Posted on 09/26/2025 5:25:44 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Much of America’s youth is in free fall, with the only question being why. On every metric, our kids lag behind the world, are abysmally unhappy and unprepared for a life that’s less kind and forgiving than it was fifty years ago. It didn’t happen by accident, and the divided nature of our country means we are unprepared to make necessary changes. Our society tolerates confrontation and excuses, always finding superficial reasons why Johnny can’t read, and why everyone’s so angry. It’s certainly not about money; we spend more per pupil than anyone else.
SNIP
During COVID, roughly 31% of students were chronically absent (missing ≥10% of school days). In 2022-2023, the rate dipped slightly to 28%, but that’s still 75% higher than pre-pandemic levels. In the 2023-2024 academic year, long after COVID’s lockdowns ended, approximately 27.4% of students were still absent.
But that’s just the start of the problem; if Johnny isn’t in school, he can’t learn. But what about when he’s physically in school? What are the underlying dynamics that prevent our young from having a fighting chance to obtain essential skills that are a requirement for living a good life?
It takes three things to take a young person and grow him into a scholar. A scholar must learn to think critically, read, write, and be both emotionally and logically prepared to live in the real world. That young person must eventually (with the help of loving parents) decide which direction to strike out into, whether it be a specific trade or higher skills requiring college or university. Treading water jobs that used to be transitional are now becoming permanent, stymying growth for millions because their schools failed them, and too often, their distracted parents as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I think what you're saying is at least partly true. Judging, however, from the young adults I see in church, including the ones who've come through the financial small group I every now and then lead, I see a kind of schism among young people.
The ones who come from married parent families who seem to be devoted to God and volunteering in church tend to be the kids who have their heads on straight and come to the financial group wanting to be good stewards with the money they're making. This is unlike the young adults coming through the group asking how to dig themselves out of the financial hole they're in, often asking how to sign up for freebies from the govt. My church is about 2/3rds black and in a low income area. But there are married middle class blacks who attend church there too, in part to be an example (the main reason I attend there). And it seems to be having an impact on the young adults who grew up in single-parent households. Some of those kids have grown up deciding to be married before having kids and also be wiser about career planning, to be like the successful blacks they've seen in church.
So I see this schism among blacks as well -- the kids growing up in two-parent households who volunteer in church as much as I do tend to be the ones who have their heads on straight with pursuing valuable careers and not running up tons of debt hoping it'll magically disappear one day. Those "kids" who are single don't have kids yet, with the young men sometimes coming through the group years later married and wanting his wife to know how to handle money too ... BEFORE THEY HAVE KIDS. Seeing some of them grow up I've told them over and over and over that I'm very proud of them. I see it in white young adults too.
But again, those are the young adults who come from families full of loving God and loving others, especially their kids. Hopefully that'll keep spilling over into the other kids who don't come from those families, but want to one day be the parent in families like that.
Gee? Really?
Of course they are.
We were told this very thing would happen, by the lead Commie, himself, decades ago.
And, we were also told they would usher in our ‘replacements’. The UN has even written a nice book about it.
🙃
“Kids are innately curious . . .” But what about the teachers-degrees in education not the field they teach.
With some exceptions education majors are at the bottom quartiles on SAT, ACT exams etc. and imbued with social justice and political correctness prattle.
Carlin was brilliant. And right about many, many things, the Big Club included.
Hmmm. Maybe you have humility? It is a phenomenon that perhaps you aren't familiar with, but believe me, it happens. Many many parents don't respect their children and it will come back to hurt them in their "golden" years.
Of course. And brainwashed.
Some kids, those whose parents actually give a damn about their children, are exempt. They are home schooled or go to parochial or private school or, somewhat less effectively, to charter schools. My daughter and son-in-law homeschool there three boys on a rather less than median single income. They stay out of debt and the boys, (ages 5-13) are so far ahead of their public school peers that it would be insane to subject them to entry into the public schools at any level. Of course they have no access to electronic screens. The oldest has phone conversations a couple of times a week with an aeronautical engineer who has taken on the role of mentor. He is also teaching himself calculus fom actual books with pages.
Just noticing???!
I concur. I do know some teachers who went into education because they love kids and wanted to make a difference and be part missionary in a worldly-defined field. Including a friend who was an electrical engineer who retired early from that field to teach math in high school and be better at it than his math teachers were. But I also know some teachers who said they went to college to be an engineer or programmer or such and decided that field was too hard. Thus they changed majors to education because it was easier to get that degree.
Sensual Depravity has Ensared
the morally bankrupt.
Perhaps he is relating personal experience with his own parents. There are such., all the ones I know, though, crave to see their children do better and know more than heir parents. “She/he is so smart, I don’t know where he/she gets it!” proudly spoken.
There's another part of human nature that desires freedom. But it is a freedom to do the right thing. Parents set the better parameters for kids to be at liberty to flourish.
Good results related to other public schools. Mediocre, at best when compared to home schooling amd most parochial schooling and some private and charter schooling.
I also know college students who switched from majors such as accounting, finance, and economics because of the analytical thinking required and majored in education.
At least for grades 9-12 and probably 7-12, teacher should be required to major and/or minor in the field(s) their teaching and then if required to do so, do a fifth year of education courses and student teaching. I add the fifth year because of state license requirements.
Common Core Math
Thank you Randi Weingarten.
Correction: They can’t stand it when their kids are smarter than they are. Your grammar would suggest that you speak from experience.
When I was a student teacher in a predominantly Black urban school, I was told by the principal, a Black woman, to pass kids who never turned in an assignment and turned in blank test sheets. She said they aren’t going to change; we just need them out of the building. They don’t want to be here. Don’t waste your time. That was the policy of the school system. That was in 1975.
Your point of view is similar to my thinking.
A dumb kid is in essence a reflection of their parents, and no parent really wants that.
Both our kids are quite smart, and I was once told they inherited it. Thus having a smart kid is a pat on the back.
My late wife was a teacher back then, so we had access to the NEA newsletter every month. They were already doing the woke, splitting people into groups thing. At their national convention they already had caucuses for groups like Pacific Islander, Central American Hispanic/Indian, Caribbean Hispanic/Black etc., and they would then break those groups down further to lesbian, gay, or heterosexual women or men. My wife and I used to joke that they would soon have groups made up of only one person.
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