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?
Nearby Paterson NJ a few years ago had less than 10 high school graduates proficient in math - and those teachers draw combat pay (they rake in a lot, for 180 days of “work” per year). I italicized “work” because obviously nothing is happening...
The one private school here is worse than the public schools. When kids demand to transfer back with their public school friends or to play sports or their parents can’t afford it, they usually have to be placed back a grade. When parents pay tuitition, they pay to see a good report card whether their kid is earning the grade or not. American education across the board is nothing but a joke.
My grandmother taught in NYC Public from 1911-1966.
When she was confronted about unequal outcomes near the end of her career, she would shrug and say, “somebody’s gotta clean the subways”.
Too bad she’s not in charge.
Our private schools were much better in the past, but the quality suffered as the economy tanked (with no light at the end of the tunnel). Many will now accept anyone and tolerate anything just to keep tuition rolling in; an older friend described this as exactly what happened in private colleges when people needed draft deferments - and especially after the draft was over (they’d grown so large, the demand fell off, and they would have shrunk or closed).
I am one who does not care.
Those who want to learn, will. In spite of what is offered to them in school.
Those who don’t want to learn, won’t. No matter what fare is offered.
My ex wife taught in public schools in both CA and NV.
She would often go on tirades about the pressure to make the stupid, smart.
Even though everyone know you cannot fix stupid.
You can’t even call stupid, stupid. Nor can stupid be acknowledged.
Average IQ for black and Hispanic kids continues to hover between 80 and 85. That’s genetic and can’t be fixed. Half of all of them are below 80. Rarely do you find one that’s over 100, even by small margin.
BTT
At minimum, teachers should be required to pass proficiency exams in reading, writing and math.
There are teachers out there who are unqualified to be teaching.
Those who want to learn, will. In spite of what is offered to them in school.
Those who don’t want to learn, won’t. No matter what fare is offered.
For lots of reasons, including legal ones, it is very hard to exclude misbehaving kids from the class nowadays. In today’s world, a major function of public schools is to ‘keep kids off the streets’. Schools and teachers, for the most part didn’t ask for this—it was decided by politicians higher up the food chain.
The recent drive to break the “school to prison pipeline” has only made things worse. Like so many things, the advocates have things backwards. Most in prison were in trouble in school. They think if only troublemakers didn’t get punished in school, they wouldn’t end up in prison—ignoring the possibility that bad kids naturally turn into bad adults.
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Check out some of the fancy palatial facilities and high school football stadiums (complete with hidef jumbo screens). Meanwhile, they serve subsidized trash in the cafeterias, lots of students get no homework, and their parents allow them to play on their devices until all hours. Even here in this forum, I got attacked for “judging” the mom who got shot by police when she was playing xbox with an 8 yr old at 2AM! As though I was blaming her for being shot?! Where are the responsible adults any more? And I’d like Christians (I am one) to stop whining about liberal teachers and liberal policies. Get off your rear ends and take control of you child’s education. Home school or private school your child and get involved locally. Public schooling is NOT going away, sadly. $648B is too much money and power. And SCOTUS is NEVER going to allow the Bible back I the classroom.
As to another post...I also despise the Bushes for being a part of this despicable system. I’ll never forget hearing the fawning adulation of a (supposedly) Christian radio host interviewing Neil B (?) here locally. It was clear to me that the adulation was not mutual. Bush came across as an arrogant POS.
I don’t believe that it is genetic. It is related to broken families, poor diet and nutrition, and cultural degradation, much of which can be blamed on the welfare state. Talk to African blacks with education and you will see that even with the poverty over there, there is respect for traditional family, and no welfare state. It is the African and Asian churches which have refused to endorse buggery, for example. White liberals and welfare state supporters have done a number on African Americans.
“The only way for outcomes of K-12 to be equal is for everyone to be equally stupid. Get used to it.”
In attempting to explain this concept to a liberal I asked if he had ever been to the mountains and he said yes so I asked if he could imagine huge machinery leveling the mountains and he said yes so I asked him how it would be done and he said all the peaks would be cut off and the fill dumped in the low places resulting in a plain. I then asked if the resulting plain would be closer to the level of the lowest points existing before the leveling or to the highest points before leveling. At that point he seemed to have a glimmer of understanding. I really don’t know why people have so much trouble seeing what is obvious.
When I was in Elementary School (1955-1962) we had two special classrooms - one for dumb kids, one for behavior problems.
Things ran very smoothly.
we had two special classrooms - one for dumb kids, one for behavior problems.
If a kid is really, really disruptive, then at some point he will be “diagnosed” with some kind of behavior disorder. As soon as that happens he will be “handicapped” and given an I.E.P. (Individualized Education Program) and become basically immune from punishment. As a bonus, his parents may be able to draw a check from Social Security—SSI also known as “crazy money”.
Your local school is then obligated to give the lad/lass an “appropriate” education until the age of 21, and if necessary provide education 12 month a year instead of 9.
Things don’t run as smoothly as they once did. And don’t even think about trying to change the law that requires all of this. What are you? Some kind of monster who wants the handicapped to languish? How dare you! How dare you!
Thanks for that, good background. F the Bushes.
As for Betsy DeVos — why the hell is she still there? PDJT: HELLO?!?!?
“U.S Education Secretary Betsy Devos Agrees To Dystopian U.N Education Agenda”
Wrong link, anti-Trump, sorry. This is better:
“DeVos Signs on to Globalist UN Education Agenda for U.S.”
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