. The library is no longer a quiet study space.
The district adopted an online learning platform. While having some advantages, this system also gave the green light to increase class sizes. My chemistry classes approached 30 students each my final year, for a total of over 170 students. It takes a superhuman to understand the needs of and truly teach a hands on chemistry curriculum to that many students.
Teacher evaluations are based upon standardized test scores, not on class teaching evaluations. I went many years without a single administrator visiting my classroom, despite my issuing multiple invitations. The highest a teacher can obtain in this new system is “proficient.” The reasoning behind this (told to us by administrators) was that no teacher could sustain anything beyond that. How demoralizing.
Since student grades are online, kids are now “addicted” to checking their grades, every hour. The grade mattered more than anything learned. When I mused in front of one class what it would be like to have no grades for one marking period, only written evaluations, so students could focus on learning, I spent the rest of the year berated by a group of parents who now claimed I didn’t want to grade anyone. I had no administrative support.
10
What has changed? How has this happened?
Serious questions. What has changed in education, in early childhood learning, in society? I am lucky, I now realize, that my mother - who had to work, as my father died of a form of cancer when I was very young - but nonetheless taught her four year old youngest son the joy of the alphabet and of reading. How often does that happen now?
What has happened to school discipline? I've heard of teachers who despair of any control in their classes, because some young people have not learned to respect them.
Is it the ubiquity of smartphones, and of social media? Do kids care more about what their peers think about them than about finding out about the world around them?
There are programs that get kids out into the natural world. I've encouraged and supported them. Maybe that is part of the answer.
4
I turned 15 in 2000. I don’t think it’s just testing that’s the problem. Our schools are being used as a prop for many corporations. Microsoft, Pearson, Apple, ALEC, etc. Yes, our children need to learn technology-buuuut-compared to a time that textbooks were bought every ten years and we had computer class once a week in elementary and then it’s was cycled in as a full class in middle school and we have not improved is astounding. Now I think that science books should be updated more often, but I am not certain that history books, and mathematics, and English books need to be. How many billions could have been put towards class sizing, facilities (not football stadiums), and teacher pay? It’s a gross robbery of funds.
6
Perhaps a contributing factor to these results is the prevalence of Teaching Fellows and Teach For America transient, young and inexperienced "teachers" in high poverty and distressed schools. These "teachers" get a crash course in instruction for five weeks in the summer before becoming a full time teacher as they continue their education courses at night. When they realize how difficult it is to teach in these schools, they quickly flee the classroom for a "real job" in the business sector, or they go to a "leadership academy" to become an administrator. Consequently, these schools are rife with inexperienced teachers and inexperienced administrators. When Bloomberg became mayor, he and Joel Klein, a corporate attorney, decided to run the school system as a business. They closed schools and reopened them by replacing seasoned teachers with these Teaching Fellows with no training. After all these years with "consultants", "coaches", and other "flavor of the month" strategy (differentiated instruction, group work, project based learning, mixed ability group, and on and on), perhaps it's time to return power and respect for old-fashioned experience. Instead of making teachers run around like a chicken without head wasting time and energy on differentiated lessons for each class, bring back tracking so that struggling kids can get the attention they need at the pace that allows them to progress. Finally, education begins with parents reading and talking to their children.
6
@dba
Teach for America is just a resume builder for wealthy young people who have no interest in making teaching their career and for a school to cut costs.
1
In Asia it's not the amount of public money that improves the education system; it is the private money from parents' pockets who spend a huge percentage of their income (and effort) to send their children to tutoring classes in English, Math and Sciences. That in turn improves the standard of public education since each student becomes so much more competitive and well prepared.
Asian parents understand their system has too many downsides since the kids are under too much pressure to excel academically. However they also think that while the American education system creates a few geniuses, the Asian system generates many more "good enough" scientists and engineers that are good enough to improve their lives from generation to generation. Some day quantity will overtake quality.
2
I blame grade inflation, which is caused by administrators who want to keep schools filled w happy students and the absurd student-evaluation-of-instruction process. Nevertheless, I drew a line at giving A grades. If a student got an A from me, he/she deserved it. I hope I’m not the only one. My sons, two little geniuses, have got straight As in gifted during the whole of their young lives, and they always get 99 or 100 percent on standard tests. So I’m not worried about them. But the system needs a massive overhaul. I taught college. It’s not for everybody. There are trade schools.
4
I'd like to see the exact score differences here. Sometimes the margin is so small, my thought is so what. I also would not be surprised if some countries don't test all the children to insure that their scores are higher. As a teacher, I really like the Finish ideal of no testing, socializing with the teacher. We were often told that we were to adopt some students and to converse consistently with them throughout the year. When you have 25 students in a class times 6 classes a day. One hundred and fifty students is too many to make a connection. So adopting 10 students is at least a start. There will always be the sluggish learners and the ambitious ones. It's difficult, but teachers need to teach to the grade level and subject they are assigned.
One factor that is rarely brought up in these kinds of articles is that kids are tested to death. If there is no obvious reason why the kid should try on the test, many don't. (Often when there IS an obvious reason why they should try on the test, they don't--it is just much worse when they get the notion that this is just another test someone, somewhere wants them to take for some reason.)
Another factor is classroom time used for other purposes. It is less a problem in my present school, but in my previous district, high school English classes were used for so many other things that 19 days were taken up for them (English was used because all students had English classes). Examples: Jostens ring presentations (2 days), health surveys, various tests (unrelated to English), AIDS presentations, 2-3 days to register for classes for the next year, and so many others I can't remember. But on PAPER somewhere, those days are considered used for teaching high school English.
Yet another issue we have at my current district is that much of the interesting fiction students could connect to emotionally (and eventually care to read) were replaced with a mostly internet-based curriculum with a much thinner textbook with mostly nonfiction the students (and many teachers) do not care about, and a tiny bit of fiction that is mostly terrible...but everything is Common Core aligned.
2
Many high school graduates have reached their potential and higher education will do little for them, especially with the graduation standards being so low. Trade schools will benefit many but not all.
So do we condemn them to a life of poverty or do we structure the pay scale where every American can at least live a decent and dignified life.
5
@mlb4ever What happens when we run out of money to pay for all of these decent dignified lifestyles? Some people don't have ANY motivation to do ANYTHING. So then what happens? These people have ample time on their hands to have as many children as they want while the motivated people have their noses to the grindstone trying to pay for everything and not having kids because they are working so much. Isn't this opposite of how is SHOULD be?
Our educational efforts are guided on the false belief that spending more = better results. However, this usually results in massive amounts of money going to private corporations and administration. Beyond the school building there are offices and offices all under the umbrella of Education, but few really help individual students. Billions are spent on tests we could have easily had our teachers create. Students do not need more IPads or laptops they need smaller class sizes and tutoring sessions. Our teacher preparation programs are not only failing at preparing our teachers but also deter others from entering the profession (See EDTPA). The story of our failures in education is the story of mismanagement of public resources and misplaced priorities.
8
Anyone who wonders why test scores aren't where they should be need to visit neighborhood schools. Even in the best neighborhoods students are distracted by cell phones, sports, teen drama, and home problems. And this starts at least in middle school. In the poverty areas they are distracted by much more than that. Students are naturally rebellious but in our current world, parents often don't discipline their children, and when I say discipline I don't mean punish. I just mean parents are often too lenient. I taught for many years. When I began my career students were basically obedient. They weren't perfect but any mischief was quite mild. One of the first questions parents asked was if their children behaved themselves, then they asked about academics. The main takeaway there is that students who are moderately well behaved perform better in academics. It is very hard to teach unruly children. Schools reflect the communities, not the other way around.
8
It is very simple. Everyone does a "good job". Failure is not an option. Common core is too difficult. Teacher's can not be evaluated on the basis of test scores. And yes, few are concerned that not all are academically inclined or would prefer a vocation (plumbers are well paid last time I called one), yet the mantra of college is pushed for all.
1
This discussion about success of educational efforts has been going on for a century. It seems to me that the continuing failure of all the efforts might be due to the fact that success depends as much on the talent of the students as it does on the quality of schools. This also explains easily the fact that children of educated parents have a higher success rate. This does not mean efforts to educate less gifted children should be reduced, but the statistical gap will probably persist for the foreseeable future.
3
@Walter GerholdhTheOpium:
Students in Korea and China are not more talented than here. The main differences are cultural: Those countries place high value on learning, discipline and individual scholastic achievement. Here in the US the emphasis is on the students’ feelings, self-esteem, fairness, eliminating any whiff of bias, and on practicality of knowledge being taught.
A good education can't solely be measured by test scores. The hyper focus on that is the first (of many) issues. Higher taxes to support the public school system bc everyone deserves access to a free, excellent education. Pay teachers far better and support them more as a community.
1
@Barbara petro I believe the article says that in spite of the enormous amount of money spent on education, students are not doing better. Perhaps the money is better spent elsewhere.
1
I have no doubt that performance is lagging given all of the time wasted on activities like sports and clubs. Sports do not belong in school as that is the function of city/county parks and recs. If we can ever hope to stay even with Europe or catch up with Korea, Japan or China the US education system needs to be tossed out and rebuilt into one that is focused on the sciences and medicine.
Real reform needs to start at the college level of which most are of marginal value. There are plenty of schools with rigor, but most are just extensions of high school with little redeeming value. Many should just be converted to trade schools to generate workers to meet the demand of companies. This is how Europe does it. College is free, but don't expect to be able to go without a lot of hard work during and after school along with some testing that will separate those who are going to college versus trade school.
Until priorities are addressed the US will continue to fall behind the rest of the 1st world countries.
2
@Jim, while I agree with your point that college has been over emphasized as the be-and-end-all, you do not consider a couple of points. 1. Not everyone is equally gifted in math and science. I was a really good student but was and still am, dreadful at math (curriculum change in third grade and never really grasped the basics). Sciences like biology, botany anatomy, I’m fine. Chemistry was a disaster. Ok, I found a highly successful career anyway. 2. Not everyone does well on standardized tests even with private test prep and there’s way too many tests. As I understand many European models, children and tested and tracked from very young ages into college or vocational tracks. Heaven help the child who doesn’t test well! We already have significant issues and arguments about inherent racism in standardized tests- moving to the European and Asian models will just make matters worse
Yes -- sports should be gone. PE yes, sports no.
Public education is a massive operation and very expensive, but clearly we need to invest more in order to modernize American education. In most classrooms students sit in the same rows of desks that they have sat in since the nineteenth century. Classrooms that attempt to chose organizational patterns that support working on projects in groups or individualized instruction might be worth exploring. Smaller classes give teachers opportunities to get involved in every student's learning experience. As an English major I cannot help thinking that leaving literature out of the mix is a big mistake. More support staff for students who face social and economic issues outside of school would be a good investment - students who are disruptive could be assigned to a group therapy situation rather than detention. Creativity is difficult within such an enormous institution but it is possible and necessary.
2
Excellent public pre-K-12 education has to be a national priority so that every child, no matter their zipcode or family's socioeconomic status, is enrolled in a high-quality school. School funding should no longer be tied to the tax base of individual communities and states. There need to be enough teachers in a class to be able to attend to individual students, and the classes have to be both small enough and long enough for actual hands-on teaching to occur, so that kids who learn at different rates and with different teaching styles can be accommodated. Kids have to be well nourished and rested enough to learn. Parents have to engage in their child's education, which means that parents need to have the flexibility and time to participate, which is a complex issue as much (or more) related to their work hours and income requirements as an intrinsic family value on education.
2
I wish there was an edit function - should read "...related to their work hours and income requirements than to an intrinsic family value..."
Having taught for 35 years, I have seen the passion drain from all parties. Teachers worry about test scores and evaluations and are discouraged from being innovative and teaching to their passions. Principals are mainly focused on test scores instead of building relationships with students and teachers. Students are made to do one boring task after the next until, by middle school, they know nothing worthwhile will happen in their day.
I am now a substitute and I am shocked how kids respond to a caring, enthused, fun teacher who demonstrates clearly that he cares about them and believes in them.
I have seen this decline and it is correlated with increased testing. I can remember when testing was an annoyance, but not the only thing that mattered.
Kids of all ages are a delight to work with. If we can get back to engaging them in a worthwhile way and letting passion back into our schools, there may be hope.
4
Teacher education has been inconsistent, haphazard, and ineffectual since the 1980’s. So has the quality of the majority of most of those going into teaching...typically the low end of the SAT pool. Communities have cut back on school funding and supplies..but usually not sports. We get out of the educational system what we put in.
In addition, K-6 education has been shortchanged as well. A wise person once said our education dollars should be put there rather than secondary education.
For these years are where children learn the building blocks that will carry them forward, gain interest and enthusiasm for learning, begin to be able to comprehend, analyze and synthesize information and think critically. Without competence in the basic skills, understanding of higher education becomes moot.
But to do so, we need highly skilled teachers, a dedicated community willing to invest in the future and money to pay the very best people to be teachers.
As another very wise person remarked, “ when we begin to respect teachers and pay them as we do other professionals ( accountants, engineers, tech personnel and others ), we will get the test scores, work force, and informed citizenry we need.
Otherwise we are doomed as we are today when the majority of citizens cannot identify the three branches of government or do a simple algebraic equation.
6
As a recently retired teacher, I agree. I would also add that administrators of school buildings need to trust, support, and listen to their staff. And just as every administrator should support and encourage those that are trying their very best to be a great teacher, they should also not be afraid to call out those who are just skating by.
For the past several years, my teaching evaluation score was based almost solely on building wide test scores, not on the performance of my students in the subject I taught, nor on my teaching evaluations (IF an administrator ever bothered to visit my classroom). A difficult but rewarding job became demoralizing to the point where the costs outweighed the rewards.
6
From this mom's perspective, there seems to be an overly-literal interpretation of Common Core principles, such that first graders are now mired in needlessly complex word problems, and expected to know five different "strategies" for adding 5+6. The emphasis on nonfiction texts and essays leaves no room for kids to write their own stories, never mind poetry, something I particularly enjoyed in grade school. And there's a strange gap in the curriculum around phonics, leaving kids frustrated when they're expected to decipher words without having the tools to do so.
5
I am extremely concerned that, at some point, the quantitative courses (i.e Finance) will only be offered at top tier universities because so many of the students coming from the public school systems simply can't pass these subjects. Since graduation rates drive funding at local and state colleges, this is a very real possibility. This will increase the complaints about inequality from those on the left. Yet, it is their policies (i.e., no homework, no academic rigor, passing everyone, no behavioral standards, no dress codes) that are driving many of these poor results.
6
Please avoid blanket statements about “liberal policies.” This “liberal” teaching veteran of 27 years believes in homework, reading, writing, memorization when appropriate, phonics, and tests to measure understanding. MOST teachers I know advocate getting back to basics in order to address knowledge gaps. But teaching is driven by administration, which largely consists of those who taught for 5-10 years, if that, and see implementing school policies as a Petri dish for their Ed.D. dissertations.
It's long past time that we sent the "geniuses" who confuse learning with test scores back to school. While a test can measure what someone has learned, it usually has the effect of dampening the desire to learn, which of course produces the opposite results desired.
Here's a radical idea: why don't we adopt a teaching and learning model that INDUCES the desire to learn? Experiential learning has been proven to work, even - especially - with the most reluctant learners. This is because it relies on hands-on, real world application of the core knowledge components of reading, writing, math, science, art, history, civics, interwoven into projects that allow the students to learn and practice all these skills in ways they'll do in the real world. Experiencing the reason and use for these skills often creates the buy-in needed to acquire them. These projects can be scaled and adapted to any age group, not just older students.
Of course adopting this approach 100% is probably too big a leap, but schools could work them into their existing curriculum as a supplementary module, and then, if they find that students do indeed learn better this way, they could expand it.
One thing's for sure, the people currently in charge of our nation's education system need remedial help to understand what their objective is supposed to be: getting kids to learn.
2
Experiential learning is highly valuable and motivating, but to implement it, smaller class sizes are necessary, as well as additional teacher aids. Those are 2 things that school districts are loath to do. The current trend is buying into the tech takeover of classrooms and using this as an excuse to increase class sizes....put them each in front of a laptop.
1
@Wendy Like everything else in life, you get what you pay for.
My child attends a terrific public school in Georgia. It is rigorous, it is small and kids that go there must apply and pass a performing arts audition in order to be accepted. On her collegeadmissions testing she has scored nearly perfectly and she is number 2 in her class. Why? Because the school has teachers that care, the student cares and her parents are involved. She comes from a middle class background and her parents both have post-graduate degrees and education has always been emphasized at home. So she has a lot of advantages to start out with, but through hard work she has made sure that she would benefit from them.
The moral of the story is that there are a lot of factors and circumstances that affect a student's performance. Sure the school matters, but so do the student's efforts and the influence of the family unit. Was the child reared in an environment that values education, were the student's parents involved in their child's schooling? We can't sit back and leave it all to the schools and expect them to work miracles if we don't care to make an effort.
8
@Peter L Ruden Perhaps the type of parents who send their kids to a small rigorous school self-selects. Diligent parents with diligent students populate a top competitive school? How do you begin to compare this situation. You are in the top 5%?
Of course the teachers care. These are the best teachers in a great school.
4
@Mary Rivkatot Yes Mary, there is self-selection involved. My point is that while the schools and its teachers and resources matter, so do the efforts made by the student and the parents, and the background from which the student comes. If kids come to school unprepared because of socioeconomic and family factors, the expectation that the schools can create successful students out of whole cloth is unrealistic. There has to be buy in by the students and their families, and the community and the state need to support the schools too in order to make our students successful.
I understand math tests. But reading tests? How can you compare them across language groups? It would be unfair to test everybody in the same language, say simply choose one of English, Mandarin, or Finnish (not English, Mandarin, and Spanish, as English and Spanish are both Indo-European languages.)
Also, the examples I've seen of such tests, though of course I'm unsure whether they were real, typical, examples, were simply terrible ... I, who made perfect scores on the SAT test in 1961, cound not decide for sure the right answer. Clearly, there was some sort of "key" method for determining this that simply has to be learned by rote. Typically this involved using some sort of "social construct" criterion that required learning exactly which criterion was "politically correct". Had I taken the test actually, of course I would use a Bayesian weighting that gave the answer that probably was was expected by the Left a higher weight.
I suggest simply changing the tests to make them test for actual, clear, facts, which can translated across language barriers.
2
For those of us who work toward innovation in the education field, it is not news that the current data based, factory model for "educating" children would fall flat. The current system was designed on an assembly line model with little deference to the broad spectrum of human dimensions in the "widgets" we are educating. Kids need to be seen as whole human beings, and learning needs to be connected to their inspiration, interests, and most of all, a sense of relevance and meaning that resonates with how the world appears to them. Without this relevance and resonance with their spirit, school is just punching the clock, something they gotta get through. Such a state of affairs does not cultivate an innovative citizenry, or discerning critical thinkers who can participate in democracy in a functional way.
5
Strongly agree. I see everyday how rigid the current local system, especially in classes of more than 20 students (which is much too common, especially in financially-stressed districts, which are the same ones with parents working multiple jobs and so have little time to spend helping kids with homework or even reading in front of them). It's a cut-throat pace with focus tightly on teaching to the (standardized) tests, and one that leaves too many kids left in the dust; and our future with them.
2
I don’t think it’s fair to judge the results of educational initiatives as if schools have remained static while they were enacted. For example, our schools have recently absorbed many immigrant children from Central America, who have received little to no education prior to coming to America. That’s a big deficit to make up if you’re eight years old, for example. I was a bilingual teacher in New York long ago, but I think many areas have no bilingual programs, and even oppose them on principle. Also, we have a relatively recent, raging opioid epidemic in many communities, adversely affecting children’s entire lives, including their school performance. I believe that over time, a Common Core approach will work, all else being equal—which it won’t, unfortunately. But we should have a benchmark as a nation, if we’re to compare our kids to kids in other nations that have one.
5
The issue comes down to the quality of instruction that in turn reflects the quality of teacher training. With its highly decentralized system of teacher training, the short duration and low intensity of that training, and the inadequate supervision of new and inexperienced teachers, it is no surprise that achievement levels remain stagnant. Centralized, ministerial educational systems do better because they integrate teacher training with a national curriculum--something that is anathema in our system where the curriculum is also decentralized and under the control of textbook publishers.
3
Amazing! The United States spent billions playing catch-up ball in the 3Rs. Class warfare?
2
Not an educator, only finished grade 10. Looking from the outside, and having a child who went through the system who, with my blessing, dropped out of a GATE program because they were not educating her, (and later graduated university with summa cum laude) I have a couple of observations. In addition to the societal trauma observed in other letters, the model of competition permeates our systems. In education it means that the students most likely to satisfy the system's need for success get the best, while those least likely get the passing grades to keep the statistics high. This is a top down issue, with teachers largely, my view, being unwillingly complicit. It is a reflection of larger societal issues.
3
@Roxanne de Koning Thank you for your thoughtful (and experienced-based) insights! Two of my older brothers dropped out of high school because the did not fit the expectation, and I nearly did the same (I failed 8th grade myself, and then failed out of university). Now as a parent, my biggest fear is that my two children will feel the same anxiety and disjointed sense of belonging when they enter the classroom (as I and my two brothers did). Luckily, my wife and I read to them every single day since they were born, and they now love reading. This single act has helped them adapt to school. We have always contemplated homeschooling for our children, and won't hesitate for a moment should we sense a need for that.
1
@James My daughter dropped out of school in grade 11 because they were failing to teach her. She was and is extremely bright. After ascertaining that her complains were we'll founded I told her she could drop outwit my blessing if she completed the semester with wit straight As, and she found work. t took her until she was 30, but she finished college with excellent grades. Myself, I dropped out due to emotional instability, but I have practiced a trade I deeply love for 46 years, am well trained and well respected, so formal educat,on is not everything. Yo are good parents, and your children will do well whatever path they choose.
Students come to school two years behind in first grade, even if they've had American low-quality early childhood education. Then, we expect them magically to jump two years ahead without spending more time learning than their advantaged peers. Instead of providing them more learning time, and higher quality learning, we pretend that all sorts of schemes that don't cost money can catch them up, but they do not.
They fall further behind, and as they fall further behind, many lose faith in school as a place where they can succeed. And so many start to become hostile to school and to learning.
We refuse to acknowledge that these students need more learning time, more adult support, and that the teachers who teach them need more professional development time, more supervision, more collaboration time, better curriclulum and better leadership. That costs more money, but it also requires a framework that is functional, intentional, and flexible enough to do what works.
Brooke East Boston affords an excellent example.
7
The Common Core is a hoax. When my children attended school in the New Jersey suburbs, the State government and its acolytes on our School Board used Common Core as an excuse to reduce the curriculum to the “basics”, i.e. material that appeared on standardized tests that had to be purchased from “educational publishers”. Along with these came workbooks and study guides for preparation, which our teachers began to rely upon. Our locally-developed material took time for new teachers to master. Curriculum development outside the core became harder and harder to justify.
It took consistent effort by the taxpaying parents to maintain the quality of the schools. Every year there was an attack “non core” programs. Every year, there were threats to our Music program, and every year, the parents packed the meetings until the School Board backed down. And, of course, whenever the Board hired a new Superintendent, the process had to be repeated. Slow learners in high places, unfortunately.
The purpose of Common Core is to drag American education towards a consistent mediocrity, with a transfer of money from local educators to distant and unaccountable entities, whose true objectives have little to do with education. It works to disengage the parent, perhaps not intentionally, but with the results that all of us know.
13
Biology is real. And measures of "school-ability" are bound to be determined in part by in-born factors (e.g., intellectual proficiency, interest in and ability to read and concentrate on written minutiae,etc.) even if we don't know what they are.
No matter how well intentioned, efforts to improve everyone's "school performance" cannot succeed in making everyone equal. (Comparisons to tiny, homogenous countries like Finland, pop. 5+ million, are of course completely irrelevant here.)
The bigger tragedy is that rewards (economic, social, etc) in the modern world overwhelmingly flow to those most gifted for school-ability. By continuing to focus on these factors and implying that more effort on the part of government, teachers and students will ultimately level the playing field, we miss the bigger problem: how to make the society fairer by distributing the rewards more broadly independent of school-ability.
4
Re: the “billions” spent on schools, what is the money spent on? Testing? I don’t think it’s public school teacher salaries.
It is vital to the future of our country: the young people must develop the skills to read carefully and think critically
12
@Jaina Selawski When I was in college, the "lowest performing" students were in the teaching programs. The courses were a joke. These are our teachers.
I tried to get a teaching job after my law degree, but I was "deemed" not qualified enough. All righty.
1
That might still be the case for elementary teachers, but most middle and high school teachers have a bachelor's degree in a subject area and then go back to get their teaching certifications.
At some point, throwing more and more money at the problem does no solve anything. How can we incentivize kids to learn? There are so many educational tools available and so many free resources. How many kids actually have a public library card from their home town. Libraries have books and computers and online material. These free resources are just a city bus ride, bike ride, or walk away from their homes. When I was a kid/teenager, I walked everywhere I needed to go because my parents were working during the day. I went to the library by myself many times to use the encyclopedias to complete reports during middle school.
2
@Lyn Robins We have to incentivize parents to prioritize learning for their children. This, of course, is nearly impossible to do directly. However, paying a truly liveable wage so that parents have the time and energy to spend with their children is a good start. I am confident that putting the minimum wage at $25 an hour would make so many of the social ills we face disappear.
There are several teachers in my family. How can a student perform, if his family is homeless? Or how can a student perform if she has six siblings and has to go home, cook, take care of them and be basically a parent rather than a child? There are lots of children in dire circumstances who attend public schools or have home situations which make them unable to learn. Another factor is that many schools are simply underfunded. There are not enough basic supplies to go around. Another plague is cell phones, many kids are simply addicted to them and they just aren’t able to focus on anything else. Also, many if not most kids simply don’t open up a book nowadays. This is why the outcomes the way they are. Until these issues are addressed, no fancy new standards or policies will help.
8
@Crow I went home after school, cooked for my entire family, did the dishes after the meal, supervised my brothers, and completed my own homework. Oh....I also worked a part time job on the weekends. My mother worked the 3pm to 11pm shift at the hospital while my father was out of town working his job.
I graduated in the top ten list of girls for my senior class. I now have 2 advanced degrees.
Where there is a will, there is a way.
Reliance on tech. Too quick to get away from the '3 Rs', the basics. Bowing down to parental pressures. Poor state funding, Inequity in funding. Too much paperwork. Too many rules.
It isn't rocket science for those early years. Yet, in grand American fashion, we look at education through the lenses of (1) profit, and (2) ego.
Most kids are not geniuses, and will be lucky to have jobs they enjoy that pay a living wage. And they should be raised to be happy with that.
But I'm sure many will disagree. More funding, more tech, more fuzzy math (5.0 GPA? hello?), and more All Children are Sensitive and Geniuses and should never be criticized.
Welcome to the New World.
8
@DKM I agree with you. Reading, writing, and math. Our grandparents knew whats up.
Our education paradigm is created by people with Doctor of Education degrees, who are well adapted to the testing model of education and were rewarded by that system.
We are not all fit for the school paradigm and we know this. I wasn't (having failed 8th grade and barely finished high school), my two brothers weren't (they both dropped out of high school), and so many other are not. Yet, all we hear is that this broken paradigm needs MORE MONEY to work properly. Education funding is the largest item in a state's budget, and they always blame lack of funding for poor results. Where is the honest self-evaluation of those running this system? Do they ever question the validity of the system? More is not better. We all need to take a deep breath and re prioritize things.
1
Hi all,
Forgive me, and this is likely way too simplistic, but it seems from my perspective that any education reform that does not address the funding discrepancies embedded in US education to be little more than playing games with pedagogy. When one town can spend 3-4 times or more (per student per year) than what the neighboring town can muster (and this is before the “bake sales” that can send the kids on expensive educational outings and buy laptops for all), any “improvements” in pedagogy are doomed to failure. The system is fatally flawed: it is ignoring the elephant in the room.
Our funding of school systems through property taxes is, without a doubt, one of the most unfair “accepted practices” that our country condones. Until we get the funding equalized (or close to it) and really commit to equality in educational opportunity rather than the lip service to date, I suspect all efforts to improve the education system in the US is doomed to failure and we will continue to be second (or third) rate compared to the countries that really excel in educating their children.
In hopes for the future, Richard Stevenson, Jr.
5
Stop trying to manufacture efficient economic production units, and focus on raising children that will become good people. Capitalism is destroying America.
12
I believe that part of the problem is technology. Before I retired, the cell phone addiction of my students was out of control, and administration did nothing to stop it. Also, there were endless computer programs trust on us that would supposedly work wonders. My job was to teach reading and writing (to juniors and seniors!!) and technology would do nothing to help me. The common core was a disaster. Literature was basically phased out, replaced with dull op-Ed essays that the kids had no knowledge or context to understand. Finally, there were the parents who only cared about their kid getting a D-. Parents don’t care, so the kids don’t care.
9
The country has a shrinking middle class and a huge number of children whose parents are illegal immigrants. The latter, for the most part, do not have educated parents and attend poor-performing schools. Without the education and skills necessary in an increasingly competitive economy, they will likely be reliant on social services and a drain on society for generations.
3
@Sharon Here we have a blame everything on immigrants solution. So according to this Trumpster, building a wall will solve all of our educational problems.
My parents were legal immigrants. I served in the US Army and went to college. My son is in his second year of college, has a job, and is serving in the Air National Guard.
But hey, let's blame it on the brown colored people.
You might be surprised to learn that most of by hardest working students were immigrants who were just learning English. My worst students? Many were children of means who got everything they wanted and just didn’t care.
1
Bound to happen. Standardized tests are one of the many tools in the tool box. A paradigm shift is needed.
IMO some shifts that i think are required but hard to sell.
1. Make teaching a preferred career path. One way is to pay teachers better. Put more money in teacher training and qualification.
2. Parents step up. Schools are not a replacement for home. Stop blaming schools and teachers.
3. Stop pushing STEM. We need people who know and think about the world beyond equations and coding.
4. Education is a collective responsibility. Raise taxes and increase allocation to education.
8
I think we can all agree this is a multi faceted problem with no simple solution.
I have not disagreed with any of the comments made that highlight problems that cause the decline. But no one has mentioned the prevalence, or more precisely, the predominance, of the "football culture". By this I mean, schools where football in the life of a student takes precedence over education in the life of a student.
It is just another example of wrong priorities in our society.
3
Americans don't read as much as other cultures do. I was a Realtor for 20 years. My observation is that most homes have NOTHING to read--no newspapers, magazines or books. There is a conspicuous absence of bookshelves. If there were books, they were popular fiction written on a 4th grade reading level. Culturally speaking, we have an illiterate public.
Common Core standards and measurements are more proof of declining rates, but at least now, we are all measuring the same things so we have a basis for discussion. Prior to Common Core standards, data was impossible because districts didn't agree on what to measure. There was no such thing as apples to apples comparisons.
We have lots of room for improvement. One item that may be of help is to have more teachers of color. Teachers should be paid more for serving in troubled school systems--perhapps loan forgiveness after a period of time as an incentive.
18
Retired elementary teacher here, we need a national movement called the grandparent brigade for those grandparents who live close to their grandchildren. I routine being ten books from the library to my grandson to read out loud. Since he was one years old to age three I read aloud thousands of books to him. His parents read aloud to him every night. The real obvious answer to these deficits is universal preschool, starting at age two. And smaller sizes of no more than 15 students in one class.
5
Learning is an activity that is embedded in society and culture, most particularly when the learner is a young child, the culture of her or his home. Imagine which activities receive the most prominence of place in most American homes (Are you ready for some football? or shopping? or YouTube gazing?), then ask yourself if you're at all surprised that learning in the US is far from what it should be.
4
@Richard
I agree. Learning is cultural more than socio economic. What is the culture of your home, your community. That is what influences children to seek out learning.
If you want better schools, work on changing the culture.
I used to hire people and saw firsthand how ill-prepared American students tend to be. We culturally don’t value education and it shows and IMHO Americans now have a terrible work ethic. Just throwing more money at this won’t fix it. We value football and soccer more than reading and writing.
4
I'm a grant writing consultant, who frequently works with school data across the US and American schools are mostly a disaster. The only people who don't seem to understand or care about this catastrophe are politicians, who focus on Ukraine, which I'm pretty sure <10% of students and maybe 20% of teacher could find on a map, and similar esoterica.
2
America is a huge, diverse Country.
Comparing our "average" to that of small/homogenous (Singapore- pop. 5 mil, Macau- pop. 600K, Hong Kong- pop. 7 mil, Estonia- pop. 1.5 mil, Canada- pop. 37 mil, Finland- pop. 6 mil, Ireland- pop. 5 mil) or the four homogeneous provinces of China Countries doesn't show much.
IF you want to compare American kids to other kids, average test scores is not a very good method.
3
Blame it, in part, on "Common Core" curricula, that is and creates jacks of all trades but masters of none. I can see the effects on my own kids.
1
"The performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000 .... the top quarter of American students have improved their performance on the exam since 2012, the bottom 10th percentile lost ground...."
So, the performance has not been stagnant.
6
I'm a retired teacher. The responses here, many written succinctly and eloquently by educators, suggest that if public education hadn't become a divisive political football these past three decades and suffered "death by a thousand cuts," perhaps education in America wouldn't be in the sorry state it's in. And as teachers, if we'd been allowed to do the jobs we'd been trained to do, if our voices warning of societal problems had been addressed, if we hadn't been increasingly blamed, vilified, and shackled by those with agendas counter to good education ... well ... you can see where I'm going. These past thirty years the focus of education in America hasn't been about learning. And now you have the result of these decades of schooling. Not so great, is it?
9
Children's attitudes towards learning begin and end at home. Period. Full stop. Without first changing the home life of many students, billions are simply wasted. To use an analogy, it is far easier, for all involved, for a car to go up a hill with it's engines roaring and a full tank of gas, than it is to be towed up hill with the engines off, tires flat, and handbrake engaged. Parents are the spark plugs in the engine of children's minds.
12
How can students focus and learn when their parents have no time for them, are not sure if they can keep the electricity on, and are struggling to feed them? Beyond that, the time you spend with your children must include reading every day. From the time they are born until they are well into grade school, read to them as much as you can. Children need to hear about 21,000 words per day, so be with them, read to them, and talk with them. Encourage their curiosity and answer their questions. Get them off their devices and doing activities and enjoying the real world. Play at a park, ride a bike, and don't let the internet be your child's primary activity.
2
I taught high school English, in schools across the country, for almost forty years. Here is what I know:
Kids who love to read, and have a habit of avid reading, do well. These kids also write grammatically and fluently, and tend to do well in math. A love of reading is the key difference between high-achieving students and mediocre or poor students.
The question should be: how do we install a love of reading in our children? By making them learn useless facts for state tests, like the difference between a fable and myth? That question is really on state tests. By making every child in a classroom read the same book, even though most of the children actively dislike it? By making kids memorize vocabulary words and do worksheets? No, no, and no. What then?
We can start by flooding our schools with kid-friendly books, and by giving all students at least a couple of hours every day to sit and read books of their own choosing.
6
My son just entered high school this year. I was not particularly satisfied with his grade school education despite the fact that he was in G&T classes at a fairly high performing NYC public school.
First of all, the common core math seemed so convoluted that I, a physician, had a great deal of trouble deciphering what was wanted. To this day, I have PTSD about "grapes". Then, there was the "creative" spelling and being told in 3rd grade that it was unnecessary to memorize the multiplication table. Meanwhile, my wife, a high school science teacher, endlessly complains that her students do not have a foundation in the basics.
For some reason, we have moved away from the basics. I think that it has to do with trying to teach creativity and leadership or some such nonsense, coupled with the idea that any child can do anything. I firmly believe that leadership and creativity, in most instances, comes later, after a mastery of the basics. You have to have some fund of knowledge in order to draw upon it to "create". Second, not everyone can accomplish anything. As a society, we need to take care of everyone, but that does not mean that we dumb things down so much that everyone always passes.
In a couple of years, we will no longer have to worry about the Chinese stealing our intellectual property. There won't be any to steal.
11
Referring to Washington, D.C. as proof of impressive performance gains overlooks the fact that per capita income in D.C. increased by 1/3 from 2005 to 2017 even as income in the United States overall was about the same at the beginning and end of the period. In 2005, income in D.C. was about the same as the national average. Now it is over $22,000 greater, so it's unsurprising test scores are higher. The tendency to pick out small nations to compare to the United States is similarly misleading. Among those nations ahead of the U.S. are small ethnically Chinese island nations like Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong, plus Finland, the Baltics, and a few relatively wealthy regions in China. What we're doing wrong is similar to Great Britain. To suggest as the Secretary of Education did, that this is just about parental reading and public vs. private or charter schools is false. We do need to get back to the basics, to qualify teachers based on academically rigorous majors, rather than education degrees, to have students reading books, not isolated, random passages with multiple choice questions, and to get students off of devices so that they are reading, writing, doing math, and in general exercising their creativity.
2
Parents should read to their children every day beginning from the time they are in the womb. However, this does not happen because some people simply are not readers, and these people become parents, and the cycle continues. I did not come from a family culture of reading (my parents never read to me), but thankfully my wife did. Our two children are very strong readers and have a love of reading (I read perhaps 15-20 books a year, but I do not have the love of reading that my wife and children do).
I think e-readers have a LOT to do with it. I know numbers of avid readers, but they now read on their phones and other devices, so their kids don't see (know) their parents reading but, rather, just staring at a device screen, doing any number of things those devices do.
Let your kids see you reading a physical book, newspaper, magazine, trade publication; not just holding your phone or tablet.
1
This country did well many decades ago because the emphasis was on learning the basics in reading and math. If you never learn the basics, then everything else is a struggle and trying to get by.
Students will never understand Civics or History if very little time is spent on reading. Everything is rush, rush, rush in school and outsourcing learning to homework.
When I went to school, we had little homework and studying. When my son went through school, I saw him spend hours with homework and studying. This was a common complaint from other parents.
We need to throw out some of the non-essential classes and extend the amount of days kids spend in school.
We need to stop voting in politicians that are more concerned with funding the bank accounts for the rich via tax cuts and vote in representatives that will fund our schools and teacher pay so that our country will right itself instead of decaying itself into another third world country.
3
At its core, American society doesn’t truly value academics. Throw/catch/kick a ball etc, then, sure your efforts will be appreciated. Efforts on the field or the court are easily recognized and appreciated. Who’s ever received a tumultuous “attaboy” when leaving the library late at night?
Intellectual pursuits are difficult and too few see them as a way to improve their lives in the long run.
4
“...a tumultuous ‘attaboy’...” That sentence just made my day. Agree with this observation wholeheartedly. We live in a culture that fawns over “athletes” and showers misogynistic, murderous musicians with money. Intellectual achievement is portrayed as the domain of life’s losers. I have two children in high school. Teenagers today aspire to fame, celebrity, consuming luxury brands, social media notoriety, and other vapid markers of achievement. Schools enable their inability to think by spoon-feeding them every sentence and teaching to the test. It’s a downward spiral toward a population unfit for anything but gazing at a screen.
As a teacher who has worked in both public and private schools, I can tell you that not only would more frequent ability grouping help narrow the gap, but smaller class sizes would make a huge difference. How do you know what every student needs when you're a secondary teacher who serves more than 150 students per day, seeing each for a grand total of 50-60 minutes per day? You could go days without hearing from, or speaking to, any number of them.
I currently work in a private middle school where I have an average of 18 students per class. I know what their interests are, what might appeal to them as readers, and I have the freedom to develop meaningful and engaging curriculum.
I left public education because the demands were too high and the resources for the neediest students were insufficient.
22
All the kids I went to school with 60 years ago were the children of
parents who were focused on education. Academics in school was #1, athletics wasn't even on the graph. Most of them went on to graduate school.
Today's parents are focused on economic survival, and their kids are focused on their iPhones. Most of them will wind up sitting in front of computer screens in some "gig" job.
So much for America.
13
It would help enormously if we 1) closed the gaps in resources and 2) paid attention to developmental learning research instead of testing testing testing and pushing inappropriate levels of work to younger years of age.
4
My 50 year-old sister got her teaching certificate, but no school would hire her. She could only find work as a substitute and she was a wonderful, engaged teacher. Instead the schools hired 22 year-old recent graduates who I guarantee had a long learning curve ahead of them before they reached my sister’s caliber.
12
I was part of the generation that took the NY State tests before and after the Common Core was implemented. The switch was too abrupt - the teachers did not understand the new methods and neither did we. In my experience, the problem lay with many of my teachers - my classes in a small Catholic school consisted of students taking turns reading the textbook out loud, and then silent problem-solving time. Many problems do lie in school segregation, inadequate funding, etc., but teaching quality plays a huge role, too.
3
The kids who do well on the standardized tests are merely good at taking tests and that is usually tied to their family's value system: testing is the litmus test for success in academia.
In my community (usually no. 1 school system in the state w the ranking being the highest test scores), I hear parents talking about their now 20 something children who were "the best students with the highest test scores" and are now bemoaning their inability to cope with Real Life.
Every child left behind.
6
With 2 public school teachers in my immediate family, I have a ringside seat to the frustrations they face on a daily basis. While teachers, department heads and administrators are more qualified now than they have ever been, they are hamstrung by rigid (but ever changing) curriculums, constant testing, and litigation wary administrators.
Per student costs in public education are approaching (and in many cases surpassing) $20,000/year but most of that money goes to meet legal mandates and not to serving the majority of student's needs. As others have noted, the gifted students will find a way to excel even though enriched programs and the arts are underfunded. But the majority of students that will need to make a living in tomorrow's economy are not well served by the current system.
The answer is not ever evolving standards and more testing. Rather we need to unleash the talent of teachers to dynamically adapt their methods and curriculum to the needs of their students.
9
Agree, I'm in my 24th year as a high school history teacher. It's vastly different than when I started. Levelling is gone so unless a student is AP level they are all crammed in "college prep" classes which are watered down so everyone can pass. Just "differentiate" for the range of abilities in one class regardless of language ability, special education statues, etc. My AP courses are flooded with many students fleeing the mainstream courses so those classes are now quite different than before.
We are now pushed relentlessly by so called "educational experts" to focus on the whole child and their needs and learning preferences. It's laughable how every flavor of the month in American educational scholarship is pressed down into the schools as the next silver bullet. Leave me alone and let me teach. I'm actually pretty good at it and my kids do well.
28
Yes! Why do people think that cramming all levels of students in one class is possible? A teacher may be capable of creating 4 or 6 lessons but is there time available with only one planning period. They always say, ‘fast, cheap, or quality, pick two’. With education they are picking cheap by not adding resources (more teachers, more planning periods for teachers, more aides) and fast (jam all levels of students into the same classroom and teach to the test so that the bottom half get up to standard while ignoring the rest) Maybe if 1/2 to 3/4 of the work day was planning periods, then someone could create quality lessons for 6 different levels in ones class.
1
Many students read (make the sounds of the words) but do not comprehend what they are reading. When they are asked to explain what they read, they are unable to do so.
Many students do not know how or why reading matters.
When they are told that reading is important no one explains why it is important ( the ability to learn independently.)
I wonder how many educators explain this to students. Some students now say they can just watch YouTube. Can we show them they are wrong? Google doesn't want us too.
3
According to this article, one aspect of the reading portion of the PISA test is distinguishing between fact and opinion. If 15-year-olds did not do well in this task, I feel disheartened about the next generation of voters. On the other hand, many adults are challenged by this task.
8
One issue could be summer break. Why do our kids take so much time off for summer? Kids who go to school for the entire year (most Asian countries) must be at an advantage over our American kids. It would help the parents, and set a standard of education first.
8
Year round school with two weeks around Christmas and New Year, two weeks in spring, two weeks in fall, four weeks in summer, a week at thanksgiving, etc. Then, also have schools open 7 am to 7 pm with block scheduling so that some kids could start later, leave earlier, or have a break in the middle of the day if they wanted, or they could stay all day. Have breakfast, lunch, dinners and snacks available at school. Have PE, art, music, study skills and organization class, sports, as well as academic subject classes every day. Half day school on Saturday (copying France). Wealthier children have a version of this organized and paid for by parents. If similar results are wanted from all children, offer the opportunities in public school. Yes, a lot more staff to hire and train, but creating good full time jobs with benefits and retirement in communities isn’t a bad thing. At the same school time, give teachers more planning periods during school hours as in Finland.
Maybe I've read a little too much Marx over the years but I'll say it anyway. Globe-spanning empires require a poorly educated underclass. This was true of the British, the French, the Romans.
Ask yourself why other first world nations do better and the answer is clear. None of them are running an empire. They need educated people to participate in the economy. The US needs cannon fodder.
30
Teachers can only do so much. True learning must be valued at home. That may mean parents themselves have to look away from screens, truly engage with their kids, pick up a book, have real conversations. Too busy so many would say, but it's about priorities.
*About a fifth of American 15-year-olds scored so low on the PISA test that it appeared they had not mastered reading skills expected of a 10-year-old.*
I'd like to see their Fortnite scores.
16
The biggest problem we are having with children in schools isn't just the schools but the homes.
Kids return from school to empty homes. The homes are empty because both parents are working and aren't there to instill a structured environment for homework and studying. The homes are also empty because there is only one parent and usually it is the mother working and trying to be a parent at the same time.
Stagnant wages and rising medical costs are forcing parents to work longer hours or second jobs.
We also have a father problem in this country. I am talking about males that believe it is the mother's sole responsibility to raise kids. I am also talking about males that live in the same households as their kids. These "fathers" are the males that know everything there is about NFL football teams but have ZERO knowledge about what is going on with their children in school.
We need to pay teachers extremely high wages to attract more people to this profession then only retain the best.
12
Dana Goldstein reports, "There is no consensus on why the performance of struggling students is declining." That's because she is asking the wrong people. She is asking people responsible for this debacle.
There are serious students of education out there who have described and predicted this debacle, for years. Talk to them!
Of the many possible names, two are noticeably absent from this article: Sandra Stotsky and R. James Milgram.
4
The miracle here is that the performance numbers are only stagnant and not falling. Every year we move farther from demanding mastery of the building blocks of learning. As an educator, I'm disheartened to hear not only students, parents, and government officials but even fellow educators talk about making education "relevant" by which they mean developing a specific vocational skill connected to a specific job title. The abilities to read, write, think, argue, convince, and calculate take commitment, repetition, and effort analogous to lifting weights. And just as a strong and healthy body can do most any work, a mind that can manage numbers and words can learn most any career.
11
One serious problem is tracking for college admissions alongside the increase in AP classes. Kids who are bound for college feel an obligation to take all honors and AP courses, leaving the standard level classes (ironically named "college prep" here) filled with students who have little intention of going to college.
Having a class with 30 kids who are not academically motivated (15 of whom often have IEPs and 504s) creates a complacency spiral. The kids are almost all way behind grade level, so they think it's normal to be unable to read. In their group mindset, the books that have been standard for 200 years are too hard. Meanwhile, the "AP" class is full of motivated kids way too busy to do the homework, so they also fail to meet the standard.
My solution? More high-interest books in the younger grades. Instill a love of reading and give them time to dive in for a long read. Lord knows they aren't reading at home.
5
A renewed focus on classroom instruction. What a novel idea to have teachers actually teaching. The billions of dollars on stupid tests would have been much better spent on teacher salaries and school facilities, including free breakfasts and lunches.
2
And don’t forget the money schools spend on technolgy- i.e. Google and their Chromebooks. I wonder if someone’s actually going to ask them why their so called miracle in education didn’t help the scores. Back to basics! Stop pushing little kids learn things they are congnitivelly not ready to learn. Learning takes time and practice, our curriculum is filled with so many skills that kids are introduced to new things every week. They are expected to learn something in a couple of days and move on. I remember when I was in high school we practiced the same math skill for months. We practiced problem solving, we actually used our common sense. Stop making teachers try a new way of teaching every year. Majority of them know what they are doing, leave them alone.
There are many reasons for the low scores, but in some areas, immigrant kids miss the basics. What if you were new to this country, and there was no English spoken in your home? You go to school and are expected to learn our language as well as the academic material presented by the teacher. How would we like to be dumped into China's school system and asked to complete tasks that we don't understand, read vocabulary that we have never encountered? Children (of any age) who have a poor grasp of English should be placed in a special language class for several months before they are thrust into regular classrooms.
2
I have worked in high schools for over 22 years. Our kids are as bright as any kids in the world, and what's more, they are creative, independent thinkers. The problem in education is the problem in our culture: stress and trauma, and strained families. It's not just poor families who are stressed, anxious, and traumatized. Divorce, job loss, substance abuse, violence in the home, financial strain, are not just low-income problems. Until we put our money where out mouth is and actually support families, our lowest performers will never catch up.
As a parent, it has become increasingly obvious to me that the education system in the US still assumes that families operate as they did 50 years ago. It seems my child's school expects that there is a parent at home at all times, with nothing else to do but work with the school. What is expected of me as a mother from my child's school is shocking, and I am lucky: I have school hours, I can meet the challenge. But the time, expense, and effort it takes to help a child succeed at school is astonishing. From a 750 dollar overnight field trip, to fees for after school sports and activities, to renting instruments, leasing computers, helping with copious amounts of homework and projects, requests for volunteering, fundraising, chaperoning, sending in supplies, etc. It's no wonder families where both parents are working full time buckle under the expectations.
16
We are the nation that elected Donald Trump. Our declining educational values are reflected in the leader chosen by nearly half of our voting constituency. Not at all surprised by by these findings.
20
I can't say I'm surprised, as the major drivers of low educational achievement (or any achievement at all) have not been addressed. If the US wants to improve how our kids are taught, and how well they learn, the following needs to happen:
1.) to attract and retain excellent teachers, salaries must go up exponentially, and (equally difficult), teachers must be respected both inside and outside the classroom.
2.) get rid of high stakes testing, which deadens the brain.
3.) get rid of electronics in the classroom, which also deadens the brain. This isn't technophobia. Study after study has shown that taking notes by hand improves learning; taking notes on a laptop doesn't.
4.) Read. Have students read for one hour a day. Have them read something substantive, either fiction or nonfiction, and let them use books, not tablets. Then, have them discuss the reading and write an essay.
5.) Ban all phones from the classroom.
6
One of my students recently was surprised when the bell rang to indicate the end of class. She thinks the time flies there, primarily because I don’t let my students access their phones unless it benefits a class activity.
2