Posted on 05/06/2023 4:45:28 AM PDT by george76
This week, history and civics scores across the nation plummeted to record lows among eighth graders. Just 13% of students performed at or above the “proficient” level in U.S. history. It is the latest appalling report on our declining educational system — a matter that should be treated as a national crisis of literally historic proportions. As discussed in prior columns, we are graduating students from high school who cannot proficiently read or do math. School districts have responded by solving the problem by simply lowering standards and eliminating gifted programs. Now we are producing citizens who know little about our history or our values.
The decline has been blamed on the pandemic, though these declines have long plagued our public schools. Nevertheless, the lockdowns had a profound impact on the psychological and intellectual development of our students. While other countries refused to shutdown their schools or go to virtual classrooms, the school districts and teacher unions pushed for closures. In Europe, countries cited ample scientific evidence refuting the need to close schools. However, experts in this country were banned from social media and attacked in the press for raising these studies. The National Education Association and teacher union leaders supported censorship during this period.
What is even more maddening is to hear those who opposed reopening schools, like Randi Weingarten, now insisting that they were really pushing for keeping schools open despite their public statements to the contrary. As the costs of this disastrous decision mount, suddenly no one in education or the media was opposed to in-person classes.
Putting those decisions aside, the drop in scores also reflects a deemphasis on civics and history over the last decade as other subjects have been given greater priority. I have watched with growing alarm the lessons given to my own children in public schools. History often seemed a vehicle for making political or social commentary.
I have been a huge supporter of public schools my whole life. While my parents could afford private schools, they helped form a group to keep white families in the public school system in Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s. They wanted their kids to be part of a diverse school environment. I also sent my kids to public schools for the same reason. I view our public schools as important parts of our society as we shape future citizens.
Now our educational system is dropping in history and civics scores as well as math and English. We are failing our children across the board and undermining a rising generation of citizens. Yet, we are likely to see just another shrug followed by some mumbling about the pandemic. There will also likely be demands for more money despite the unbroken record of failure in many of our public school districts.
These scores once again show how educators and unions are killing public education in this country. They continue to treat families as virtual captives rather than respond to these demands for competence and accountability. Many are voting with their feet and leaving public schools in jurisdictions allowing vouchers or other options.
The drop in civics scores may be even more alarming than the declines in math and English. We can train people for jobs in this new economy. It is far more difficult to shape citizens who have never been taught about the underlying struggle and values that define this nation.
James Madison is often quoted for his statement that “a popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.” What is not widely known is that Madison made that statement in response to a letter from William Taylor Barry, a Kentuckian who wrote him about the effort to create primary and secondary educational programs in his state. Information remains the paramount value in public education as well as the transparency needed to secure it.
In the same way, the farce that is our current educational system is producing a generation of historically illiterate citizens. That can only be a tragedy in the making.
The education cabal is ruining our kids.
I asked her what the Scientific Method was. She had no clue. She's no dummy either. She took advanced placement courses in HS, finished almost a year early, and has a full ride to Ole Miss. I just hope they don't ask her about the Extinction...
But they all know about slavery, woman’s voting, the KKk, Columbus is evil, etc.
Import the third world, become the third world.
Yep, but no one in America seems to notice or care. Near as I can tell.
The most important lesson she needs to learn is how to learn.
Repeating what her teacher told her is not learning.
Learning is when you research a wide variety of conflicting opinions on any topic and try to develop tools that will help you evaluate them.
I had an uncle who once told me: “The more you know the more you realize you don’t know.”
That is the key to learning—there is always so much more to find out—there is no “settled science” and figuring what is going on in a sea of lies and liars is a major challenge for everyone.
Most “education” these days just produces brainwashed fools who are so dumbed down they don’t even know how much they don’t know.
A Jesuit that I know just spent six months in Portland, and noted how much it had changed since he last spent significant time there about 25 years ago. He quipped (presumably not originally) “Portland, where young people go to retire.”
Apparently many of the homeless (or rather tent and shanty dwellers) are people who got tire of living in their parents basements and simply prefer to be on the street with their friends.
Thank God I live in Ontario (and not really southern Ontario), although Vancouver and Vancouver Island could support this culture.
was having a discussion with my granddaughter, a HS Senior. We were talking about the extinction of the dinosaurs. She said it was because of global warming that killed all the plants and they died. I asked about the asteroid that collide with the Earth causing a Nuclear Winter freezing vegetation and killing them. She said no, it was global warming. I asked about the thin layer of Iridium, and mineral usually found in asteroids, that circles the globe that’s buried under about 60 million year of detritus. She had never heard of that. I said that support my position on the extinction, I asked what supported her. Her answer: my teacher.
That reminds me of the Far Side Cartoon of “the real reason dinosaurs became extinct.”
https://twitter.com/cogdog/status/668822715801841665
What was a joke with Larsen has become both farce and tragedy
(gundog—I sent a link to the article to Mr. K among others)
What do you think of the practice of handing out study questions? (I teach theology at a small liberal arts college). I think that it is garbage, but endemic, which puts me in a quandary.
(My undergrad was at Cornell in Econ with a focus on Economic History-—I don’t recall ever receiving study questions).
More evidence test standards need to be lowered further to improve overall scores.
Stupidity and ignorance is an American epidemic.
I do remember college professors who would stop the lecture for a few seconds and then say “this is important” and then resume the lecture.
That was a “clue” that at some point there would be an exam question on that point.
Of course that only helped if you attended class and managed to stay awake during class.
;-)
The history lessons I received in high school was detailed and complete. There were no political distortions. I was in high school in the 1960s.
Exactly what the leftist educators want.
“There were no political distortions. I was in high school in the 1960s.”
I used to believe that.
I do not anymore.
There are a range of hidden biases in all of history.
The biggest distortion is between the “public” version of history and the “secret” version known only to “insiders”.
This has been true going back to the Pharaohs.
I am going to give you a very specific example of “false history” that I know for an absolute fact.
My grandfather was in the construction business in CT from the 1920s and several decades after that.
He personally paid bribes to get state contracts to every major CT politician during that period.
He showed me the location where they met him to get their money and I got confirmation from the owner of the restaurant that my grandfather’s account was correct.
My grandfather was never caught.
None of the dozens of politicians were ever caught.
No media outlet ever got the story.
The biographies of all of the governors, senators, state legislators say nothing of this—usually claiming these were honest and high minded folks.
In this case it turns out that the “history” taught in schools is not the real “history”.
Dad went through OCS in 1968—the instructors had a bell that they would ring, which helped those struggling to stay awake.
I imagine they were mostly traditional Republicans, which is to say, anti-slavery New Englanders who appear to be proto-Karens with some friendliness towards business who would be RINOS now.
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