Liberals are the Kings of excuses. We live in the golden era of self education. Even so called poor kids today have access to greater amounts of learning information than the elites did a short while ago. It’s a matter of motivation.
I blame this on apathy. The US has excellent schools and well trained teachers. Its easy to blame "education" as the problem, it really isn't.
Kids don't want to push themselves to learn more or take challenging classes any more. Their desire for screen time keeps increasing every year.
I don't see US scores going up any time soon. The rest of the world, especially Asian countries understand the challenges and there is an unrelenting desire for success and the rewards it brings.
Weird thing is...if you have kids in HS right now, the SAT/ACT averages for good colleges has skyrocketed in the last few decades. HS college admission scores are crazy high. University of Phoenix better have a XC team if I was applying these days. It's practically a perfect score for the average applicant! 1570, 35 is thrown around like its nothing for top schools and mid tier is pretty darn good.
Average SATs at a lot of colleges seem higher than they were thirty years ago, even though average scores overall are about the same.
Yes... this is a function of how standardized testing works. It's graded on a curve, the average isn't going to move much.
I'm not sure if your anecdotal story of the highs being higher is actually the case or not, but if it is that just points to a widening gap between the top students and "the rest". A trend that would align with the significant degradation over time of our public education system.
the answer to 99% of things in this country is "money."
for the poorest kids, that they don't get the same level of infrastructure, teaching, coaching, as private school or suburban kids, which also drags down the averages.
for the rest, that ever since about reagan all this place seems to prize is money and schemes to make it. despite consuming stuff that reflects other values, eg, religion, academia, art, music, a lot of what is put out there to consume is to make a fast back.
my theory on american class structure is the wealthy are free to pursue knowledge and major in what they want, with fewer worries about a job at the end, and thus may be, say, a yale history major (one of the most popular majors there). meanwhile the middle class and poor approach life as "i need a job." so the state colleges for the middle class are actually cutting back on that same history major to fund business departments and such. and the poor often aspire to a trade as a stable job is better than being broke. setting aside the resources discussion i began with, i think the class analysis points at another reason we suck at global academic comparisons. the middle and lower classes do not value a broad sense of academics. they see school as a tool to a job. they do enough to get to the job/money hamster wheel.
Complete nonsense....Baltimore spends around $18,000 per student, among the highest and is abysmal.
Salt Lake City spends $11,000, second lowest and has excellent schools ranking 5 nationwide.
BREAKING NEWS: After decades of the Republican Party focusing on tearing down the public education system, students are failing.
Cute partisan take. There are many problems, and neither party is sufficiently invested in working toward genuine improvement.
They have some overlap in their failings, but each has a history of numerous shortcomings.
As is the case with many other facets of public policy, Democrats will point out how idiotic Republicans have been — and they’ll be right. And Republicans will point out how idiotic Democrats have been — and they’ll be right.
The idiocy coup de grâce? Each one will assume that they themselves are right because they pointed out flaws in the other.
The tests are obviously looking for the wrong things and/or are becoming irrelevant to modern society. There is much more reward for becoming a 'content creator' than there is for becoming something like a teacher or engineer. The old world has been killed by the weirdo miscreants who created the digital age and they will only distort it further.
Besides, in the next few years our Democracy will have been replaced with an Authoritarian Oligarchy and the 'rewards' will increasingly be gobbled up by families and supplicants of the couple hundred or so richest people in the US. It will increasingly be the case that kids will be instantly set for life, or set for misery, at birth. The in-between we call The Middle Class will no longer exist.
This is a model or reality that has palyed out numerous times in human history (structured inequality in societies)...it never ends well. Human motivations - greed and lust for power - seem not to have changed since day one ( regardless of how you difine "day one," and there does nor seem to be an improvement in sight.)
Massive verbal propaganda about how great a countryis while in reality the society and country are being sucked dry by the power mongers.
BREAKING NEWS: After decades of the Republican Party focusing on tearing down the public education system, students are failing.
Cute partisan take. There are many problems, and neither party is sufficiently invested in working toward genuine improvement.
They have some overlap in their failings, but each has a history of numerous shortcomings.
As is the case with many other facets of public policy, Democrats will point out how idiotic Republicans have been — and they’ll be right. And Republicans will point out how idiotic Democrats have been — and they’ll be right.
The idiocy coup de grâce? Each one will assume that they themselves are right because they pointed out flaws in the other.
I'm no lover of the DNC either, but it has been one party's actual platform to cut funding from education...
We can have our opinions on which party is better or worse as a whole. You can think the government funding education is bad, and what the GOP is doing is good, but which party is responsible for that is not a matter of opinion.
also, re race and resources, my experience in my state is very poor backwoods white areas have similar test results as very poor black city areas.
The vast majority of things people attribute to "Race" or "Culture" really just boil down to POVERTY.
You'll see more violent crime, lower test scores, etc. in a poor white neighborhood than a wealthy black one.
Stupid people who can't look one layer deeper than the surface associate these things with race instead of poverty.
Actually not true....For violent crime as an example Appalachia has a violent crime rate half of the National average...The education statistics I don't have but will do some research.
The vast majority of things people attribute to "Race" or "Culture" really just boil down to POVERTY.
You'll see more violent crime, lower test scores, etc. in a poor white neighborhood than a wealthy black one.
Stupid people who can't look one layer deeper than the surface associate these things with race instead of poverty.
Actually not true....For violent crime as an example Appalachia has a violent crime rate half of the National average...The education statistics I don't have but will do some research.
Actually not true....For violent crime as an example Appalachia has a violent crime rate half of the National average...The education statistics I don't have but will do some research.
What’s your hypothesis?
The left claims poverty is the primary driver of criminal behavior.
the answer to 99% of things in this country is "money."
for the poorest kids, that they don't get the same level of infrastructure, teaching, coaching, as private school or suburban kids, which also drags down the averages.
for the rest, that ever since about reagan all this place seems to prize is money and schemes to make it. despite consuming stuff that reflects other values, eg, religion, academia, art, music, a lot of what is put out there to consume is to make a fast back.
my theory on american class structure is the wealthy are free to pursue knowledge and major in what they want, with fewer worries about a job at the end, and thus may be, say, a yale history major (one of the most popular majors there). meanwhile the middle class and poor approach life as "i need a job." so the state colleges for the middle class are actually cutting back on that same history major to fund business departments and such. and the poor often aspire to a trade as a stable job is better than being broke. setting aside the resources discussion i began with, i think the class analysis points at another reason we suck at global academic comparisons. the middle and lower classes do not value a broad sense of academics. they see school as a tool to a job. they do enough to get to the job/money hamster wheel.
Complete nonsense....Baltimore spends around $18,000 per student, among the highest and is abysmal.
Salt Lake City spends $11,000, second lowest and has excellent schools ranking 5 nationwide.
This is such a non mystery. Schools go the way of parental involvement, not how much exactly they spend per student. I swore my kids would go to jesuit schools like i did but my city has public schools that are the best schools in the state-a rarity. It's basically in a city where the majority of parents are college educated and all up in their kids bidness 24/7, volunteering at the school, paying tutors, doing the tutoring, etc... Schools with uneducated parents and single parent households are really up against it no matter the spending. It's the parents, first and foremost.
Average SATs at a lot of colleges seem higher than they were thirty years ago, even though average scores overall are about the same.
Yes... this is a function of how standardized testing works. It's graded on a curve, the average isn't going to move much.
I'm not sure if your anecdotal story of the highs being higher is actually the case or not, but if it is that just points to a widening gap between the top students and "the rest". A trend that would align with the significant degradation over time of our public education system.
The big driver of the insanely high SAT scores at a lot of the big name institutions is foreign students. Most of the students coming from abroad aren’t coming here to go to Chadron State (like Tim Walz), they are coming for Harvard, MIT, etc.. International enrollment at Harvard increased from 11% in the 90s to about 28% today. In the US, the bottom end of the curve has dropped off, while the upper part of the curve has risen to the challenge. It takes nurturing. You can’t put all your faith in the schools.
My kids went to underperforming public schools, but still scored in the top 1 to 3 percent nationally on things like the PSAT, SAT, CSAP, etc. because they took advantage of honors and AP classes. The best thing I ever did for them as a parent was read to them every day from when they were about 6 months to five years. It was a great bonding experience and taught them a love of reading that they continue to carry with them today. Not all kids are gifted with good parents, but you will have the opportunity to be that parent. Make the most of the time you spend with your kids. It is a gift.
The left claims poverty is the primary driver of criminal behavior.
The stats prove this to be completely false.
The whole idea of American “Poverty” is laughable.
American poverty is running water, electricity, heat, air-conditioning, food abundance, big screen TVs, IPhones and wireless ear buds.
Ya know, the stuff spoiled entitled a-holes take for granted.
Exactly. Directly compare the income of the poorer Americans with the same income (ppp) chinese. The chinese in china will outcompete the americans by far. Many countries vastly better than the usa in results are much poorer as Well.
Its all about accountability. Making the kids learn all day. Competing for grades and giving out harsh consequences If not.
Instead democrats foster a culture of communist grades where everyone gets top grades and Bad Grades are racist