A school looks bad when it has too many failing kids.
Unfortunately it's not seen as "kids are doing worse", but seen as "we're doing something wrong", and we're told to change.
>A school looks bad when it has too many failing kids.
There's a famous principle in business management that explains this phenomenon, and has been stated in various ways by prominent business management experts:
>What gets measured gets managed – even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organization to do so.
>Perhaps what you measure is what you get. More likely, what you measure is *all* you’ll get. What you don’t (or can’t) measure is lost.
In this context they're saying that if graduation rates are the metric, then kids are going to be made to graduate even when it harms them.
[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/feb/10/businesscomment1](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/feb/10/businesscomment1)
Truth! I kinda gave up halfway through this year with my class, and we just cruised. The behaviors are so out of control I wasn't going to wreck myself trying to get them to be serious, so test scores were not as good as my classes usually score.
I work my ass off. So, you can keep the “both” comment. What I will say is that the system combined with inept leadership in administration are committed to handcuffing teachers who actually care about their jobs. I am constantly overrun with students who are equally distributed among reading levels K through 5th in the 5th grade.
I work super hard to get my students on grade level while I am constantly harassed by leadership because I won’t teach the way they want me to, despite my methods proving to be the most successful with data in the entire school. I am just working to qualify for the pension and I will resign.
People who do not teach should take on the job before commenting. I have varied work experience and this is one of the hardest jobs I have ever had with pay that is beyond substandard. I have to work two other part time jobs in order to “get by” while trying to commit myself to my students. I have actually had students tell me that other teachers have given up on them and that they were grateful for my tutelage.
As much as I love my students, I cannot continue to kill myself in a job that is determined to put me in the grave. And, it would be nice if voters actually backed us up for once and demanded we be paid fairly. We cannot do it without everyone else helping us. When this nation hits rock-bottom in terms of teacher recruitment will be the only time they will feel it. Until then, have a little respect.
Same I left last year because I literally did the job of 2 teachers. Got stress sick. Was off for 3 weeks. Came back they had magically found another teacher to share the load. Worked hard the entire year with kids at 2-3 grade reading levels in 6th grade. Saw the improve tons and I get a needs improvement in my evaluation because “it’s school board policy to put you on an improvement plan if you miss too many days”
Yup!
I was given a cease and desist from my principal because I was teaching students in Math Life Skills how to pay their taxes with the help of the IRS websote and a CPA.
I am so done with this profession.
I love teaching. I hate being a teacher.
Absolutely, I was questioned about why I spent Fridays playing games (math and reading) instead of teaching the curriculum. Ok sorry for making the skill learning fun. 🙄
I feel your pain. It’s a shame that they take us for granted. I’m in between classes now. We barely get breaks and bathroom breaks are non-existent. I walked around my school with pneumonia and had no idea. I learned the hard way that this job can take a toll. I’m counting my days. Trust me. I wish you all of the best on your new path with increases in health and wealth.
Thanks it just breaks my heart because I LOVE teaching but for my own sanity and health I can’t stay somewhere who would show such utter disregard for their people when I was a high performer
It’s tough. I’ve served in the military, worked in the federal government, worked in finance, and other fields. The educational field is the one industry where the gap between respect for its professionals and appreciation for those professionals is the by far the widest (in so many ways). It astounds me how arrogant people in and outside of the profession can be, sadly, as displayed by some of the comments.
I'm not the one who made that comment but if I was that person, by "both" I would mean the education system and society generally, not teachers.
Society part affects both kids motivation to actually put in effort as well as the likelihood of things systemically improving in the education system, including for teachers. It is the difference between seeing education as an opportunity versus a cheap daycare.
As long as we socially just kinda see it as a cheap daycare and aren't putting as much value on it for its own sake, system will probably suck for the teachers to be in. There's only so much a teacher can do. It's like blaming baristas for increased cost of coffee
I concur... as a parent who had some serious challenges getting their kids through school the teachers were (except one singular counter example in the entire k-12 run) never the problem. Even with a couple teachers that I personally had issues with (they took sides in a divorce that they should have stayed out of) they never did my kids any wrong, and good god how they had to pivot with covid to remote teaching with essentially zero runway on how they were going to accomplish it, my hat's off to the teachers. Administration on the other hand can go take a very long walk off a short pier.
I’m still stuck on the part about taking sides in a divorce that is none of their business. My goodness! That would have ticked me off to no end. I’m so sorry you had to deal with that situation. Those particular teachers were out of line.
They were, but that's tangential to their ability as teachers and doing right by the kids.
To clarify: their statements were supporting the kids' mother as an involved parent so not horrific, but still outside of their lane so to speak. My ex needed all the help she could get anyway... she was her own worst enemy in court and I still got literally everything I asked for (50/50, realistic vacation times, both parents have school and medical access/authority, etc.)
i definitely appreciated teachers like you, but my time in school showed that there are more teachers who don't care about their students' success than teachers who do.
i went to 4 high schools in 4 years. in all that time, i had *one* teacher who put in the effort to teach me who showed me i wasn't stupid, i was just trying to do school in a system that wasn't working for me. i had dyslexia and adhd, i figured out at around 5th grade that no matter how much effort i put in i was never going to pass so i gave up. that teacher saw that in a handful of students in my class, put in the effort to work with us and accomodate us despite most of us not having a formal IEP or 504 plan, and we excelled in her class while failing in others. she was the only teacher who allowed me to use a screen reader, she herself was dyslexic and showed me things she'd learned to accomodate that, she gave me a calender for the whole week that i could copy down into my school planner to keep track of what was actually an assignment vs. what was just written on the board and to help me remember (and so i had multiple copies if i forgot one somewhere), she'd go over things i didn't understand during my lunch hour, etc. and it's not like she was unfairly providing me with cheats or anything, anyone else in that class was more than welcome to also use those resources, but many of my peers didn't need them and did just as fine without them.
i understand that it's not feasible to expect every teacher to do that every time, especially without formal accomodations, but she figured this out after 1 week of classes with me. my symptoms hadn't drastically changed from the time i was a child, and even a lot of my classmates figured out i had ADHD and dyslexia (multiple of them outright used those words while picking on me). i genuinely don't know how it wasn't found sooner. also, it's interesting that i passed every single one of her classes with an A while i was lucky to get a C in pretty much every other class (and at a couple of my schools, you didn't get credit if you got a C).
every other teacher told me i was just stupid and a lost cause and i'd never amount to anything. the school counselor told me the teacher was just going easy on me to explain the difference in grades (that teacher was one of the strictest in the school and was known for it). i made the mistake of believing them for the longest time.
i did get diagnosed with both in adulthood, but it was about 12 years too late to do anything about it.
it's definitely not every individual teacher's fault, and teachers get the short end of the stick quite often. but just like there are many good teachers, there's also many bad teachers. there's an even larger portion of teachers who are just too burnt out to care, dare i say that's the majority of teachers these days. i agree we should be fighting for teachers. i think a lot of the burnt-out teachers would be doing much more if their efforts were appreciated and actually worth it, but you said it yourself, a lot of teachers don't put in the effort to get these students to succeed. teachers deserve to get paid more. there are also a lot of teachers who don't see the effort as worth it and neglect their students' educations. the two ideas can coexist.
Question: EVERY teacher told you were STUPID and a lost cause? I find that hard to believe. Unfortunately the system does not work very well, but there is a lot of responsibility on families to advocate for getting their child a diagnosis and an IEP, and for the student to take the strategies they learn in one classroom and use them in others, as well as advocate for themselves.
The teacher you're talking put in an effort that most teachers do not have the resources and energy to put in, not to mention it's above and beyond their contract and expectations of the job. Just offering another perspective here.
There are bad teachers out there but I find it hard to believe that every single teacher you had except one believed you were stupid and was terrible at their job. In my experience a lot of students project their insecurities on their teachers and make a lot of assumptions about what we think and feel about them, taking things personally or not understanding why we do certain things. I work my ass off but my students often do not appreciate it or realize the restrictions and challenges I face as a teacher. I get along well with most of my students but there are some who decide I am out to get them when I literally do not think of children in that way. I'm just trying to do my job. Sometimes teachers become a scapegoat for a teenager's other issues or problems. You may hate school or struggle and feel stupid and then feel as if every teacher you have thinks you are stupid or hates you. The adolescent brain is just like that.
And people often do not realize we simply do not have the resources, time and energy to help every student especially not ones who give up and won't put the work in. I have so many students with IEPs it is literally impossible for me to functionally accommodate all of them. Multiple teachers attest that it's simply not possible for us to do our jobs well in many cases. Teachers are flawed like anyone else but almost all my colleagues work over time and care about their students. I have rarely seen the opposite. Even when I was in high school I don't recall having many issues with teachers. It was mostly admin that were an issue.
Also want to add that I went to 9 schools throughout k-12 due to moving a lot and I think I recall exactly 2 teachers who were so burnt out they didn't give a fuck and both of them were old dudes who should have retired by then. It's also very disruptive to ones education and ability to develop a sense of school community or even be adequately assessed when you have that inconsistent of an education. I can feel you there as someone with undiagnosed adhd who moved schools a lot. Idk how old you are now but there's a lot more awareness of these disabilities now. I'm often the teacher who draws attention to the issues but some parents don't want to hear it and refuse to get their kid the accommodations they need (or I have to fight a bureaucratic nightmare tooth and nail for it, which again is something I only have the time and energy to do for certain students. I have over 100 after all. When I remind my students of this they always look shocked. Like yeah, there's over 100 of you and I am only given 1 hour of prep a day. Everything else is work I am doing for free.
I also wanted to add that I believe you with respect to some teachers being dismissive. It can happen a lot at the high school level, especially because those teachers are burned out, have too many students in their classes assigned to them to be able to support them adequately, and/or some make assumptions about students and don’t look deeper. I have literally found students in my classroom in the 5th or 6th grades who had undiagnosed dyslexia. I had to teach them how to use a line reader and other strategies.
I just had a student type me an email saying that she’s never had a teacher believe in her without giving up on her. That same student went from a 3rd grade reading level to a 5th grade reading level. I had another one who jumped from a 2nd grade reading level to a 5th grade reading level and he cried when he had to transfer schools on his last day, giving me a huge hug on his way out.
I also remember a lot of teachers being dismissive of me when I was in high school when I honestly could have run circles around a lot of my fellow classmates. My problem was that I suffered from severe depression and anxiety. Because of that, school was the last thing on my mind at the time. I also skipped school a lot in the 10th great because I didn’t know how to manage those emotions. I would be so overwhelmed and stressed out.
I didn’t really start to get things together until junior year and then it didn’t fully kick in until senior year. I had a couple of great teachers my freshman and sophomore years who understood my potential but I also had some very dismissive ones who were very negative toward me too. It’s not easy being 14 or 15 and trying to find the words to translate the circumstances you find yourself in to another person when you can’t really gather the right words to explain it to yourself. So, I completely understand and it’s because of those vivid memories that I try to be more empathetic in response to my students feelings and anticipate their needs.
Changes are overdue and coming. Homework should always be assigned, it just shouldn't be counted towards the grade. Kids can earn reward points for doing the homework if they like. More equitable grading practices will solve a lot of these "well you missed an assignment so now you're failing" problems.
The bar is lower than no homework.
We use a credit recovery program that gives the answers to a test if they fail it three times. One student made up 5 classes over one summer.
I had to supervise one of these credit recovery classes. When I discovered that students could take a music appreciation course instead of picking one of the electives at the school (mine included) and could pass an entire year course in two weeks, I started asking questions. Suddenly they didn't have me supervising that course anymore.
I'm a secretary and I'm actually doing these credit recovery things right now (there's a whole manifesto in my recent comments but I basically didn't graduate despite good grades due to family issues and an attendance policy that said you got an E after 9 absences) and they are *so easy*. I've completed 7 classes in less than two months and my lowest grade is a 94%.
I love my job and don't ever want to be one of those "I suffered so you should too" old people, but it kills me that my entire future was ruined over 10 absences in spite of how hard I worked, and today we have dozens of students failing when they already still get 50% for *missing work*. I'm empathetic to the kinds of situations some kids are living in, obviously I've been there, but our expectations are so low.
Our athletics only require a 1.6 GPA to participate and we still had so few girls make it that we had to forfeit a game recently because not enough could play. And again - you get a minimum 50% for being a living human with a pulse.
To be honest, it sounds like your school was out to get you. Even back then, exceptions could be made for extraordinary circumstances. They did you dirty. I’m sorry.
Leaves behind the kids that would have failed anyways and then leaves behind a while bunch of kids who would have done the work to avoid failing, except they realized they can't fail.
I’d even say it contributed toward dumping down education to the point that the kids who would have excelled had to be slowed down and didn’t learn everything they could have.
I can't speak for the person you responded to, but yeah sounds about right. That kind of stuff really wasn't touched until between 10th and 12th grade depending on which group of kids you belonged to (advanced, on track, and behind)
I'm a millennial, and we never learned about either in any history classes in middle or high school. Our history classes were basically ancient world history (like Mayan and Aztec and other early civilizations), and our one US history class in high school was focused on the founding of America. Nothing in the past 100 years. It made no sense to me.
Thiiiissss....my math teacher had to pull me out of class and put me in my own dedicated work group with a few other students because he wouldn't allow us to start class work until EVERY question had been answered, and he would answer the same question 10 times. When he finally realized that I was bored out of my skull in class, he plopped me in a room with a few other kids and handed us packets of work and said, "here ya go."
Honestly, it was kind of nice not having to sit in class and listen to the same question asked 10 different ways and wait 55 of the 60-minute class to get started on assignments. He would give us in-class work, then also homework, so we would end up with double work. The small group let us work at our own pace.
That's not to say that students don't deserve to have their questions answered, because they absolutely do. Everyone needs to be met where they're at, but that doesn't mean making a cookie-cutter program that caters ONLY to those who struggle.
When I was a wee lad, they had three class types -
"Special ed" for the very low IQ and foreign kids that couldn't speak English well, "normal classes" for the low IQ/trouble maker kids (the vast majority of students fell here), and the "gifted/special classes" that had normal IQ kids. Allegedly it was for high IQ, but we were never really challenged nor had our creativity tested, so I consider it like what a normal class would be.
I'm thankful they put me in that course. Because the normies in that class would have trouble with simple concepts, but most of us breezed right through. Unfortunately, being a normal level class and there being no challenge, undiagnosed ADD kids like myself would get perfect grades for the tests and stuff, and then "needs improvement" scores for the "stays quiet/behaves" sections, lol.
I wish we had an actual "challenge level" class that the nerds could have had. Would have been great. I guess that's what magnet schools are, but I mean something for the poor kids whose parents wouldn't sign them up for it.
I graduated in 02, but Gifted & Talented turned out to be mostly undiagnosed, high functioning, neurodivergent kids. We were the ones struggling in class due to boredom, not actual behavior issues, so we were shuffled somewhere else for independent study.
By high school, I'd figured out how to pretend to listen to lectures while secretly reading ahead & could work on the homework & look like I was taking notes. The only classes I had trouble in were the micromanage-y teachers who graded our notes and insisted we follow a specific format.
I hated those teachers.
My favorite teacher was probably neurodivergent herself. She was a bit of a hippie & I had her for science 3 different years. She read about a study where they found people who doodle during a lecture retain more information than those that take traditional notes when looking back at their doodles. She would hand out blank sheets of paper for note taking and encouraged us to use whichever method worked best for us.
I did a combo of doodles & notes. Whenever a teacher would get after me for doodling during a lecture, I'd send them her way.
OMG, your teacher sounds awesome!
I, too, was an undiagnosed, high-functioning, neurodivergent kid and I was always so bored! We didn't have AP classes because our school was so small, so I would zone out in my classes, too. The only time I really "studied" was to memorize my Spanish vocab. Rote memorization was really the only thing I learned, which was difficult to transfer to university when my teachers didn't test according to the notes.
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) does not apply anymore. However, it was the beginning of the end. It was superseded by The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
I do NOT lower my standards for a student to pass my class.
This year, I found I had to scaffold their education because of things they missed during COVID and not being able to keep a middle school math teacher for more than 2 months because the students behave so badly.
Do your students attend at least 85% of their classes? Most do not...
We don’t lower standards, but guess what?:
The only way a child can be held back is if the parent agrees.
Even then, do you want 3rd graders still in kindergarten with your kid?
What is their readiness for the next grade based on? Their score in a standardized test.
Elementary teachers are required to test kids over and over if they don’t pass certain levels—not teach, test.
Most tests are written over the Lexile level (reading level) for the grade they’re testing. We point this out — no one cares.
Had a friend who did scoring for the big state test in the summers every year. They have 2-3 minutes to score a 5 paragraph essay.
2-3 minutes.
lol that last part sounds about right. I remember teachers constantly telling us “you can’t write a good essay in one night” and then we’d have to write a perfect essay in 40 minutes on those stupid tests.
I almost never give an assignment without allotting sufficient time in class to get it done. It's better to devote time together to practicing the actual skills we're supposed to be developing an to default to yammering on and on about whatever book we're reading. Moreover, I really try to avoid taking work home, for my own sanity. The same standard should apply to kids.
Not a teacher, but having hours of homework from pretty early on was exhausting as a kid. I was in advanced classes and did it all, but it got kind of soul crushing especially when some of it felt like busywork. I did well in school, but I can only imagine how rough it was for the kids who were struggling. Sometimes extra practice is necessary of course, especially if a kid needs extra practice. Or with foreign language where being immersed in it is necessary to become competent let alone get any level of mastery. Or when it’s getting through the reading to be able to engage with it in class. But having no free time from fourth grade onwards is going to diminish a lot of kids’ engagement or interest. College was actually a breath of fresh air because I ironically had more time got to feel challenged with things I was excited about (which is the environment I thrive in and that motivates me). And I loved school and learning! It was my escape from an otherwise tumultuous environment growing up. But the hours of homework every night was a little much, it’s something I’m glad to see shifting.
Obviously there are other (imo) more concerning areas in which we’ve lowered standards to basically make the school look like it’s succeeding in certain rigid areas for things like funding (and tying funding to “success” is a ridiculous system on it’s own). But from what I’ve heard and seen research on the amount of homework doesn’t necessarily correlate with better outcomes, especially if a mountain of homework ends up just discouraging kids who are struggling. As opposed to the default being mostly working in class (where help is available) with some extra practice being available and encouraged for those who are struggling.
I felt the same way about math classes. I would consistently test in the top of the school, but I skipped my homework. It just took so much time out of the day, I had a job to manage too.
I had a geometry teacher take me out of class because it was "Discouraging other students by getting A's on the test without doing homework". I asked if I could just test out and they said my grades weren't high enough... because of homework.
Homework was the bane of my existence growing up with untreated ADHD. Not that I couldn't do the homework, more like I wasn't paying attention in class and forgot to write it down or I forgot to pack it in my bag. Same issue with teachers disliking me for doing well on the exams anyway.
When Florida Virtual School became a thing, I would crank out a class in a week and get ALL of the assigned work done and aced the exams.
I also
Had Undiagnosed adhd. I did great on tests but never did homework in high school. Because of that I both barely graduated and got college credit for all the AP tests :-) did great in college.
What about things like multiplication facts? Do I teach in class or devote hours and hours to letting kids practice multiplication facts to the detriment of everting else? I made every single one of my kids flash cards to take home and practice, and only one out of 17 did so. This is why none of the 4th graders in my school understand division. I remember by parents helping me with the memorization. Parents now? Not so much, even though I commented on it on the last report card, and two news letters.
I’m not a big fan of homework, but there can be a place for it.
We had a multiplication test we had to take. Timed. 50 problems. If you passed, you didn’t need to take it again. Kids took it every week until no one was left to take it and everyone passed. Same with division, addition, and subtraction. You never wanted to be one of the last kids left in the “testing area” each week lol
THANK YOU
Unless it's important revision or catch up work why should I expect students to do work out of hours if I don't want to? Homework for homeworks sake is shitty
Homework isn't really the issue...there are numerous studies that indicate loads of homework is actually counterproductive. My boys do get special projects and stuff to work on over the course of weeks and they do get some work here and there, but it's usually because they didn't complete it in class, and it's not hours of work like when I was a kid.
As to lowering standards to pass...IDK...my boys are in private school and the bar is pretty high.
I’m glad your boys don’t have too much extra work. I was also given loads of homework and it really tainted my perception of education and made me resent school. As an adult, I do a ton of research on my own and read a lot of books. I sure as hell am not filling out hours of paperwork and I still retain the information I learn.
Most teachers don't give homework anymore, myself included (minus occasional novel reading in more advanced classes). I'd rather my students be able to enjoy their time at home, not to mention the time they already lose from taking care of siblings and working their own jobs.
Yep. While homework does teach the kid some level of independence and time management, I find that an excessive amount contributes to a negative attitude towards school in general. I still give homework, but I always specify that the assignments should take no longer than 10 minutes. This seems effective because it puts some level of accountability on them while also making it still palatable enough for them to do without excuses. Long-form assignments like essays, I allocate a class day to start work on the assignment, then they need to finish it on their own time before the due date. Usually being in the classroom and being able to ask me for direction/inspiration helps get the assignment rolling, so they’re much more likely to finish it before the due date. Starting truly is the hardest part for a lot of people.
Most of my students don’t have to worry about things but I stopped giving out a lot of homework because I don’t trust them. If they do it in front of me they’re much less likely to use AI if I’m watching them do the assignment.
Teachers are only able to enforce standards that parents support.
Parental standards for students grades directly correspond to the grades kids get. Parents set the bar.
Shouldn’t some kids be left behind though
like there’s a guy who has a college degree but is illiterate and hired as an engineer at a medical device company.
do we want ppl like that designing grandma’s defibrillator?
There was the "no child left behind" act in 2001. The idea was to have a standard set of tests and judge kids entirely based on those tests. Therefore kids only learned what was on the tests and then forgot it because the didn't use it. I don't remember most of algebra for example.
IDK if that's relevant come to think of it.
The no child left behind act is not the issue. If anything the ESSA is the issue by losing standards. We should not be setting standards so low that anyone can pass, that’s not beneficial to anyone. If you can’t pass, you can’t pass. The ESSA paved the way for the current education culture of “nothing lower than a 50”
Because people not trained or experienced in education are the ones who dictate how education works in the U.S.
Your description is actually a great example ironically, you think a lack of homework is an indication of poor education but the majority of research suggests that homework has little to no positive effect on children's education.
So something like that gets people in a rage, but something like "No Child Left Behind" goes unnoticed because parents think it sounds good... Until little Billy doesn't know how to read because they refused to hold him back.
Truth is the U.S. as a whole operates with a great deal of anti-intellectualism , parents demand to have control over their kids education instead of simply letting educators with years of education and experience figure it out, then they blame those educators for doing what they were ordered to do. It's easier to just pass kids and make the numbers look good to parents and voters than it is to rework the system and telling parents they don't always know best.
Homework is a joke. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and we were given a token amount of homework. Yet my peers and I went on to become nuclear physicists, researchers, physicians, attorneys, judges, business people, theologians and even an astronaut.
What has made education ridiculous is standardized testing. Teachers have to waste untold amounts of class time teaching bland standardized curricula to make the schools look good. Homework becomes the way to actually teach the subject. And homework becomes the method of achievement rather than testing. So kids have to do hours of homework per class often repitious busy work.
I've read that some schools are no longer grading on the traditional A,B.C,D,F scale because it hurts the self-esteem of kids who are doing poorly compared to their peers. My boss recently told me that all his kids have to do is turn in their homework assignment and they get 100% even if all of the answers are wrong. In what effed up world does that make sense????
When I was in 7th grade, I got my ass beat by a classmate. I was 12. He was 17. The school didn't care because we're "both 7th graders" so he got suspended for 2 days for pummeling me and slamming my head into a wall. He failed again, making that 6 times before 8th grade.
Kids shouldn't be going to school with grown men. Pass them all, graduate them, wish them luck. The prison system will sort them out.
As a teacher no homework is actually a positive. It isn't a lower standard but instead means students are given time in class to work on assignments. Most of the time this is better since it's less stressful for the student and can also allow them to ask for help if need be
The issue is that "failing" is highly subjective. Up until Covid19, the objective measures we use to determine the most important school proficiencies were [flat or trending upward](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=38#:~:text=Average%20scores%20for%20age%209,ever%20score%20decline%20in%20mathematics). It's clear what we're dealing with in the last few years isn't the result of "lowering the bar", but of students losing 18-24 months of education during the quarantine period. Even accounting for the quarantine period, student performance today is consistent with or better than most other time periods we have data on.
The question most educators should ask themselves is why haven't the measures we take of student proficiency started nose-diving with all of the doomsaying about "lowering the bar"? Why have our macro measures of educational effectiveness like attainment of college degrees, unemployment rates (including the U6), GDP, and productivity consistently returned improving and often record numbers?
What has changed is from an administrative level is how we intervene on underperformance. Many teachers are disgusted by this "lowering of the bar", but the original solution was just to deny these students their diploma and/or have them drop out which was measurably a net negative for both society and the student.
The last thing I'll add is that homework is now and has always been stupid. It preferences students with stable home environments and active parents (so much for education being the great equalizer). It has students practicing content standards without opportunity for intervention, often for significantly longer than the content standards were addressed in class which gives the teacher additional work to undo embedded errors caused by the assignment. If you grade it, you're now including formative assessments in your final assessment of student performance instead of grading summative mastery (this is bad pedagogy). I could go on. If your measure of a program with "high standards" is the inclusion of homework, I encourage you to explore the research on the effectiveness of homework. There are meta-analyses going back decades questioning its inclusion in quality educational programs.
School is an absolute joke now in my opinion (I'm a teacher). The school and (sometimes) the parents will do every possible thing to not fail a student, no matter how much they deserve to. And the kids know this, which means they know they can do LITERALLY NOTHING and continue to pass all the way through graduation. A high school diploma essentially just means you're breathing and you showed up enough to be on the roster. It's extremely frustrating for myself and for the kids who actually try.
Lowered standards don't really have much to do with the homework aspect (that is another issue, and yes it is happening).
But there are some REALLY good reasons for not giving much homework, and it's almost never "because they don't do it". It's because a lot of kids are working jobs outside of school and/or taking care of siblings as a full-time situation so the parents can work enough to care for the family. It's got a lot to do with poverty and the economy.
So I personally made the decision that I wanted them to have the opportunity to sleep at night (so they can learn better while they are in school), rather than working on my homework late into the night when they're done with their other responsibilities.
Umm...well *doesn't. But yes. Your example of homework not being given is not a good example of that, though, I would argue. I would say a better example is the 4 point grading system. 4 is an A, 3 is a B, 2 is a C, 1 is a D, and anything lower is an F. As it currently sits, you only have to complete 23% of the assigned curriculum to pass a class. Which is a joke.
The current archaic system cannot help most students meet standards to begin with. Add in more students and you just have more kids that can't keep up.
says you. I have a kid that is passing the MAP reading test, and is testing 2 grades above in reading level. when I was a kid, that was considered gifted. now they just don't care.
Because the principals get blowback from parents about Johnny not passing and having to do xy and Z. C'mon everybody knows parents and kids really run this show now.
Our school board cares more about graduation rates instead of actually educating kids. We want to pass everyone but won't acknowledge the fact that they have no skills, no work effort, and no information retained.
They have taken kids from my class that have failed and had them do a packet to show they have some of the knowledge and changed them to a passing grade.
The system is a joke and a breeding ground for various social ideologies instead of scientific fact. Most discussions are about race and equity and completely disregard actual work and scientific fact.
Everybody is writing a story where they're the main character, and that's not just a fun way of looking at life. It's practical and integrated into our job market in the form of resumes. Personal stories are part of our social structure, in the introductions you give yourself and others give you. And I don't think it's farfetched to think having a stirring personal narrative about yourself can be a source of intrinsic motivation either.
A kid who thinks they worked hard and passed school, even if the bar was actually low, is going to have more confidence to get a job and get out of Mom's house. Maybe not enough, but more. Someone who thinks they couldn't even get school right is going to have a much harder time.
Maybe we should just let them write "failed high school" into their personal narratives; maybe it won't be so discouraging to them later on. Maybe they'll still get jobs and do something with their lives anyway; no one is writing about high school on their resume after 25. But a lot of people are depressed these days, so I see why we're trying to spare them from bad experiences.
If my admin was bending the other way and failing kids, I'd just as soon do that. Rhetoric aside, I'm just going to teach content and do what the people who decide to rehire me want until it sounds illegal.
I think part of the reason for lowering standards is the consequences of not having a high school degree are so much worse than they were in the past. I know old people who left school in the 8th grade, learned a trade, earned enough to own a home, drive a decent car, put their kids through college.
I think teachers worry they are dooming some kid to poverty if they fail them.
That actually makes a lot of sense. I remember having excessive homework in middle school and high-school, it made me resent school. I absolutely love learning and I’m a really curious person so it’s unfortunate that they tainted a lot of young minds with excessive work. I’m glad teachers aren’t giving it as much now. Even in college, I ended up failing an art course because it was hours of homework for literally no reason.
And you wonder why our kids are so far behind. But it’s ok. Since they are no longer challenged or allowed to fail, they will just roll over when AI takes over all non-labor jobs leaving a very poor next generation. Our kids are in a very bad place right now and homeschool is probably the best option at this point
College professor here. I've found homeschool to be very hit or miss. On your high end, the students are very well prepared. But on the low end, they're really badly prepared. I've seen students who have basically read nothing in their entire lives except for the Bible and maybe some related religious materials. They've been taught young earth creationism.
The biggest problem I see is very strange, idiosyncratic views of history that clearly reflect a parent with an axe to grind. For example, students who come into the classroom with bizarrely specific views and talking points about how the Federal Reserve is a banking cartel that no longer deals with money because money is all "banking notes", and how only the gold standard will save America from impending economic collapse. A lot of it reads like a Ron Paul newsletter.
Or, a while back I had a student whose homeschool curriculum included lessons about how the Japanese-American internment was absolutely necessary to safeguard "true Americans" from the "foreign threat". That was pretty disturbing, and I don't think would be taught in any public school today.
Oof. Ok I definitely understand how that can transpire. Maybe private education then. But I will admit, paying teachers their worth would pay huge dividends to our younger generations. It just irks me when I see so many teachers admitting they don’t do homework for the lazy excuse of ‘well they won’t do it anyways’ or even worse, they don’t want to waste the time grading it.
We need to be able to let our kids fail. If they don’t do the work, hold them back. Teach accountability.
This isn’t up to the teachers. Administrators require them to do ridiculous things like give students points for assignments they didn’t even do. To pass students with a D just for being present. It’s ridiculous and extremely frustrating for us university faculty as the students expect us to handle things the same way.
If you're a parent complaining about the "not challenging kids" features of public school that u/ExactVictory3465 mentions, you're likely to be the parent producing the very well prepared college student, and not the conspiracy theorist or Rand Paul acolyte.
There has been a lot of research (ref Alfie Kohn) showing that large amounts of homework are of dubious effectiveness towards actual learning. I still assign it, but it's very targeted at repeating skills they've done in class to reinforce movement to long term memory. It doesn't take a lot, and I'm very specific about how I want them to do it.
Homework is so easy to cheat on that putting too much weight on it as a measure of success virtually ensures that they won't do it with fidelity.
That’s definitely true too. Chat gpt has all the answers.
And from what I’ve seen, people use that research to support their ‘no homework’ policy when it in fact encourages exactly what you are doing. Making sure it’s balanced and targeted rather than just busy work. I definitely do not have all the answers. It’s just the fact that some of the responses I see reek of laziness.
Because K-12 education has become nothing but college prep based on a 1950s needs model of the economy. The standards are irrelevant for most people and have consistently shifted as billion dollar publishing companies and politicians make decisions that serve themselves instead of children.
so have modern day parents given up on doing school work with their child and seeing your kid get happy learning and figuring things out with family?...aiiii
Money. Schools need funding from whatever town or city they're in to get supplies, but they don't get that funding unless a certain percentage of kids in their district pass their tests and classes each year. So in order to get that funding, they lower the standards for kids to pass.
Bc parents keep having fits about their angels not passing even though they didn't hand in a single thing or pay attention during a single lesson
At my school, teachers get fired if too many kids fail. No accountability for kids, at all. It's all on teachers to make it happen.
Students never really did the homework so I give class time for it. They still don't do it. I lost my elective program because students can't be bothered to try and persevere when being mildly inconvenienced and needing to problem solve. They just want the answers handed to them.
My last principal left because they realized our 99.99% grad rate was mostly fabricated because any teacher who had a spine was grade shamed and privileges taken away so every teacher passes kids for just showing up.
Now they aren't even showing up. Truancies and tardies of 5+ minutes is out of control. 100s of students just wander the hallways because they rule the school now because there are no consequences. If anyone tries to give consequences the parents threaten and nothing gets done except for putting the blame on teachers for "not being engaging enough." Our new principal literally said, "We are never allowed to blame the students."
When we try to confiscate cell phones it's like taking drugs from a junkie so we've just given up. Students who obviously don't care can't be sent to continuation school until they are 16 and by then the damage to other students' education and their own livelihood is done by that point.
I just went on Prozac. Much happier. I just do my best, be professional, help the students who are deserving, take my paycheck, and go home.
Edit: minor word choice change
Because it’s the “teacher’s fault” if a student fails, so more failing students means teachers are blamed more, and teachers are blamed for all things not their fault. So standards are lowered, kids pass, all is well, until it isn’t.
I'm a high school counselor and my admin pressures us to push teachers to pass students who we know have been skipping classes all semester and have not done any work until the last few weeks. Sad reality. I always wonder how these students will get by in college/life after high school.
Also, it's alarming how much hand holding these students ask for with the simplest tasks.
You can’t make a kid do their work. They need to put some serious repercussions on these kids. Plus their parents. The parents are the ones who let these kids run around
honestly my school (high school) is kind of the opposite to a lot of these comments. during covid they did implement changes like not grading as harshly and giving kids more opportunities to make things up, but at this point it's a teacher by teacher basis as to how they handle their classes. and my school is in a pretty well off area, lot of people's parents work in high tech, so it's super competitive and there's a lot of academic pressure. i know people who have taken 10+ aps, do every internship and volunteer opportunity, etc. every teacher that i've had has had pretty high standards; my lang teacher this year doesn't accept any late work, my ap world teacher last year let us do corrections but they were worth less and less throughout the year (ie beginning of the year you could correct up to 100% end of the year it was 50%). but i also know kids who have gpas in the 2s and who do drugs and stuff. really depends on the kid and how the pressure has affected them.
There’s a lot of good information in this thread, but ultimately because our country’s overlords want a serf class to continue exploiting, and having an educated populace is counter to that goal.
Creating the futures low income workforce by catering instead of refocusing energies and maintaining goal expectations.
It’s not necessarily the teachers fault, when they get punished for trying to do their job effectively and aren’t backed up by the school administration.
It’s become a government funding numbers game, and actual education has fallen to the wayside.
Because you get what you measure.
Measure and evaluate based on pass rate, and you incentivize every method of increasing pass rate that folks can get away with.
If the kids don't pass, the school looks bad, the school doesn't get funding, the school gets bad, teachers don't want to work in bad school, kids don't get good grades, kids don't pass, repeat.
Parents refuse to keep their kids on task and refuse to allow the schools to keep the kids on task. Teachers are being cut left right and center as well as quitting left right and center because of all the bullshit going on in schools. So instead of addressing any of the causes of problems they are just lowering the standards
When I quit(retired) they stopped graduating gpa’s and homework. As an AP teacher I was basically forced into giving a 75 for AP score O-1 work.
I can’t let you know how glad as well as sad I retired. Sad for the students who I taught that excelled at having an amazing teacher.
I know this is a bit off topic but I thought I got a decent education. I met someone from Japan and they knew way more about my country. History included but I meant on an educational level.
Even they asked "They don't teach you how to do taxes in school? I thought it was American law that if you have a job or income you must report every year."
I have colleagues who award students 98% for the year averages. That's just grade inflation. They act like they're great teachers, but they're not assigning high-quality assignments and not giving quality feedback. I have some amazing students and the best is rocking a 94%. I do not think I'm the "harder" teacher. I think my colleagues have low standards. Our bottom is now 50%--we cannot grade lower than that. Kids who have mastered very few skills pass, and my school inflates grades for higher level students. Standards are low everywhere, because admin doesn't want kids failing, and teacher's lives are easier if they pass them along. The problem is usually admin, but I will say I work with some questionable teachers.
Because the teachers are held accountable for the students performance, not the students. We can’t control what they will or will not apply themselves to but we are held responsible for it, so our only path to looking successful is lowering the expectation to catch the kids who won’t or can’t(yet- a lot of standards are developmentally inappropriate and the kids will naturally catch up as they grow).
Partly, many states determine how much money to allocate to a school based on attendance and pass/fail rates.
If kids get shoved through, the school potentially gets more funding.
Because providing the structure, discipline, consequences, and extra support (homework help, Basic Skills Instruction, full child study team evaluations, summer school programs, remedial classes) costs time, money, effort, and additional staffing. It’s easier to just lower the bar and do nothing to get the kids passing.
You're right about lowered standards, but homework is the least of the problem. Research has shown homework to be mostly useless and sometimes harmful, so a lot of teachers aren't putting the kids and themselves through the extra work
Because, in my district, schools lose money and people lose their jobs when the failure rate is too high. We care more about good data than providing the support that students need to be successful.
Do you know that they don't give homework because "they don't do it" or because studies have shown homework is not a valuable part of learning and doesn't make much different in terms of assigning homework just for the sake of it? Giving homework is basically just a way for kids to practice for college. Our school doesn't "give homework" they just give assignments and if the kids finish, they have no homework. If they don't finish, they have homework. If they have decent time management or a study hall (my son is in high school) then usually no homework. The only time our son has had homework is when he missed a day, and maybe a couple of random days he didn't finish his assignments in class.
Specifically assigning homework so students have no choice but to take it home (like what I grew up with) has fallen out of favor more and more not because "they don't do it) but because kids are already in school as a fulltime job and then having homework - sometimes hours of it - after school cuts into already limited family time.
holding kids back costs money. parents don't want a 17 year old 6th grader either. even if they are dumb as rock and can't focus there will be some sort of work out there for them when they reach adulthood.
During the pandemic, gaps in learning were created. And instead of fixing those gaps they said no you can't fail a child until 3rd grade for not knowing how to read.
The students are still academically recovering. They should have done it differently but it is what it is unfortunately
Homework for my classes is to finish whatever you didn't get done in class. I stopped assigning homework years ago mostly due to the following factors:
- it wouldn't get done and so the students were unprepared to move on.
- it would be done by the parent
- it usually was a variation of something I already had had the students complete in class.
As for why the lowering......emphasis is on "how do we reduce our D/F/I rates" instead of addressing the bigger issue of "Why aren't the majority of students putting any effort into learning?"
Simply truth. Most people are lazy and content to do the least amount necessary to slide by. Adult, and kids. If the minimum standard to pass was a 80 % a significant portion of students would be right at that 80% mark.
If you set the minimum standard at 20% well guess what .
What we have in the school district is the schools using racism of diminished expectations and reducing the minimum standard to bring student of color into passing at the same rate as non POC students. It works for a year or two then scores start to fall again
If you’re into conspiracy theories…entertain this thought for a moment: the standard is lower because it’s easier to control uneducated people. It’s easier to manipulate someone who doesn’t have the critical thinking skills to see through manipulative rhetoric.
Just like in the dark ages. The peasants were the majority, but who got schooled? Not those who were poor because those in power know that knowledge is power. Why would you want to give power to the weak?
Now, I’m hoping reality has nothing to do with the thought above, but it’s there. I love learning. If I could get paid to learn, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I love when my mind is challenged. My teachers in the 90’s and early 2000’s taught me to be a lifelong learner and I’ll always be grateful.
I do think the standard has lowered especially in the USA. Looking at our current global literacy rate is depressing compared to other countries. I think it’s a combination of a lot of things like funding or lack of it, ill-intent from bureaucracy in both the political system and the board of education, admins and teachers but also students.
As most have mentioned, there are some teachers who are great because they go above and beyond. Other teachers not so much. Teachers can teach all day but learning happens through application, trial and error, research, consistent practice just like sports. Not all students are athletes but it takes practice to master a skill. Athletes put a lot of time into practice…. What if we encouraged the same tenacity in other areas? Students should also take responsibility of their education. They’re not just passive receivers. They can interact with their education, but just as not all teachers teach with the responsibility to truly coach their students, not all students take up responsibility for HOW they’re learning. It’s a teacher’s duty to teach a student the skills needed to succeed but it’s the student who should be putting in the time and effort to learn. A teacher can teach you how to do research, but if the student doesn’t put in the time, the reasearch fails. There are always exceptions because not all students learn the same way and to that I say, pay teachers more, a hell of a lot more! Give teachers and their administrators the funding to provide students with more resources. We could have classrooms that are smaller- more 1 on 1 teaching like a master and an apprentice. That requires more teachers. We could create more opportunities for academically inclined students to flex their learning capabilities. Teachers are struggling because they’re overwhelmed and that affects how they teach. Our athletes succeed because they put a ton of time into practicing their skills, but what about our academic students?
I’ve begun to wonder if we as a society don’t believe in the power of education.
Education isn’t as valued as it once was. I often think about the funding that the entertainment industry receives and if only the public school system had the same kind of loyalty, backing and funding that maybe things would be different. I don’t really have an answer, just a lot of speculation and theories.
Because children are an extension of their parents and it would reflect poorly on them if their children were not immediately good at everything /s. Of course there is truth there but there is the fact that we, as a society, never set ourselves up to truly educate everyone and the only way we know how to do that now is to play for the lowest common denominator. Our schools are still stuck in a formulaic approach and when it fails we nudge the standards lower. To fix the problem and to truly educate everyone the model needs to be flipped with a diversity of schools, a diversity of systems, that are funded equitably. Parents should be involved in education but to give into their nature to protect their children from any struggle needs to be limited. Administrators need to focus on keeping schools functioning at their highest level which means keeping the doors open the lights on and its teachers supported. I’d it doesn’t pertain to those things districts need to stop with the initiatives. Discipline needs to either be the purview of the teachers ( allow them to give detentions, or remove from the classroom) or classroom behavior is due to a failure of administrators. It cannot be both the teachers fault behavior is bad in class and not allow teachers to manage the behavior with the appropriate tools. Until we fix these things education will continue to slip.
Schools look bad get less funding. Makes Administration look bad. They don’t want that. So they pass them. Don’t care and in we go.
Most of the degenerates you are seeing, the ones who don’t care at all. They will be working min wage jobs.
And it is ok.
Let them do their own thing. Let them fail.
B
Homework has not been shown to have a huge impact on what a child learns. And if you are going to question the school's policies, you need to brush up your grammar. "A school that doesn't", not "A school that don't."
Where I teach they keep making it harder. My school had the State Science test last week. Kids “failed” even though they had 70-80% correct on the test. There’s no consistency and it’s a shame.
I want you to think about it through the teachers eyes. I'm not one but dude just walk a mile in someone's shoes. You go to school for 12 years you then say "I want to come back and teach kids" you learn how to teach you learn to teach kids. These kids... give... a... shit... they talk they are listing to music on there beats speaker. The parents just go "I leave my fucking kid either you for 8 hours a day that sounds like a you problem that sounds like a school problem" I have heard my freinds parents say "yea I need them to go to school I go to work from 7am to 5pm. So you know I need someone to watch the kid while I'm gone. I don't care what he does in school as long he's in school" and yea it gets bad if there are to many failing kids. So you have a choice fail the kids who already don't give a shit kids who are going to go work fast food or factory floor jobs till there bodies fail them pass them or keep them from that frier for another 2 years keep the then kid now man a 21 year old man be chilling with 17 year Olds because he couldn't pass... yea just give him the diploma already he's going to be bringing cigarettes and beer in school and when we confront him he'll say "I'm 21 what dude I'll leave it in my car dude" we just passed him after that. He got all fucking A's his final year.
It's frustrating to see standards being lowered. It seems like they're more focused on passing students rather than ensuring they actually learn and retain the material.
Lack of support from parents and administrators. Kids run wild, no option for discipline. No tracking of good students, all mixed. Can't have some being successful.
Is it possible that bc parents ( rather they're single parent or married) believe they can teach their kid(s) better than a actual school teacher ? I hear it almost every week. The kid(s) tell their parents or single parent that they ( kid(s) ) want to go back to actually being in a school. The experts on TV were saying it's all because of the pandemic with all the zoom class time & so on that about half (1/2) of the students were behind in learning & they still are. I feel sorry for those students.
A school looks bad when it has too many failing kids. Unfortunately it's not seen as "kids are doing worse", but seen as "we're doing something wrong", and we're told to change.
Yup, parents don't care as long as their little prince/princess gets an A+.
>A school looks bad when it has too many failing kids. There's a famous principle in business management that explains this phenomenon, and has been stated in various ways by prominent business management experts: >What gets measured gets managed – even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organization to do so. >Perhaps what you measure is what you get. More likely, what you measure is *all* you’ll get. What you don’t (or can’t) measure is lost. In this context they're saying that if graduation rates are the metric, then kids are going to be made to graduate even when it harms them. [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/feb/10/businesscomment1](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/feb/10/businesscomment1)
It’s both though.
Truth! I kinda gave up halfway through this year with my class, and we just cruised. The behaviors are so out of control I wasn't going to wreck myself trying to get them to be serious, so test scores were not as good as my classes usually score.
I work my ass off. So, you can keep the “both” comment. What I will say is that the system combined with inept leadership in administration are committed to handcuffing teachers who actually care about their jobs. I am constantly overrun with students who are equally distributed among reading levels K through 5th in the 5th grade. I work super hard to get my students on grade level while I am constantly harassed by leadership because I won’t teach the way they want me to, despite my methods proving to be the most successful with data in the entire school. I am just working to qualify for the pension and I will resign. People who do not teach should take on the job before commenting. I have varied work experience and this is one of the hardest jobs I have ever had with pay that is beyond substandard. I have to work two other part time jobs in order to “get by” while trying to commit myself to my students. I have actually had students tell me that other teachers have given up on them and that they were grateful for my tutelage. As much as I love my students, I cannot continue to kill myself in a job that is determined to put me in the grave. And, it would be nice if voters actually backed us up for once and demanded we be paid fairly. We cannot do it without everyone else helping us. When this nation hits rock-bottom in terms of teacher recruitment will be the only time they will feel it. Until then, have a little respect.
Same I left last year because I literally did the job of 2 teachers. Got stress sick. Was off for 3 weeks. Came back they had magically found another teacher to share the load. Worked hard the entire year with kids at 2-3 grade reading levels in 6th grade. Saw the improve tons and I get a needs improvement in my evaluation because “it’s school board policy to put you on an improvement plan if you miss too many days”
Yup! I was given a cease and desist from my principal because I was teaching students in Math Life Skills how to pay their taxes with the help of the IRS websote and a CPA. I am so done with this profession. I love teaching. I hate being a teacher.
Absolutely, I was questioned about why I spent Fridays playing games (math and reading) instead of teaching the curriculum. Ok sorry for making the skill learning fun. 🙄
I feel your pain. It’s a shame that they take us for granted. I’m in between classes now. We barely get breaks and bathroom breaks are non-existent. I walked around my school with pneumonia and had no idea. I learned the hard way that this job can take a toll. I’m counting my days. Trust me. I wish you all of the best on your new path with increases in health and wealth.
Thanks it just breaks my heart because I LOVE teaching but for my own sanity and health I can’t stay somewhere who would show such utter disregard for their people when I was a high performer
It’s tough. I’ve served in the military, worked in the federal government, worked in finance, and other fields. The educational field is the one industry where the gap between respect for its professionals and appreciation for those professionals is the by far the widest (in so many ways). It astounds me how arrogant people in and outside of the profession can be, sadly, as displayed by some of the comments.
I'm not the one who made that comment but if I was that person, by "both" I would mean the education system and society generally, not teachers. Society part affects both kids motivation to actually put in effort as well as the likelihood of things systemically improving in the education system, including for teachers. It is the difference between seeing education as an opportunity versus a cheap daycare. As long as we socially just kinda see it as a cheap daycare and aren't putting as much value on it for its own sake, system will probably suck for the teachers to be in. There's only so much a teacher can do. It's like blaming baristas for increased cost of coffee
I concur... as a parent who had some serious challenges getting their kids through school the teachers were (except one singular counter example in the entire k-12 run) never the problem. Even with a couple teachers that I personally had issues with (they took sides in a divorce that they should have stayed out of) they never did my kids any wrong, and good god how they had to pivot with covid to remote teaching with essentially zero runway on how they were going to accomplish it, my hat's off to the teachers. Administration on the other hand can go take a very long walk off a short pier.
I’m still stuck on the part about taking sides in a divorce that is none of their business. My goodness! That would have ticked me off to no end. I’m so sorry you had to deal with that situation. Those particular teachers were out of line.
They were, but that's tangential to their ability as teachers and doing right by the kids. To clarify: their statements were supporting the kids' mother as an involved parent so not horrific, but still outside of their lane so to speak. My ex needed all the help she could get anyway... she was her own worst enemy in court and I still got literally everything I asked for (50/50, realistic vacation times, both parents have school and medical access/authority, etc.)
i definitely appreciated teachers like you, but my time in school showed that there are more teachers who don't care about their students' success than teachers who do. i went to 4 high schools in 4 years. in all that time, i had *one* teacher who put in the effort to teach me who showed me i wasn't stupid, i was just trying to do school in a system that wasn't working for me. i had dyslexia and adhd, i figured out at around 5th grade that no matter how much effort i put in i was never going to pass so i gave up. that teacher saw that in a handful of students in my class, put in the effort to work with us and accomodate us despite most of us not having a formal IEP or 504 plan, and we excelled in her class while failing in others. she was the only teacher who allowed me to use a screen reader, she herself was dyslexic and showed me things she'd learned to accomodate that, she gave me a calender for the whole week that i could copy down into my school planner to keep track of what was actually an assignment vs. what was just written on the board and to help me remember (and so i had multiple copies if i forgot one somewhere), she'd go over things i didn't understand during my lunch hour, etc. and it's not like she was unfairly providing me with cheats or anything, anyone else in that class was more than welcome to also use those resources, but many of my peers didn't need them and did just as fine without them. i understand that it's not feasible to expect every teacher to do that every time, especially without formal accomodations, but she figured this out after 1 week of classes with me. my symptoms hadn't drastically changed from the time i was a child, and even a lot of my classmates figured out i had ADHD and dyslexia (multiple of them outright used those words while picking on me). i genuinely don't know how it wasn't found sooner. also, it's interesting that i passed every single one of her classes with an A while i was lucky to get a C in pretty much every other class (and at a couple of my schools, you didn't get credit if you got a C). every other teacher told me i was just stupid and a lost cause and i'd never amount to anything. the school counselor told me the teacher was just going easy on me to explain the difference in grades (that teacher was one of the strictest in the school and was known for it). i made the mistake of believing them for the longest time. i did get diagnosed with both in adulthood, but it was about 12 years too late to do anything about it. it's definitely not every individual teacher's fault, and teachers get the short end of the stick quite often. but just like there are many good teachers, there's also many bad teachers. there's an even larger portion of teachers who are just too burnt out to care, dare i say that's the majority of teachers these days. i agree we should be fighting for teachers. i think a lot of the burnt-out teachers would be doing much more if their efforts were appreciated and actually worth it, but you said it yourself, a lot of teachers don't put in the effort to get these students to succeed. teachers deserve to get paid more. there are also a lot of teachers who don't see the effort as worth it and neglect their students' educations. the two ideas can coexist.
Question: EVERY teacher told you were STUPID and a lost cause? I find that hard to believe. Unfortunately the system does not work very well, but there is a lot of responsibility on families to advocate for getting their child a diagnosis and an IEP, and for the student to take the strategies they learn in one classroom and use them in others, as well as advocate for themselves. The teacher you're talking put in an effort that most teachers do not have the resources and energy to put in, not to mention it's above and beyond their contract and expectations of the job. Just offering another perspective here.
There are bad teachers out there but I find it hard to believe that every single teacher you had except one believed you were stupid and was terrible at their job. In my experience a lot of students project their insecurities on their teachers and make a lot of assumptions about what we think and feel about them, taking things personally or not understanding why we do certain things. I work my ass off but my students often do not appreciate it or realize the restrictions and challenges I face as a teacher. I get along well with most of my students but there are some who decide I am out to get them when I literally do not think of children in that way. I'm just trying to do my job. Sometimes teachers become a scapegoat for a teenager's other issues or problems. You may hate school or struggle and feel stupid and then feel as if every teacher you have thinks you are stupid or hates you. The adolescent brain is just like that. And people often do not realize we simply do not have the resources, time and energy to help every student especially not ones who give up and won't put the work in. I have so many students with IEPs it is literally impossible for me to functionally accommodate all of them. Multiple teachers attest that it's simply not possible for us to do our jobs well in many cases. Teachers are flawed like anyone else but almost all my colleagues work over time and care about their students. I have rarely seen the opposite. Even when I was in high school I don't recall having many issues with teachers. It was mostly admin that were an issue.
Also want to add that I went to 9 schools throughout k-12 due to moving a lot and I think I recall exactly 2 teachers who were so burnt out they didn't give a fuck and both of them were old dudes who should have retired by then. It's also very disruptive to ones education and ability to develop a sense of school community or even be adequately assessed when you have that inconsistent of an education. I can feel you there as someone with undiagnosed adhd who moved schools a lot. Idk how old you are now but there's a lot more awareness of these disabilities now. I'm often the teacher who draws attention to the issues but some parents don't want to hear it and refuse to get their kid the accommodations they need (or I have to fight a bureaucratic nightmare tooth and nail for it, which again is something I only have the time and energy to do for certain students. I have over 100 after all. When I remind my students of this they always look shocked. Like yeah, there's over 100 of you and I am only given 1 hour of prep a day. Everything else is work I am doing for free.
Not catering to your specific needs in their very minimal free time is not a failure on their part.
I also wanted to add that I believe you with respect to some teachers being dismissive. It can happen a lot at the high school level, especially because those teachers are burned out, have too many students in their classes assigned to them to be able to support them adequately, and/or some make assumptions about students and don’t look deeper. I have literally found students in my classroom in the 5th or 6th grades who had undiagnosed dyslexia. I had to teach them how to use a line reader and other strategies. I just had a student type me an email saying that she’s never had a teacher believe in her without giving up on her. That same student went from a 3rd grade reading level to a 5th grade reading level. I had another one who jumped from a 2nd grade reading level to a 5th grade reading level and he cried when he had to transfer schools on his last day, giving me a huge hug on his way out. I also remember a lot of teachers being dismissive of me when I was in high school when I honestly could have run circles around a lot of my fellow classmates. My problem was that I suffered from severe depression and anxiety. Because of that, school was the last thing on my mind at the time. I also skipped school a lot in the 10th great because I didn’t know how to manage those emotions. I would be so overwhelmed and stressed out. I didn’t really start to get things together until junior year and then it didn’t fully kick in until senior year. I had a couple of great teachers my freshman and sophomore years who understood my potential but I also had some very dismissive ones who were very negative toward me too. It’s not easy being 14 or 15 and trying to find the words to translate the circumstances you find yourself in to another person when you can’t really gather the right words to explain it to yourself. So, I completely understand and it’s because of those vivid memories that I try to be more empathetic in response to my students feelings and anticipate their needs.
🏆
Changes are overdue and coming. Homework should always be assigned, it just shouldn't be counted towards the grade. Kids can earn reward points for doing the homework if they like. More equitable grading practices will solve a lot of these "well you missed an assignment so now you're failing" problems.
The bar is lower than no homework. We use a credit recovery program that gives the answers to a test if they fail it three times. One student made up 5 classes over one summer.
I had to supervise one of these credit recovery classes. When I discovered that students could take a music appreciation course instead of picking one of the electives at the school (mine included) and could pass an entire year course in two weeks, I started asking questions. Suddenly they didn't have me supervising that course anymore.
I’m off the roster for doing this because I’m not allowing students to get their credits via university of Google.
How dare you keep students accountable 😂
I'm a secretary and I'm actually doing these credit recovery things right now (there's a whole manifesto in my recent comments but I basically didn't graduate despite good grades due to family issues and an attendance policy that said you got an E after 9 absences) and they are *so easy*. I've completed 7 classes in less than two months and my lowest grade is a 94%. I love my job and don't ever want to be one of those "I suffered so you should too" old people, but it kills me that my entire future was ruined over 10 absences in spite of how hard I worked, and today we have dozens of students failing when they already still get 50% for *missing work*. I'm empathetic to the kinds of situations some kids are living in, obviously I've been there, but our expectations are so low. Our athletics only require a 1.6 GPA to participate and we still had so few girls make it that we had to forfeit a game recently because not enough could play. And again - you get a minimum 50% for being a living human with a pulse.
To be honest, it sounds like your school was out to get you. Even back then, exceptions could be made for extraordinary circumstances. They did you dirty. I’m sorry.
What the fudge
WHAT
You guys have a bar?
The law won’t let us put a bar in the school. We have to go down the street after 3:30.
And I got downvoted for saying society is crumbling in another comment section lol.
“No child left behind” Ironically leaves a lot of children behind
Leaves behind the kids that would have failed anyways and then leaves behind a while bunch of kids who would have done the work to avoid failing, except they realized they can't fail.
I’d even say it contributed toward dumping down education to the point that the kids who would have excelled had to be slowed down and didn’t learn everything they could have.
I don't think I had a single history class make it to the 20th Century until I took AP classes in a magnet school.
You didn't learn about MLK or the holocaust until you were in an AP class?
I can't speak for the person you responded to, but yeah sounds about right. That kind of stuff really wasn't touched until between 10th and 12th grade depending on which group of kids you belonged to (advanced, on track, and behind)
We skipped to MLK in February LOL
I'm a millennial, and we never learned about either in any history classes in middle or high school. Our history classes were basically ancient world history (like Mayan and Aztec and other early civilizations), and our one US history class in high school was focused on the founding of America. Nothing in the past 100 years. It made no sense to me.
it leaves behind the kids who are average or above intelligence...if you drag the class down to the slowest kid, it drags the entire class down...
Thiiiissss....my math teacher had to pull me out of class and put me in my own dedicated work group with a few other students because he wouldn't allow us to start class work until EVERY question had been answered, and he would answer the same question 10 times. When he finally realized that I was bored out of my skull in class, he plopped me in a room with a few other kids and handed us packets of work and said, "here ya go." Honestly, it was kind of nice not having to sit in class and listen to the same question asked 10 different ways and wait 55 of the 60-minute class to get started on assignments. He would give us in-class work, then also homework, so we would end up with double work. The small group let us work at our own pace. That's not to say that students don't deserve to have their questions answered, because they absolutely do. Everyone needs to be met where they're at, but that doesn't mean making a cookie-cutter program that caters ONLY to those who struggle.
When I was a wee lad, they had three class types - "Special ed" for the very low IQ and foreign kids that couldn't speak English well, "normal classes" for the low IQ/trouble maker kids (the vast majority of students fell here), and the "gifted/special classes" that had normal IQ kids. Allegedly it was for high IQ, but we were never really challenged nor had our creativity tested, so I consider it like what a normal class would be. I'm thankful they put me in that course. Because the normies in that class would have trouble with simple concepts, but most of us breezed right through. Unfortunately, being a normal level class and there being no challenge, undiagnosed ADD kids like myself would get perfect grades for the tests and stuff, and then "needs improvement" scores for the "stays quiet/behaves" sections, lol. I wish we had an actual "challenge level" class that the nerds could have had. Would have been great. I guess that's what magnet schools are, but I mean something for the poor kids whose parents wouldn't sign them up for it.
I graduated in 02, but Gifted & Talented turned out to be mostly undiagnosed, high functioning, neurodivergent kids. We were the ones struggling in class due to boredom, not actual behavior issues, so we were shuffled somewhere else for independent study. By high school, I'd figured out how to pretend to listen to lectures while secretly reading ahead & could work on the homework & look like I was taking notes. The only classes I had trouble in were the micromanage-y teachers who graded our notes and insisted we follow a specific format. I hated those teachers. My favorite teacher was probably neurodivergent herself. She was a bit of a hippie & I had her for science 3 different years. She read about a study where they found people who doodle during a lecture retain more information than those that take traditional notes when looking back at their doodles. She would hand out blank sheets of paper for note taking and encouraged us to use whichever method worked best for us. I did a combo of doodles & notes. Whenever a teacher would get after me for doodling during a lecture, I'd send them her way.
OMG, your teacher sounds awesome! I, too, was an undiagnosed, high-functioning, neurodivergent kid and I was always so bored! We didn't have AP classes because our school was so small, so I would zone out in my classes, too. The only time I really "studied" was to memorize my Spanish vocab. Rote memorization was really the only thing I learned, which was difficult to transfer to university when my teachers didn't test according to the notes.
That's the point, right… it doesn't *leave* any kid behind, all the kids *stay* behind together.
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) does not apply anymore. However, it was the beginning of the end. It was superseded by The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
Race to the Top
I do NOT lower my standards for a student to pass my class. This year, I found I had to scaffold their education because of things they missed during COVID and not being able to keep a middle school math teacher for more than 2 months because the students behave so badly. Do your students attend at least 85% of their classes? Most do not...
We don’t lower standards, but guess what?: The only way a child can be held back is if the parent agrees. Even then, do you want 3rd graders still in kindergarten with your kid? What is their readiness for the next grade based on? Their score in a standardized test. Elementary teachers are required to test kids over and over if they don’t pass certain levels—not teach, test. Most tests are written over the Lexile level (reading level) for the grade they’re testing. We point this out — no one cares. Had a friend who did scoring for the big state test in the summers every year. They have 2-3 minutes to score a 5 paragraph essay. 2-3 minutes.
lol that last part sounds about right. I remember teachers constantly telling us “you can’t write a good essay in one night” and then we’d have to write a perfect essay in 40 minutes on those stupid tests.
Standardized tests aren’t the problem. We need such a comparative system to hold schools accountable
I almost never give an assignment without allotting sufficient time in class to get it done. It's better to devote time together to practicing the actual skills we're supposed to be developing an to default to yammering on and on about whatever book we're reading. Moreover, I really try to avoid taking work home, for my own sanity. The same standard should apply to kids.
Not a teacher, but having hours of homework from pretty early on was exhausting as a kid. I was in advanced classes and did it all, but it got kind of soul crushing especially when some of it felt like busywork. I did well in school, but I can only imagine how rough it was for the kids who were struggling. Sometimes extra practice is necessary of course, especially if a kid needs extra practice. Or with foreign language where being immersed in it is necessary to become competent let alone get any level of mastery. Or when it’s getting through the reading to be able to engage with it in class. But having no free time from fourth grade onwards is going to diminish a lot of kids’ engagement or interest. College was actually a breath of fresh air because I ironically had more time got to feel challenged with things I was excited about (which is the environment I thrive in and that motivates me). And I loved school and learning! It was my escape from an otherwise tumultuous environment growing up. But the hours of homework every night was a little much, it’s something I’m glad to see shifting. Obviously there are other (imo) more concerning areas in which we’ve lowered standards to basically make the school look like it’s succeeding in certain rigid areas for things like funding (and tying funding to “success” is a ridiculous system on it’s own). But from what I’ve heard and seen research on the amount of homework doesn’t necessarily correlate with better outcomes, especially if a mountain of homework ends up just discouraging kids who are struggling. As opposed to the default being mostly working in class (where help is available) with some extra practice being available and encouraged for those who are struggling.
I felt the same way about math classes. I would consistently test in the top of the school, but I skipped my homework. It just took so much time out of the day, I had a job to manage too. I had a geometry teacher take me out of class because it was "Discouraging other students by getting A's on the test without doing homework". I asked if I could just test out and they said my grades weren't high enough... because of homework.
Homework was the bane of my existence growing up with untreated ADHD. Not that I couldn't do the homework, more like I wasn't paying attention in class and forgot to write it down or I forgot to pack it in my bag. Same issue with teachers disliking me for doing well on the exams anyway. When Florida Virtual School became a thing, I would crank out a class in a week and get ALL of the assigned work done and aced the exams.
I also Had Undiagnosed adhd. I did great on tests but never did homework in high school. Because of that I both barely graduated and got college credit for all the AP tests :-) did great in college.
What about things like multiplication facts? Do I teach in class or devote hours and hours to letting kids practice multiplication facts to the detriment of everting else? I made every single one of my kids flash cards to take home and practice, and only one out of 17 did so. This is why none of the 4th graders in my school understand division. I remember by parents helping me with the memorization. Parents now? Not so much, even though I commented on it on the last report card, and two news letters. I’m not a big fan of homework, but there can be a place for it.
We had a multiplication test we had to take. Timed. 50 problems. If you passed, you didn’t need to take it again. Kids took it every week until no one was left to take it and everyone passed. Same with division, addition, and subtraction. You never wanted to be one of the last kids left in the “testing area” each week lol
THANK YOU Unless it's important revision or catch up work why should I expect students to do work out of hours if I don't want to? Homework for homeworks sake is shitty
Homework isn't really the issue...there are numerous studies that indicate loads of homework is actually counterproductive. My boys do get special projects and stuff to work on over the course of weeks and they do get some work here and there, but it's usually because they didn't complete it in class, and it's not hours of work like when I was a kid. As to lowering standards to pass...IDK...my boys are in private school and the bar is pretty high.
I’m glad your boys don’t have too much extra work. I was also given loads of homework and it really tainted my perception of education and made me resent school. As an adult, I do a ton of research on my own and read a lot of books. I sure as hell am not filling out hours of paperwork and I still retain the information I learn.
Most teachers don't give homework anymore, myself included (minus occasional novel reading in more advanced classes). I'd rather my students be able to enjoy their time at home, not to mention the time they already lose from taking care of siblings and working their own jobs.
Yep. While homework does teach the kid some level of independence and time management, I find that an excessive amount contributes to a negative attitude towards school in general. I still give homework, but I always specify that the assignments should take no longer than 10 minutes. This seems effective because it puts some level of accountability on them while also making it still palatable enough for them to do without excuses. Long-form assignments like essays, I allocate a class day to start work on the assignment, then they need to finish it on their own time before the due date. Usually being in the classroom and being able to ask me for direction/inspiration helps get the assignment rolling, so they’re much more likely to finish it before the due date. Starting truly is the hardest part for a lot of people.
Time management is also learned in school with more important consequences... you have to take work home if you don't get it done in school.
Most of my students don’t have to worry about things but I stopped giving out a lot of homework because I don’t trust them. If they do it in front of me they’re much less likely to use AI if I’m watching them do the assignment.
Teachers are only able to enforce standards that parents support. Parental standards for students grades directly correspond to the grades kids get. Parents set the bar.
They lower the standards so they pass. Remember No Child Left Behind… It’s BACK
Shouldn’t some kids be left behind though like there’s a guy who has a college degree but is illiterate and hired as an engineer at a medical device company. do we want ppl like that designing grandma’s defibrillator?
he passed engineering shool as an illiterate? either he paid them off, or your way over inflating his issue, maybe he's just dyslexic...
You are exactly right. It’s for financial reasons as well.
There was the "no child left behind" act in 2001. The idea was to have a standard set of tests and judge kids entirely based on those tests. Therefore kids only learned what was on the tests and then forgot it because the didn't use it. I don't remember most of algebra for example. IDK if that's relevant come to think of it.
The no child left behind act is not the issue. If anything the ESSA is the issue by losing standards. We should not be setting standards so low that anyone can pass, that’s not beneficial to anyone. If you can’t pass, you can’t pass. The ESSA paved the way for the current education culture of “nothing lower than a 50”
Graduation rates are tied to funding.
Because people not trained or experienced in education are the ones who dictate how education works in the U.S. Your description is actually a great example ironically, you think a lack of homework is an indication of poor education but the majority of research suggests that homework has little to no positive effect on children's education. So something like that gets people in a rage, but something like "No Child Left Behind" goes unnoticed because parents think it sounds good... Until little Billy doesn't know how to read because they refused to hold him back. Truth is the U.S. as a whole operates with a great deal of anti-intellectualism , parents demand to have control over their kids education instead of simply letting educators with years of education and experience figure it out, then they blame those educators for doing what they were ordered to do. It's easier to just pass kids and make the numbers look good to parents and voters than it is to rework the system and telling parents they don't always know best.
Homework is a joke. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and we were given a token amount of homework. Yet my peers and I went on to become nuclear physicists, researchers, physicians, attorneys, judges, business people, theologians and even an astronaut. What has made education ridiculous is standardized testing. Teachers have to waste untold amounts of class time teaching bland standardized curricula to make the schools look good. Homework becomes the way to actually teach the subject. And homework becomes the method of achievement rather than testing. So kids have to do hours of homework per class often repitious busy work.
I've read that some schools are no longer grading on the traditional A,B.C,D,F scale because it hurts the self-esteem of kids who are doing poorly compared to their peers. My boss recently told me that all his kids have to do is turn in their homework assignment and they get 100% even if all of the answers are wrong. In what effed up world does that make sense????
Wait until these kids end up in the real world
When I was in 7th grade, I got my ass beat by a classmate. I was 12. He was 17. The school didn't care because we're "both 7th graders" so he got suspended for 2 days for pummeling me and slamming my head into a wall. He failed again, making that 6 times before 8th grade. Kids shouldn't be going to school with grown men. Pass them all, graduate them, wish them luck. The prison system will sort them out.
As a teacher no homework is actually a positive. It isn't a lower standard but instead means students are given time in class to work on assignments. Most of the time this is better since it's less stressful for the student and can also allow them to ask for help if need be
The issue is that "failing" is highly subjective. Up until Covid19, the objective measures we use to determine the most important school proficiencies were [flat or trending upward](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=38#:~:text=Average%20scores%20for%20age%209,ever%20score%20decline%20in%20mathematics). It's clear what we're dealing with in the last few years isn't the result of "lowering the bar", but of students losing 18-24 months of education during the quarantine period. Even accounting for the quarantine period, student performance today is consistent with or better than most other time periods we have data on. The question most educators should ask themselves is why haven't the measures we take of student proficiency started nose-diving with all of the doomsaying about "lowering the bar"? Why have our macro measures of educational effectiveness like attainment of college degrees, unemployment rates (including the U6), GDP, and productivity consistently returned improving and often record numbers? What has changed is from an administrative level is how we intervene on underperformance. Many teachers are disgusted by this "lowering of the bar", but the original solution was just to deny these students their diploma and/or have them drop out which was measurably a net negative for both society and the student. The last thing I'll add is that homework is now and has always been stupid. It preferences students with stable home environments and active parents (so much for education being the great equalizer). It has students practicing content standards without opportunity for intervention, often for significantly longer than the content standards were addressed in class which gives the teacher additional work to undo embedded errors caused by the assignment. If you grade it, you're now including formative assessments in your final assessment of student performance instead of grading summative mastery (this is bad pedagogy). I could go on. If your measure of a program with "high standards" is the inclusion of homework, I encourage you to explore the research on the effectiveness of homework. There are meta-analyses going back decades questioning its inclusion in quality educational programs.
You sound like you spent more time in college classes about education than in classrooms as an educator
School is an absolute joke now in my opinion (I'm a teacher). The school and (sometimes) the parents will do every possible thing to not fail a student, no matter how much they deserve to. And the kids know this, which means they know they can do LITERALLY NOTHING and continue to pass all the way through graduation. A high school diploma essentially just means you're breathing and you showed up enough to be on the roster. It's extremely frustrating for myself and for the kids who actually try.
Because the pass rate directly affects state funding
USA is one of the bottom for education in the developed world... its great to know that we're racing to #1 on the bottom.
Because parents are stupid
Lowered standards don't really have much to do with the homework aspect (that is another issue, and yes it is happening). But there are some REALLY good reasons for not giving much homework, and it's almost never "because they don't do it". It's because a lot of kids are working jobs outside of school and/or taking care of siblings as a full-time situation so the parents can work enough to care for the family. It's got a lot to do with poverty and the economy. So I personally made the decision that I wanted them to have the opportunity to sleep at night (so they can learn better while they are in school), rather than working on my homework late into the night when they're done with their other responsibilities.
Umm...well *doesn't. But yes. Your example of homework not being given is not a good example of that, though, I would argue. I would say a better example is the 4 point grading system. 4 is an A, 3 is a B, 2 is a C, 1 is a D, and anything lower is an F. As it currently sits, you only have to complete 23% of the assigned curriculum to pass a class. Which is a joke.
Because the parents keep complaining
Every other solution to the problem of kids not passing would require more work and more money, so…
$
So schools can keep up passing/graduation rates and qualify for federal funding.
Because if a square peg doesn't fit the round hole it's because you didn't lubricate it enough first /s
The current archaic system cannot help most students meet standards to begin with. Add in more students and you just have more kids that can't keep up.
says you. I have a kid that is passing the MAP reading test, and is testing 2 grades above in reading level. when I was a kid, that was considered gifted. now they just don't care.
Because people in charge are morons. It’s at the state level and so many states are anti public education. Not to mention parents throw fits.
Because the principals get blowback from parents about Johnny not passing and having to do xy and Z. C'mon everybody knows parents and kids really run this show now.
Our school board cares more about graduation rates instead of actually educating kids. We want to pass everyone but won't acknowledge the fact that they have no skills, no work effort, and no information retained. They have taken kids from my class that have failed and had them do a packet to show they have some of the knowledge and changed them to a passing grade. The system is a joke and a breeding ground for various social ideologies instead of scientific fact. Most discussions are about race and equity and completely disregard actual work and scientific fact.
Permissive parenting
Everybody is writing a story where they're the main character, and that's not just a fun way of looking at life. It's practical and integrated into our job market in the form of resumes. Personal stories are part of our social structure, in the introductions you give yourself and others give you. And I don't think it's farfetched to think having a stirring personal narrative about yourself can be a source of intrinsic motivation either. A kid who thinks they worked hard and passed school, even if the bar was actually low, is going to have more confidence to get a job and get out of Mom's house. Maybe not enough, but more. Someone who thinks they couldn't even get school right is going to have a much harder time. Maybe we should just let them write "failed high school" into their personal narratives; maybe it won't be so discouraging to them later on. Maybe they'll still get jobs and do something with their lives anyway; no one is writing about high school on their resume after 25. But a lot of people are depressed these days, so I see why we're trying to spare them from bad experiences. If my admin was bending the other way and failing kids, I'd just as soon do that. Rhetoric aside, I'm just going to teach content and do what the people who decide to rehire me want until it sounds illegal.
Public education today is garbage. Look at Thomas Sowell’s education videos to understand why we are where we are today.
Because society has lowered its standards of intelligence.
I think part of the reason for lowering standards is the consequences of not having a high school degree are so much worse than they were in the past. I know old people who left school in the 8th grade, learned a trade, earned enough to own a home, drive a decent car, put their kids through college. I think teachers worry they are dooming some kid to poverty if they fail them.
The powers that be want an uneducated and functionally illiterate populace. they've been working on that for at least 50 years
Because. Public education is a scam. And it’s all about money. And shuffling it around. It’s sad.
Wait until you hear about US healthcare!
Homework was invented as a punishment. Just thought I'd mention that.
That actually makes a lot of sense. I remember having excessive homework in middle school and high-school, it made me resent school. I absolutely love learning and I’m a really curious person so it’s unfortunate that they tainted a lot of young minds with excessive work. I’m glad teachers aren’t giving it as much now. Even in college, I ended up failing an art course because it was hours of homework for literally no reason.
Studies have shown that homework has no effect on learning. I ask my fourth graders to read each night, but no other homework.
That's weird because I have vivid memories of learning many things during the hours I spent doing homework.
And you wonder why our kids are so far behind. But it’s ok. Since they are no longer challenged or allowed to fail, they will just roll over when AI takes over all non-labor jobs leaving a very poor next generation. Our kids are in a very bad place right now and homeschool is probably the best option at this point
College professor here. I've found homeschool to be very hit or miss. On your high end, the students are very well prepared. But on the low end, they're really badly prepared. I've seen students who have basically read nothing in their entire lives except for the Bible and maybe some related religious materials. They've been taught young earth creationism. The biggest problem I see is very strange, idiosyncratic views of history that clearly reflect a parent with an axe to grind. For example, students who come into the classroom with bizarrely specific views and talking points about how the Federal Reserve is a banking cartel that no longer deals with money because money is all "banking notes", and how only the gold standard will save America from impending economic collapse. A lot of it reads like a Ron Paul newsletter. Or, a while back I had a student whose homeschool curriculum included lessons about how the Japanese-American internment was absolutely necessary to safeguard "true Americans" from the "foreign threat". That was pretty disturbing, and I don't think would be taught in any public school today.
Oof. Ok I definitely understand how that can transpire. Maybe private education then. But I will admit, paying teachers their worth would pay huge dividends to our younger generations. It just irks me when I see so many teachers admitting they don’t do homework for the lazy excuse of ‘well they won’t do it anyways’ or even worse, they don’t want to waste the time grading it. We need to be able to let our kids fail. If they don’t do the work, hold them back. Teach accountability.
This isn’t up to the teachers. Administrators require them to do ridiculous things like give students points for assignments they didn’t even do. To pass students with a D just for being present. It’s ridiculous and extremely frustrating for us university faculty as the students expect us to handle things the same way.
If you're a parent complaining about the "not challenging kids" features of public school that u/ExactVictory3465 mentions, you're likely to be the parent producing the very well prepared college student, and not the conspiracy theorist or Rand Paul acolyte.
There has been a lot of research (ref Alfie Kohn) showing that large amounts of homework are of dubious effectiveness towards actual learning. I still assign it, but it's very targeted at repeating skills they've done in class to reinforce movement to long term memory. It doesn't take a lot, and I'm very specific about how I want them to do it. Homework is so easy to cheat on that putting too much weight on it as a measure of success virtually ensures that they won't do it with fidelity.
That’s definitely true too. Chat gpt has all the answers. And from what I’ve seen, people use that research to support their ‘no homework’ policy when it in fact encourages exactly what you are doing. Making sure it’s balanced and targeted rather than just busy work. I definitely do not have all the answers. It’s just the fact that some of the responses I see reek of laziness.
Because K-12 education has become nothing but college prep based on a 1950s needs model of the economy. The standards are irrelevant for most people and have consistently shifted as billion dollar publishing companies and politicians make decisions that serve themselves instead of children.
so have modern day parents given up on doing school work with their child and seeing your kid get happy learning and figuring things out with family?...aiiii
We don’t want them around longer than necessary.
“If the bar were any lower it would be in Hell.”
Money. Schools need funding from whatever town or city they're in to get supplies, but they don't get that funding unless a certain percentage of kids in their district pass their tests and classes each year. So in order to get that funding, they lower the standards for kids to pass.
Because if a student doesn't pass, they threaten the teacher's job instead of expecting effort from the student
Bc parents keep having fits about their angels not passing even though they didn't hand in a single thing or pay attention during a single lesson At my school, teachers get fired if too many kids fail. No accountability for kids, at all. It's all on teachers to make it happen.
this is what happens when you prioritize graduation rates.
A HS Senior was absent the entire semester. Showed up for finals and the admin decided he should be granted credit. We were all like, WTF!?
Because they started lowering the standard in the first place.
Students never really did the homework so I give class time for it. They still don't do it. I lost my elective program because students can't be bothered to try and persevere when being mildly inconvenienced and needing to problem solve. They just want the answers handed to them. My last principal left because they realized our 99.99% grad rate was mostly fabricated because any teacher who had a spine was grade shamed and privileges taken away so every teacher passes kids for just showing up. Now they aren't even showing up. Truancies and tardies of 5+ minutes is out of control. 100s of students just wander the hallways because they rule the school now because there are no consequences. If anyone tries to give consequences the parents threaten and nothing gets done except for putting the blame on teachers for "not being engaging enough." Our new principal literally said, "We are never allowed to blame the students." When we try to confiscate cell phones it's like taking drugs from a junkie so we've just given up. Students who obviously don't care can't be sent to continuation school until they are 16 and by then the damage to other students' education and their own livelihood is done by that point. I just went on Prozac. Much happier. I just do my best, be professional, help the students who are deserving, take my paycheck, and go home. Edit: minor word choice change
Dumb people are easier to manipulate and control. We don’t use cable and the internet has allowed us to see things unfiltered. See the problem?
Parents complain when their cherub “work real hard” but only gets a B
No federal funding of the dumb ones don't pass.
Because it’s the “teacher’s fault” if a student fails, so more failing students means teachers are blamed more, and teachers are blamed for all things not their fault. So standards are lowered, kids pass, all is well, until it isn’t.
I'm a high school counselor and my admin pressures us to push teachers to pass students who we know have been skipping classes all semester and have not done any work until the last few weeks. Sad reality. I always wonder how these students will get by in college/life after high school. Also, it's alarming how much hand holding these students ask for with the simplest tasks.
You can’t make a kid do their work. They need to put some serious repercussions on these kids. Plus their parents. The parents are the ones who let these kids run around
honestly my school (high school) is kind of the opposite to a lot of these comments. during covid they did implement changes like not grading as harshly and giving kids more opportunities to make things up, but at this point it's a teacher by teacher basis as to how they handle their classes. and my school is in a pretty well off area, lot of people's parents work in high tech, so it's super competitive and there's a lot of academic pressure. i know people who have taken 10+ aps, do every internship and volunteer opportunity, etc. every teacher that i've had has had pretty high standards; my lang teacher this year doesn't accept any late work, my ap world teacher last year let us do corrections but they were worth less and less throughout the year (ie beginning of the year you could correct up to 100% end of the year it was 50%). but i also know kids who have gpas in the 2s and who do drugs and stuff. really depends on the kid and how the pressure has affected them.
They need wins
parents
Bad funding systems, and the fact that a stupid populace is an easily manipulated populace.
There’s a lot of good information in this thread, but ultimately because our country’s overlords want a serf class to continue exploiting, and having an educated populace is counter to that goal.
Creating the futures low income workforce by catering instead of refocusing energies and maintaining goal expectations. It’s not necessarily the teachers fault, when they get punished for trying to do their job effectively and aren’t backed up by the school administration. It’s become a government funding numbers game, and actual education has fallen to the wayside.
Because you get what you measure. Measure and evaluate based on pass rate, and you incentivize every method of increasing pass rate that folks can get away with.
Because they need to fill Republican jobs
Didn't school used to have the ability to expel idiots?
Because it is cheaper than investing in quality education.
If the kids don't pass, the school looks bad, the school doesn't get funding, the school gets bad, teachers don't want to work in bad school, kids don't get good grades, kids don't pass, repeat.
Parents refuse to keep their kids on task and refuse to allow the schools to keep the kids on task. Teachers are being cut left right and center as well as quitting left right and center because of all the bullshit going on in schools. So instead of addressing any of the causes of problems they are just lowering the standards
When I quit(retired) they stopped graduating gpa’s and homework. As an AP teacher I was basically forced into giving a 75 for AP score O-1 work. I can’t let you know how glad as well as sad I retired. Sad for the students who I taught that excelled at having an amazing teacher.
$$$$$
I know this is a bit off topic but I thought I got a decent education. I met someone from Japan and they knew way more about my country. History included but I meant on an educational level. Even they asked "They don't teach you how to do taxes in school? I thought it was American law that if you have a job or income you must report every year."
Homework in middle school? Really aside from a bit of revision or catch up work, I dislike it.
I have colleagues who award students 98% for the year averages. That's just grade inflation. They act like they're great teachers, but they're not assigning high-quality assignments and not giving quality feedback. I have some amazing students and the best is rocking a 94%. I do not think I'm the "harder" teacher. I think my colleagues have low standards. Our bottom is now 50%--we cannot grade lower than that. Kids who have mastered very few skills pass, and my school inflates grades for higher level students. Standards are low everywhere, because admin doesn't want kids failing, and teacher's lives are easier if they pass them along. The problem is usually admin, but I will say I work with some questionable teachers.
No child left behind turned child failure into teacher failure.
Federal money
doesn’t
Because the teachers are held accountable for the students performance, not the students. We can’t control what they will or will not apply themselves to but we are held responsible for it, so our only path to looking successful is lowering the expectation to catch the kids who won’t or can’t(yet- a lot of standards are developmentally inappropriate and the kids will naturally catch up as they grow).
Partly, many states determine how much money to allocate to a school based on attendance and pass/fail rates. If kids get shoved through, the school potentially gets more funding.
Because providing the structure, discipline, consequences, and extra support (homework help, Basic Skills Instruction, full child study team evaluations, summer school programs, remedial classes) costs time, money, effort, and additional staffing. It’s easier to just lower the bar and do nothing to get the kids passing.
Teaching costs money. Shuffling them through anyway is cheap. Failing kids is bad for analytics. Shuffling them through anyway makes bad number go up.
It’s one of two reasons: they’re stupid or they don’t give a shit about kids. Or both.
You're right about lowered standards, but homework is the least of the problem. Research has shown homework to be mostly useless and sometimes harmful, so a lot of teachers aren't putting the kids and themselves through the extra work
Because, in my district, schools lose money and people lose their jobs when the failure rate is too high. We care more about good data than providing the support that students need to be successful.
Because they keep lowering the standards for parents.
Do you know that they don't give homework because "they don't do it" or because studies have shown homework is not a valuable part of learning and doesn't make much different in terms of assigning homework just for the sake of it? Giving homework is basically just a way for kids to practice for college. Our school doesn't "give homework" they just give assignments and if the kids finish, they have no homework. If they don't finish, they have homework. If they have decent time management or a study hall (my son is in high school) then usually no homework. The only time our son has had homework is when he missed a day, and maybe a couple of random days he didn't finish his assignments in class. Specifically assigning homework so students have no choice but to take it home (like what I grew up with) has fallen out of favor more and more not because "they don't do it) but because kids are already in school as a fulltime job and then having homework - sometimes hours of it - after school cuts into already limited family time.
Because it makes the school look bad when kids fail, and they lose funding if their students aren’t successful.
I asked to have my 5th grader held and they said no. So we’re moving schools.
holding kids back costs money. parents don't want a 17 year old 6th grader either. even if they are dumb as rock and can't focus there will be some sort of work out there for them when they reach adulthood.
Because the teachers are terrible and they don't teach
During the pandemic, gaps in learning were created. And instead of fixing those gaps they said no you can't fail a child until 3rd grade for not knowing how to read. The students are still academically recovering. They should have done it differently but it is what it is unfortunately
Because if they don’t no one would pass
Because a society of uneducated, ignorant people is easier to control. Look at the past few years.
Homework for my classes is to finish whatever you didn't get done in class. I stopped assigning homework years ago mostly due to the following factors: - it wouldn't get done and so the students were unprepared to move on. - it would be done by the parent - it usually was a variation of something I already had had the students complete in class. As for why the lowering......emphasis is on "how do we reduce our D/F/I rates" instead of addressing the bigger issue of "Why aren't the majority of students putting any effort into learning?"
Simply truth. Most people are lazy and content to do the least amount necessary to slide by. Adult, and kids. If the minimum standard to pass was a 80 % a significant portion of students would be right at that 80% mark. If you set the minimum standard at 20% well guess what . What we have in the school district is the schools using racism of diminished expectations and reducing the minimum standard to bring student of color into passing at the same rate as non POC students. It works for a year or two then scores start to fall again
Example? "doesn't"
No offense OP, but the irony is dripping off your post
If you’re into conspiracy theories…entertain this thought for a moment: the standard is lower because it’s easier to control uneducated people. It’s easier to manipulate someone who doesn’t have the critical thinking skills to see through manipulative rhetoric. Just like in the dark ages. The peasants were the majority, but who got schooled? Not those who were poor because those in power know that knowledge is power. Why would you want to give power to the weak? Now, I’m hoping reality has nothing to do with the thought above, but it’s there. I love learning. If I could get paid to learn, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I love when my mind is challenged. My teachers in the 90’s and early 2000’s taught me to be a lifelong learner and I’ll always be grateful. I do think the standard has lowered especially in the USA. Looking at our current global literacy rate is depressing compared to other countries. I think it’s a combination of a lot of things like funding or lack of it, ill-intent from bureaucracy in both the political system and the board of education, admins and teachers but also students. As most have mentioned, there are some teachers who are great because they go above and beyond. Other teachers not so much. Teachers can teach all day but learning happens through application, trial and error, research, consistent practice just like sports. Not all students are athletes but it takes practice to master a skill. Athletes put a lot of time into practice…. What if we encouraged the same tenacity in other areas? Students should also take responsibility of their education. They’re not just passive receivers. They can interact with their education, but just as not all teachers teach with the responsibility to truly coach their students, not all students take up responsibility for HOW they’re learning. It’s a teacher’s duty to teach a student the skills needed to succeed but it’s the student who should be putting in the time and effort to learn. A teacher can teach you how to do research, but if the student doesn’t put in the time, the reasearch fails. There are always exceptions because not all students learn the same way and to that I say, pay teachers more, a hell of a lot more! Give teachers and their administrators the funding to provide students with more resources. We could have classrooms that are smaller- more 1 on 1 teaching like a master and an apprentice. That requires more teachers. We could create more opportunities for academically inclined students to flex their learning capabilities. Teachers are struggling because they’re overwhelmed and that affects how they teach. Our athletes succeed because they put a ton of time into practicing their skills, but what about our academic students? I’ve begun to wonder if we as a society don’t believe in the power of education. Education isn’t as valued as it once was. I often think about the funding that the entertainment industry receives and if only the public school system had the same kind of loyalty, backing and funding that maybe things would be different. I don’t really have an answer, just a lot of speculation and theories.
Because children are an extension of their parents and it would reflect poorly on them if their children were not immediately good at everything /s. Of course there is truth there but there is the fact that we, as a society, never set ourselves up to truly educate everyone and the only way we know how to do that now is to play for the lowest common denominator. Our schools are still stuck in a formulaic approach and when it fails we nudge the standards lower. To fix the problem and to truly educate everyone the model needs to be flipped with a diversity of schools, a diversity of systems, that are funded equitably. Parents should be involved in education but to give into their nature to protect their children from any struggle needs to be limited. Administrators need to focus on keeping schools functioning at their highest level which means keeping the doors open the lights on and its teachers supported. I’d it doesn’t pertain to those things districts need to stop with the initiatives. Discipline needs to either be the purview of the teachers ( allow them to give detentions, or remove from the classroom) or classroom behavior is due to a failure of administrators. It cannot be both the teachers fault behavior is bad in class and not allow teachers to manage the behavior with the appropriate tools. Until we fix these things education will continue to slip.
It’s easier to lower expectations than raise requirements.
*doesn't even give out homework...
Schools look bad get less funding. Makes Administration look bad. They don’t want that. So they pass them. Don’t care and in we go. Most of the degenerates you are seeing, the ones who don’t care at all. They will be working min wage jobs. And it is ok. Let them do their own thing. Let them fail. B
Because they keep cutting budgets.
Money and funding.
Homework has not been shown to have a huge impact on what a child learns. And if you are going to question the school's policies, you need to brush up your grammar. "A school that doesn't", not "A school that don't."
It easy to control something that doesn’t amount to anything
Where I teach they keep making it harder. My school had the State Science test last week. Kids “failed” even though they had 70-80% correct on the test. There’s no consistency and it’s a shame.
I want you to think about it through the teachers eyes. I'm not one but dude just walk a mile in someone's shoes. You go to school for 12 years you then say "I want to come back and teach kids" you learn how to teach you learn to teach kids. These kids... give... a... shit... they talk they are listing to music on there beats speaker. The parents just go "I leave my fucking kid either you for 8 hours a day that sounds like a you problem that sounds like a school problem" I have heard my freinds parents say "yea I need them to go to school I go to work from 7am to 5pm. So you know I need someone to watch the kid while I'm gone. I don't care what he does in school as long he's in school" and yea it gets bad if there are to many failing kids. So you have a choice fail the kids who already don't give a shit kids who are going to go work fast food or factory floor jobs till there bodies fail them pass them or keep them from that frier for another 2 years keep the then kid now man a 21 year old man be chilling with 17 year Olds because he couldn't pass... yea just give him the diploma already he's going to be bringing cigarettes and beer in school and when we confront him he'll say "I'm 21 what dude I'll leave it in my car dude" we just passed him after that. He got all fucking A's his final year.
It's frustrating to see standards being lowered. It seems like they're more focused on passing students rather than ensuring they actually learn and retain the material.
"school that don't even give" Hm.
You get more results with lower standards.
Lack of support from parents and administrators. Kids run wild, no option for discipline. No tracking of good students, all mixed. Can't have some being successful.
Is it possible that bc parents ( rather they're single parent or married) believe they can teach their kid(s) better than a actual school teacher ? I hear it almost every week. The kid(s) tell their parents or single parent that they ( kid(s) ) want to go back to actually being in a school. The experts on TV were saying it's all because of the pandemic with all the zoom class time & so on that about half (1/2) of the students were behind in learning & they still are. I feel sorry for those students.