AP students were coming to me unable to correctly calculate percentages, and typical mid-level biology students had reading proficiency that severely impaired their ability to extract meaning from any written materials. This isn't a poor inner-city school. It's a middle to upper-middle class parochial school setting. These kids are being failed by our current educational process, and it isn't just a Common Core problem.
Talking to veteran teachers, many have told me that this decay in basic skills became evident to them as students began carrying smart phones. Students spend very little time reading more complex text, and their sustained attention to reading or other tasks has dropped dramatically. There is also a lot of cheating in this digital world. Homework is photographed and sent around, answer keys for all published material is at students' fingertips, and essays on just about any topic can be found online. We are compelled by our system to give all of our students a minimum quarterly grade. This masks much of the deterioration in basic skills. We 'old-timers' are appalled and very concerned for these young people. The strongest among them are still very good, but the average and below average students are learning very little in their 13 years of schooling.
Returning to the McGuffy Readers would help.
But the real problem lies in the fact that the teachers really don’t understand their subject matter but do know how to write a lesson plan.
Most high school and many college graduates can not pass the 8th grade Nebraska final exam.
Eliminating federal & state control over education would help.
I used to interview students applying to Harvard and Cal Tech and was amazed to see the deterioration of basic communication skills in the talented studies over the years.
When teachers really don’t know their subject ... it does not help.
But the teachers are accredited by the state ...