Posted on 02/27/2007 8:30:38 AM PST by Reagan Fellow
The U.S. Department of Education released 12th grade NAEP scores last week and the results are discouraging.
Reading scores of 12th grade students have declined significantly since 1992. The percentage of high school seniors scoring “below basic” in reading increased from 20 to 27 percent between 1992 and 2005. During the same period, high school seniors scoring “proficient” in reading dropped 14 percent.
Separately, the Department released a study showing that since 1990, high school grade point averages are up across the country. Also, the percentage of students taking “college-prep” classes climbed from 40 to 68 percent. In addition, 12th graders in 2005 averaged 360 more hours of classroom instruction than their 1990 counterparts.
Despite all of that, the Class of 2005 performed worse on the NAEP than students in the early ‘90s. I’d like to remind you that Bill and Ted were students during that time…
Although the Department of Education did not mention it, inflation adjusted per pupil spending increased more than 20 percent between 1990 and 2002. It has increased even further since then.
As another famous Bill once said, it’s time for a change.
Here is yet another example of "grade inflation". When I went to school, I was never considered "gifted". I was "merely" very good at math (and various other subjects). Good enough to score an 800 on the SAT Math section. (That's the highest possible score, for those of you unfamiliar with the test.)
I can guarantee that your "gifted (in math)" child will never score an 800 on the SAT Math, unless she becomes proficient in arithmatic.
Our society needs to get away from awarding imaginary attributes to children, and start educating them again.
I have known a lot of people who are very good at math, and every one was also very good at arithmetic, and had been since an early age.
Also, if you really have "gifted" kids, they should read a few hundred books before they finish high school. SAT Verbal reasoning skills have declined even more than SAT Math skills in the last 35 years, and those are developed mostly by extensive reading of well edited material.
One shelf?
Testing shows that difference. Whatever dealing there is lies beyond the purpose of tests. What to do about 'high blood pressure' is not the purpose of the test.
Yes, children may have it hard if their parents [parent] are not learning role models or have split up. I doubt tests or educators can be of much help. I don't think it would be socially acceptable to put them in different schools for different education. Sort of separate but unequal.
Because they're dumbed down. A 85% is now an A in some schools. Used to be a B- or C+.
The purpose of testing is flatly stated as being to identify and deal with "failing" schools, and to reward "good" schools.
Which conveniently ignores the fact that the test-fodder (i.e., kids) have different achievement levels for reasons other than what the schools are providing.
Yes but who am I gonna sue?
Exactly. My point is... if she naturally catches on to math easily (but has not been doing math for three years because her book and teacher require that a calculator be required for every step) then what about the kids who struggle in math? Reform math is putting them at an enormous disadvantage.
Bookcase. My bad.
That's a little better. Actually I have three bookcases full of what I should have read in school if the school knew what to read, but the school didn't demand it. I am actually working my way through it now that I am retired and have time. All that reading doesn't actually mean much except that when someone says Marcel and Albertine I have some idea what is going on.
If she were my child, I would be drilling her on standard arithmetic algorithms, until she had it all down cold. It would be helpful to come up with some sort of incentive for good performance.
The thing that school teachers don't understand is that people who work with math, professionally (i.e. engineers, actuaries, accountants, scientists), do many calculations in their heads. You don't always have a calculator handy.
It has been many years since I took the SAT, but calculators were not allowed when I took it, and I doubt if they are allowed now. Besides there are many problems that will simply take too long to solve, if it all has to be punched into a calculator.
Because the "A" I used to get in the 50's would peg off the meter today.
The "D" that occured in my high school would be an "A" today.
Kids are getting much higher scores for their work than they deserve.
Doing a total disservice to everybody in this matter.
As an employer, if you present me with a resume that tells me you got these kinds of grades in today's "schools", and then I find you cannot perform the job worth a darn, I will fire your butt faster than you can start your fancy car.
I am still in school. I am also not a typical college student who needs the money when the semester is over. Are you one of those college professors that doesn't require your students to read?
No, I expect my students to read. However, I teach Engineering, so the reading requirements in my courses are somewhat different from those of a literature or humanities course.
What I have noticed is that many college students are not well read. They will read if they have to, but almost never for pleasure.
The real problem is that to master a twelfth-grade curriculum (a real one) you need an IQ of 95 or above, and if your IQ is 95-105 you will have to work like a dog for it.
Many, many present high school inmates have IQs under 95. Prior to the 1970s, they could leave. Now, they have to stay, with failure in their faces every damn day.
Some of them internalize and get depressed, but many, especially males, act out.
It is completely and totally irrational to mix the below-average students, except perhaps the top quartile of that group, with students who are going to graduate.
But that's our national "education" policy.
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