Posted on 11/01/2019 5:03:33 AM PDT by Kaslin
The downward spiral of learning in American K-12 public schools continues. Does anybody care? Where’s the outrage, headlines, or breaking news? Congress and Big Media are too preoccupied with the impeachment scam in Washington D.C., to notice a real crisis in America. Our fourth and eighth-grade kids can’t read, and they are struggling to subtract a two-digit number from a three-digit number to come up with the correct answer.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also referred to as the Nation’s Report Card, fourth-graders are the only ones to make a statistical gain and by only 1 point in math. Lest you see the light at the end of the tunnel by this increase in math, let me advise you that it is an oncoming train. That gain produces a score of 241. That’s out of a possible score of 500 — big deal.
But don’t take my word for it. Peggy Carr, the associate commissioner for the National Center for Education Statistics, said, “over the past decade there has been no progress in math or reading scores.” She further noted that “we see lower-achieving students made score declines in all of the assessments.” Read lower-achieving students to mean black and Hispanic kids. The president of the Thomas B. Fordham education think tank called the outcomes, “disappointing.” I call them abysmal and predictable. They blamed the declines on the recession and cuts in education spending. Folks, that’s what I call a swing and a miss.
In my home state of Wisconsin, state-mandated test scores were just as dreadful showing that “fewer than half of Wisconsin students are scoring high enough on state tests to be considered proficient in math and reading.” The achievement gap between white and black students continues to widen as well; all of this is occurring while education spending in the state continues to go up.
The educational system is so horrendous in Detroit that a former public high school graduate has sued his previously attended district for failing to educate him to a point he couldn’t pass any of the courses at his community college. He called attending high school a “big waste of time.” He recalled in his 11th and 12th grade English classes that students were given material to learn that was marked for third or fourth graders. Long-term substitute teachers also failed to teach, showing movies instead. The lawsuit included an eighth grader who, after his teacher quit, had taught math to his classmates for a month. Stories like this describe most large urban school districts attended by black and brown students across America. Sadly, there is very little uproar.
These horrible scores are reflected internationally, too, as the U.S. continues to slide in comparison to 15-year-old students of other nations. Accordingly, the U.S. ranks 35th in math, 25th in science, and 24th in reading. Singapore leads all countries in each category. Hong Kong follows. I doubt that these nations spend on education per pupil what the U.S. does. Asian culture might play a role here too. I know that will rub some liberal apologists the wrong way, but too bad. I care about our kids' prospects to reach their God-given potential.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, we spend $648 billion a year on education. We are getting nearly no return on our investment. Yet, all we ever hear from school officials and education advocates is that we need to increase school spending. Why? So we can produce more kids who cannot read? Kids who can’t read and are uneducated end up living life at the bottom. They live in poverty and in need of government welfare services to survive. They are more likely to engage in criminal behavior and make other poor lifestyle choices like dropping out of school, fathering kids they can’t support, becoming involved in gangs, or abusing drugs. I thought that the millions spent on Head Start, K4, and now K3 kindergarten was supposed to bridge the divide between black kids and their white counterparts. The test scores aren’t showing it. Why are we still funding these programs?
Recently, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced a new non-profit initiative to fight poverty. Here we go again. After over 50 years of the War on Poverty that saw taxpayers spend $22 trillion on anti-poverty programs, poverty increased. Yes, increased. Note to Paul Ryan: Unless a kid has a great cross-over dribble or can run a 4.4 40-yard dash and become a professional athlete, the best anti-poverty program is an education. It will equip people to thrive in a knowledge-based economy. That will lead to gainful employment. Instead, he’ll raise millions from foundations to finance white papers that will suggest more of the same like increases in education spending they now call “investments” and think tank-suggested experiments on new approaches to teaching. Federal grant money will also be sought for this junk.
My suggestion is the K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid) approach. Teach these kids to read, write, add, subtract, multiply, and divide at the appropriate grade level and make parents step up to fulfill their responsibility and role in the education of their kids. Stop letting school boards dumb down the curriculum that fills kids' heads with useless social justice nonsense and expect more from our kids. These school board social justice activists are no different than Nancy Pelosi or that creep Adam Schiff, or the rest of the like-minded members of Congress and Big Media, who are so obsessed over impeaching the president that they're clueless to the world around them. Or do they not care?
Another Reason to Homeschool
Please do not forget that Bush allowed Teddy Kennedy to have control over what the “No Child Left Behind” initiative became. Bush was genuinely trying to reach across the aisle, and this was the result.
log = long
“they are struggling to subtract a two-digit number from a three-digit number to come up with the correct answer.”
They are taught to use a picture of blocks, hashes and spots to do subtraction. This strategy almost always fails as they do it.
I quickly teach them “borrowing” mechanics, and they get the right answer.
Thanks Common Core.
What is DeVos doing, that is a great question.
I don’t know the answer to that question but I think I will do some research on it.
This is being reported now so as to show the decline under Trump’s administration. Everything was great during the Obama years. If Hilllary had been elected in 2016 the reporting on this would be different.
If people believed this, they might not be able to continue to send their kids to public school. And then they’d have to sacrifice one career to homeschool, or a heap of money to private school.
So it’s far more convenient not to believe how poorly educated the kids are.
As for De Vos, she took a job that should not exist.
Because they probably do not speak English at home. When our son was born in 1963 I made sure to speak English with him instead of German which is my natural language.
That is your opinion nubie and you are wrong, wrong, wrong W R O N G
You have a responsibility to know the bias of your School Board whether you have kids in school or not!
When the Left took over the educational system, their overriding goal was to turn the nations children into anti-capitalism socialists. They have been very successful. Education was secondary to indoctrination. As each generation grows up and teaches the next generation, they become more extreme in their anti-conservative teaching, and less interested in teaching basic educational skills. The Left is ok with that.
The only way for outcomes of K-12 to be equal is for everyone to be equally stupid.
This was the fatal flaw of Kennedy/Bush ‘No Child Left Behind’ which had the ultimate goal of having every kid reach ‘proficiency’. And they meant every kid. Rich, poor, native Spanish speaker, special ed kids—every single kid. It was absurd. The only ways to meet the standard was to either cheat, or lower the standard to an absurd level. Both methods were used.
Common Core goes on the assumption that the problem with the schools is that teachers just aren’t teaching the right stuff the right way. If only they would that, then every child would be able achieve success in school. But of course the idea is based on a lie—that we are all blessed with the same abilities.
Everyone knows that there are some people who are brilliant, some who are average when it comes to smarts and some who are really, really dumb. Educators are not allowed to acknowledge this. If the whole educational establishment is based on an absurdity, why is anyone surprised that it is not actually working?
Baltimore and other demonrat strongholds have graduates who can’t pass 2nd grade reading and math. Everywhere else also teaches to the lowest common denominator. We have relatives in East Texas who have put their kids in private school this year because their public school wasn’t teaching history before the almighty Clintons.
“There is very little the Federal Government is going to do about education. Education is a state and local issue. Shoveling money at it from DC is not going work.”
I guess I’m misunderstood. To clarify:
The fed gov has injected much into ed (Title IX, NCLB, Common Core, etc.) that has NOT been beneficial.
I’m for ENDING money from DC, and the strings attached (formal quid pro quo). Fed now provides 8% of ed funding, with a lot of strings attached.
That’s nothing. Uber lib Austin, TX schools just instituted new sex ed curriculum to include teaching oral and anal sex to little 3rd grade elementary kids.
https://texasscorecard.com/local/austins-school-district-approves-high-risk-sex-ed-curriculum/ “The district’s new curriculum includes role-playing scenarios for children that involve anal and oral sex and features a situation where an underage girl has a sexual relationship with a 17-year old that she hides from her parents.”
“Think your School Board Elections are “non-partisan”?“
Oh hell no! It’s unionists and D’rats vs. conservatives and Christians (nose-holding R’s).
NCLB was during Bush, and got mangled by the House, lefticized.
Common Core was in 2010, during The One.
They get free days to go protest aka sit home and play video games, do drugs or have sex while their parent/s are at work. Leander and Round Rock, TX schools were petitioning to get today off because the kids would be soooo tired after trick or treating and eating too much candy. Any excuse not to learn.
2009/10 was when our TX school district suddenly had a huge influx of illegals. Who was POTUS then?
“Leander and Round Rock, TX schools were petitioning to get today off because the kids would be soooo tired after trick or treating and eating too much candy. Any excuse not to learn.”
Rather, any opportunity for teachers not to teach.
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