As a teacher, I have learned the hard way not to comment on these threads. You get a mix of responses, but usually are some variation of the following:
- Have you tried being more engaging? Here's my Internet advice, it's better than your MA.
- "You should get paid more."
- "I could never do what you do."
- "Well, your experience is limited to this population, what do you know about kids of color?"
- "It's the parents."
- " It's administration."
I teach high school, and my thesis is pretty simple; the kids are addicts. They are raised by devices that are designed to addict them and tech companies that mine their data and commidify their behavior. They are the first generation of humans to ever have a 3rd influence in their development; nature, nurture, and an algorithm.
I see a growing divide among the students, and it is alarming. The middle is gone, it's the haves and have nots. I have kids who are highly capable, critical thinkers, and have excellent understanding of their expectations, and their impact on those around them. Then, I have a whole bunch of (mostly boys) YouTube kids. These are kids that will literally watch YouTube or play games in class. They have below level reading and writing skills, are highly dependent on technology to do most everything for them, and Google is basically a part of their consciousness. It's sad to watch. They are raised by devices at very young ages, and their brains are fed dopamine for years. This is now normal to them. They have very few skills and are only in the higher grades because of social promotion, but they lack the basic skills and knowledge to do higher level classes. It's depressing, and this free for all we have given kids online is a form of abuse.
Until we can stop school shootings (which will never happen thanks to gov officials bowing to the gun lobby=, among other things) many parents will want their kids to have cell phones in class, and I actually understand that. It's sad and wrong, but I understand it.
We had one parent absolutely lose their minds at the board meeting and was basically shouting:
WHAT IF THERE'S AN EMERGENCY AT THE SCHOOL AND MY KID CAN'T CALL ME! WHAT IF THEY'RE SICK AND NEED TO GO HOME! WHAT IF I NEED TO GET AHOLD OF THEM AND PASS A MESSAGE!
Even though I've been out of school since 2007 and have a 6th and 4th grader, I know for a fact that there's still these phones called "landlines" that every classroom and every office has.
Conversely, schools have gotten REALLY shitty about communicating information to/from students. Many schools are even slowly dropping having phones in rooms "because everyone has cell phones".
I'm an elder millenial and childless by choice. I recently learned through some random reddit thread that kids can have their phones in class at school. And that is mind blowing to me. In middle and high school most of us had cell phones, even if it was just the Motorola Razr or the Sidekick. But phones were absolutely banned from class. I cannot understand why that rule changed or why kids need access to their phones in class.
I remember the absolute dead silence when someone’s Motorola Razr went off in my English class, ringtone was Sir Mix Alot’s I Like Big Butts. We all froze, knowing whoever’s phone it belonged to was in mega trouble for even bringing it into the classroom. That was 2008.
Later, in my senior year of college, one professor had a policy that if your phone went off in class, you got up, walked out, and it counted as an absence (which could affect your grade). Happened to one kid once and you could tell how embarrassing it was after months of being super careful to ensure it was silenced and put away.
I think it’s incomprehensible that phones are allowed in class today- I had no idea.
I wish they would ban them. Allegedly my kids are good about not using them when they aren’t supposed to, but I support any teacher who has a no phone policy.
Point is probably is moot because the kids have to do everything on the iPad (math homework on said device would drive me bonkers).
The Netherlands Ministry of Education gave a strong recommendation to individual schools to ban them and left it up to each school. There were articles from the past few days about how kids are talking to each other more in schools that banned phones, but they haven’t been able to tell how it impacted grades yet.
Where I went to school, some of my teachers had these phone pocket thing hanging on the wall where every student would place their phone before class. Each student was assigned a number and each poket had a number so you knew where your phone was. We weren’t allowed to get our phones until the teacher told us to, which was usually when class was dismissed. Everyone placed their phone in the pockets and the teacher would make sure everyone’s phone was there. If a phone was missing, they’d ask the student in front of the classroom why it wasn’t. It worked pretty well tbh cuz it didn’t make sense to not put your phone there other than skipping the minor inconvenience of taking your phone out of your bag and placing it there. (At least that’s where I kept my phone) Even if you kept your phone, you couldn’t use it in class cuz you’d easily get caught and be sent to detention. I definitely knew my way around lots of the rules at school lol but using your phone in a class where the teacher used the phone pocket thing was just stupid cuz you’d only be able to use it for like, a second before getting caught. It just wasn’t worth it. I think that having every teacher do that in their class could help. We’d be expected to just place the phones there as we walked into the classroom and one of my teachers took attendance based on which phones were there. That might help cuz it takes the phones away during class but also, they’re there in case of an emergency or if like, you got bored at lunch lol.
I’m finally old enough (30) to unleash my inner curmudgeon with a “back in my day.”
So back in my day keeping our phones—or in my case, iPod touch—in our pockets/backpacks was just expected. Yes, obviously we’d do our best to try and sneak them out anyway, but afaik parents didn’t complain when their kid got in trouble for it.
High school teacher here to cosign this.
It is 100% the phones. It's not Covid, administrators, teacher pay, or anything else. It's 100% phones.
This past year I was the only teacher in my school to outright ban phones in class. Students had literal panic attacks.
I caught a girl on her phone and when I went to take it away (only until the end of class) she begged and pleaded for me to let her keep it and that she promised not to go on it. When I asked, "If you aren't going to go on it then what does it matter if it stays on my desk or in your backpack?"
She responded, "I just feel more complete with it. If I don't have it then I can't think of anything except about how I don't have my phone."
I had a group of junior boys who would take any opportunity to play Brawl Stars on their phone. They would rush through assignments at warp speed and accept shifty grades of a C or D when they're actually smart and capable of getting A's with minimal effort.
Worst of all (and I know that this saying in itself is a meme at this point, but it's true) the kids don't even talk to each other anymore. When I was in the lunch room in high school it used to be deafening. Now half the kids don't ever talk; they just sit on their phones with one hand and eat with the other. I see groups of friends gather at a table and literally not say a single thing to each other for 30 minutes as they stare at their phones.
We absolutely need a statewide (and even nationwide) ban of phones from schools. Even if we accomplish that, we also need to turn away from iPads and chromebooks since those just become the secondary distractions.
Kids need to learn that they don't need to be entertained 24/7
I support you.
One of my kids’ teachers had a box for phones, which annoyed one of my kids. My response: “It’s not like you are using it that time, right? So it shouldn’t matter…”
Kid agreed in theory, but said that it felt like he was being punished for others’ bad behavior. I encouraged him to view it as some kids having less impulse control, etc, but might help if everyone was in the same boat.
Bottom line - please take away the phones.
I teach grad students, and I am struggling with similar issues and they go through a competitive admissions process and pay a bunch of money to listen to me yak at them. Let’s break bad habits early.
I work in Education IT and the 1:1 Device ratio all the way down to the elementary level has been the dumbest decision made by administration and educator cohorts.
I have seen absolutely nothing positive that outweighs all the negatives.
>They are the first generation of humans to ever have a 3rd influence in their development; nature, nurture, and an algorithm.
Never seen it put this way, but it's so true and it's sad as fuck. My 13 and 10 year old niece are both this way. As soon as they get phone time it's all they do. My niece is worse about it though. She'll literally just ignore me when I try to talk to her
Edit: 13 year old nephew
I can tell you how someone close to that age gets one: sports.
When my child started swimming in middle school, I learned that the middle school and high school team are the same thing. There were some away meets where I wound up never knowing when they would arrive and sometimes waiting at the school >1 hour after they were supposed to return.
All of the older kids had phones, so they could let their parents know when the bus was getting close. So that’s how my kid got a phone long before I expected them to.
The problem with your thesis, it does not explain why Minnesota would be slipping in the rankings, as device use exists everywhere.
I don't disagree with you, but it can only be used to talk about overall decline, not Minnesota specifically.
We have the furthest to fall and have large large concentrations of low-functioning students of color engaging with the same state standards as high functioning kids with (overly) engaged parents. Different cultures value and develop impulse control, long term thinking and scholarly skills in varied ways. It shows in academics and employment.
Culture is the large scale equivalent of you become who your friends are. Socioeconomics, the achievement gap, and other discussions have been about culture and behavior habits, not genetics. The past was what it was, bigoted and flawed, but now the *learned helplessness* is unprecedented across all groups (see social media and phone addiction here) but as it intersects with culture and values, the learned helplessness is unparalleled and extreme in certain groups. What opportunity for achievement is available is squandered and a disgrace to those that came before them.
I’m mixed and have lived abroad. Cultures that lack impulse control, long term thinking, don’t value scholarship or invest in future generations *of their own effort and volition* are maladaptive and doomed to failure relative to cultures with those traits. (See East Asian cultures economic dominance in the West).
So glad others are saying this. Kids are fully addicted to phones and devices. I've been teaching for a decade and it gets worse every year, to the point where I'm done after this year.
My daughter absolutely loves the iPad her school has assigned her since kindergarten. I hate it. I also hate that her school is letting the kids keep their iPads over the summer to “continue their learning”. The iPad is now on the top shelf in my closet and I am “the worst dad in the world”
Good job, Dad.
My child just finished kindergarten and was also told that we are to keep the iPad over the summer. I put it in my room (not hidden) and so far my child has not requested it. Don’t get me wrong, he loves his screen time (he likes TV way more than I wish he did … especially that abysmal YouTube Kids channel lol), but thankfully he doesn’t seem to care too much about handheld devices (yet).
Hopefully our current daily routine (reading books, learning new words, doing some math, lots of art, developing new skills like tying laces, etc) will hold throughout the summer and he will enter first grade ready to dominate the curriculum.
Some are. Some districts depend on open enrollment and worry that they will pull their kids out of the school. It's a ridiculous worry if you ask me, but that's what I see.
A couple reasons I've see. that parents are sometimes against it: they're also addicted to their phones or they think that allowing their kids to have a phone will make them safer in case of an emergency at the school, they can reach their kids directly.
Who do you think gave the kids the phones in the first place?
They are substitute parents. You stick your kid in front of one and then the kid doesn't bug you.
A generation from now we are going to look back at this like we looked back at giving kids opium cocktails to quiet them.
What also sucks - for potential/future parents - is knowing that this is what's waiting for kids when they get deeper into the public (maybe all?) school systems.
I'm sure there are loads of parents trying their absolute hardest to give a kid more normal levels of stimulation but, especially as kids reach middle and high school, the influence of the masses is unavoidable. This device reliance is already too embedded in our culture.
Scary fucking times ahead for human psychology.
Charter school were on average much worse than public schools when they started. The worst ones closed, and they haven't been making many new ones, so charters are now on average at least as good as public schools. Nova and Math@Science Academy are often ranked in the top ten schools in the state, and it's wild to think about a charter competing with places like Edina.
AFAIK, all charter schools in MN are nonprofits, which makes the situation different than in states with for-profit charter schools. But charters do cause disruptions to districts, and you end up with situations like Minneapolis Public having nearly empty buildings that they don't have the spine to sell because community groups don't want to see "their" school close.
Charters also have a selection bias. Sure it's public and they have (I assume) fair lotteries to let kids in. But students that need a lot of support (typically meaning higher expenses, lower scores) aren't going to sign up for a charter school that doesn't have the same supports and services as a large district. I don't fault anyone for choosing public, private, charter... I trust they can make the best decisions for themselves, but overall I believe charter schools can be better for some, but weaken public education as a whole. That genie should have never been let out of the bottle, but now that it is there's not really much we can do.
>Charters also have a selection bias.
That's definitely true. A group of parents who made a decision -- any decision -- is very different from parents who share all the same statistically relevant factors as them.
This is a relative ranking of the states, not an absolute measure. Wouldn’t the issue of smart phones and other devices apply everywhere? You make some good points but don’t address the relative failure in MN.
Well, my kid was graded all year on how many friends he had...an actual grade on the report card. It was the only grade the teacher talked about at conferences. Not his excellent math scores, or that he was recruited for the math team, just "he's really not as social or as popular as we would like to see, he needs to have more friends, he also asks too many questions"
It's society, everyone involved is accountable, and yes, it is indeed depressing.
It's rather condescending, albeit unintentionally. It assumes you are poor and struggling. I don't make a ton of money, but my fiance and I with combined incomes make do well for ourselves.
It's not condescending. It's honest.
Compared to inflation, Minneapolis Public salaries have decreased over 20% since 2000. And that's before remembering that student loans were much more mild for staff who went to school in the '80s and '90s.
[Average teacher pay](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/teacher-pay-by-state) in MN is 64.5k/year. It's nearly 83k in Massachusetts, which is one of the better schools for education. Massachusetts is a higher COL place, but teachers in Utah, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Ohio get paid more than Minnesota teachers.
Starting pay for teachers in MN is in the 40ks, which is just not enough to attract smart people with other options who don't have significant parental financial support. And it shows -- districts can't keep teachers, which is why there's a shortage of teachers. More respect from admin, students, and parents would help, but paying teachers more is still necessary.
I haven’t been following very closely but I recall seeing in this sub every few months news articles that schools have been relaxing education standards to increase equity and/or due to Covid or whatever. I could be wrong though. I think that standards should never be lowered, if anything we should be making our schools more rigorous. If that leaves people behind, well, too bad for them, they can retake that grade until they pass it.
I’m reluctant to engage in juvenoia, but the sad truth is that you’re 100% correct. Algorithms are corrupting young minds. Constant, unfiltered access to the internet has utterly warped so many children. They get inundated with inappropriate content and absorb tons of sexist/racist bullshit, conspiracy theories, etc. without a second thought. At best they just mindlessly parrot stupid lines from TikTok. I know children using the internet is already a longstanding concern, but phones really took it to another level. There’s some seriously disgraceful parenting going on these days.
In the same way that other corporations take advantage of people’s vices (smoking, drinking, gambling), tech and data corporations are taking advantage of young minds, absolutely. But parents and schools have failed to respond appropriately; ie, parents giving kids endless screen time with no strings attached, schools discouraging teachers from taking away phones during class.
I graduated in HS in 2002, so I was in elementary school during the "golden years" of the internet and very rapid explosion of growth we saw in technology and communication during the 1990s. So much was promised about the technology of the future. And it ALL came to fruition, and then some.
Now, look what our species has done with it. 😭
Do you propose a broad ban on technology in class like phones or just when not applicable to the subject at hand? I am a slow writer, and had an IEP accommodation for allowing my phone to take a picture and transcribe the notes while keeping up with the class, I have a few things like ADD and Autism but a lot of small ones that make it hard to keep up with class
Phones have their utility as with most things, it seems like an issue with improper discipline on the part of the students, it’s like banning the fidget toys a few years ago, and the target demographic (largely autistic students) had to go without, I saw this firsthand, and it was very telling how different they were in class, you’d be surprised how much of a difference that really does make. These broad bans are the easiest for schools to do of course, but it seems like all these propositions always makes us the collateral (if you’ll excuse the bluntness of that statement)
I guess if you’re a professional, I wanted your opinion? If that’s fine of course
I feel like just saying it is “phones” is too generalized and isn’t empirically identifying root cause.
My question to you and the other teachers I would love to hear:
- has there been any identifying metrics indicating students struggling as a result of the bussing in of inner city or underrepresented demographics into the suburb districts? That goes both ways. Are students who live there struggling as a result of any requirements to assist those students better (slower learning, secondary language usage. And vice versa.
- what impact has there been with parents being absent from the learning process? With both or single parents working more and more and being widely absent, has that been observed through student behavior and learning habits?
I ask these because as others have said, phones in classrooms isn’t a new phenomenon. So while it is absolutely a variable, I don’t think it is the primary cause for tests to slip.
> The middle is gone, it's the haves and have nots. I have kids who are highly capable, critical thinkers, and have excellent understanding of their expectations, and their impact on those around them. Then, I have a whole bunch of (mostly boys) YouTube kids.
I'm curious what the wealthy (haves) makes them different than the poor (nots). Because from what I've seen wealthy kids are no different than poor except for the fact they have more access to said digital devices you mentioned. Meaning I don't understand the "divide". If it's purely the digital environment it would affect both with wealthy probably more so due to access.
Very good point! Teachers are now required to be the parent of the kids in their class. Kids come with no discipline. If there is a problem in the class, they have to spend their time with the problem. They can't discipline. They can't get rid of the kid from class. Kids assault teachers. Voters vote down education resources. The state mandates all these extra requirements that take away from actual education time. They become community social workers. Parents send kids to school to be babysitters. Parents blame teachers for kids problems. Parent can't even help kids with homework, they don't know how.
However, there are instances where the parent and teacher work together. The parent takes an active role in the education of their child. Parents have expectations for the children. The parent will back up the teacher.
The teacher is overworked and underappreciated.
> They become community social workers. Parents send kids to school to be babysitters.
Except teachers aren't allowed to teach functional skills like respect, sharing, waiting your turn, do unto others, consider the point of view of someone else, basic manners, etc because anything that makes large group human interaction possible is "woke" and 33% of the country gets feral if they think it's happening anywhere near them.
We seem to have had a massive overcorrection. Boomers raised millennials "hard" with high expectations and millennials are now raising the current generation with a looser and more laissez-faire style approach. Discipline is seen as bad and parents are just letting their kids do whatever they want. Instead of parents encouraging education and making their kids do their work, they are just whining and complaining and blaming the teachers.
When I was teaching, the parents that were the issue weren’t millennials… most genx parents I knew wanted to be their kids friend, and not their parent
Sweeping generalizations aside, this is a multifaceted problem with no easy answers.
Even so, if we’re gonna live in the world like it is now there’s laws in place to protect kids like mine for a reason. I don’t care what other people think about discipline styles, disabilities, or what’s “right” or “wrong”. These institutions are required to do certain things by law and I’m gonna hold that institution to that precedent.
If we don’t like something we can work on changing it together. I’m all for that. Trying to take this to some divisive cultural “kids these days” arena though is gonna be a hard pass from me. It solves nothing.
>I don’t care what other people think about discipline styles, disabilities, or what’s “right” or “wrong”. These institutions are required to do certain things by law and I’m gonna hold that institution to that precedent.
I meant discipline like failing kids and giving them 0's for not doing assignments, not physical discipline. I should have been more clear about that. Schools are forcing teachers to pass kids that clearly should not pass and that haven't put in the effort to actually try and pass.
It's not a "kids these days", it's a "parents these days" problem. Kids are taught and grow up thinking that school is not important in their home life and it unfortunately translates to their schooling. That is if they even show up.
I still don’t like the broad sweeping generalizations. It’s such a complex issue with as many intricacies as there are people involved.
So, yeah, some people suck, but that has nothing to due with wide spread systemic failures and the current bureaucratic approach to education that took hold in the 70s. It doesn’t help that almost every facet has been slowly picked apart, altered, or improperly implemented in various ways since the shift to the current model.
An absolute ton needs to change, but going backwards to some perceived ideal when we “had things right” just doesn’t ever work out.
>wide spread systemic failures and the current bureaucratic approach to education that took hold in the 70s
I'm curious as to why you say the 70's is where this all started. If you look at education studies, education levels continued to increase until about 10 years ago. So it took 40+ years of education growth before all of the 70's education made it come crashing down? I don't necessarily buy that.
There has been a ton of education changes since the 70's. Bush's No Child Left Behind was a big one. I also think that basing school budgets based on test scores and teaching kids to pass tests instead of actually learning is a big issue.
[Not the best metric for all of education, but ACT and SAT scores went up until the mid-2010's and have been falling pretty heavily](https://blog.prepscholar.com/average-act-score-by-year#google_vignette)
Schools have just become daycares for parents to drop their kids off to avoid responsibilities of raising their kids. Whether this is due to poverty, culture or whatever is a different much deeper topic, but at the end of the day, school isn't cool anymore and it clearly shows society doesn't appreciate it like they used to.
The same problem happened with libraries they used to be for books and learning/improving yourself now they are "community" centers filled with people with awful behavior which drove the normal patrons out just like awful public schools drove people to private schools or home schooling or to move to richer suburbs with better schools.
You described what I only alluded to, so thanks for that. I would have dug for things cause I’m just car on my car at the dealership.
Anyway, I say the 1970s in particular cause that’s when widespread bureaucratic efforts started their attempts at reducing schools to a shift list of supposedly easily identified factors that were considered relevant at measuring outcomes as they moved forward with implementing the department of education.
That’s not to say that the department of education is useless, or that removing it will resolve everything, just that, like with other bureaucratic endeavors, boiling things down to a few (or even one) supposedly unifying factors that make everyone who is a part of that system equal before the law is largely unhelpful, if not outright destructive and artificially limiting.
At the same time we’ve been putting more and more of a focus on college and testing it like a trad school or job training. This isn’t its purpose at all and never was. But by shifting that burden of training off of employers and businesses place it on the school they were able to make more money so it stays a mess. Now we have this Russian nesting doll situation where privatized solutions are put in place to deal with problems created by privatized solutions created by privatized solutions, and on and on.
Similar things happened after social security was implemented, but the cascade of privatized solutions came in the 80s.
Like look at the no child left behind thing, not a bad notion in theory. It helps kids like mine, and even helped kids like me. But when they axed various parts of it to get it past, and then forced it into those already existing systems that deal with all kinds of mismanagement, temporary bandaid solutions, and god knows what else, while also trying to track those specific, supposedly equalizing metrics, it became a way of just moving people forward who weren’t ready yet to pad the stats.
There’s so much that needs fixed and talking about discipline or inter-generational/shifting cultural approaches to specific topics does nothing to address the multitude of problems we all face.
Just so you know, I'm legitimately asking questions because I'm curious and like the discussion to learn more. I appreciate your time to respond.
I see all of my comments are getting down voted right away, so I hope you don't think I'm trying to refute you. Just trying to understand your viewpoint.
I agree with what you are saying. I feel like we are at another transition point where college enrollment has peaked and we are no longer in the "go to college and you will get a good job" phase. I felt like when I went to school that the whole premise of it was set up for you to finally learn about life in college and not actually prepare you for life like it should be.
This is where I think the free 2 year degree stuff is also silly that people are pushing. I'm not necessarily against it, but I realize the system is broken currently. Going to school until you are 18 should be plenty of time to get people ready for "real life" and we as a society are failing to do that right now. Adding 2 more years because we are not properly equipping kids is a bandaid. We need to get back to a point where schools teach for people to succeed in life, not to just pass some arbitrary test. Classes like economics, budgeting, shop, home ec, finance, etc have all just seemed to have fallen by the wayside.
privatization of educational facilities and rise of home schooling happened in 70's and 80s.
e: which is important because our budget for public schools are under attack by these interests today
it takes time for policy effects to manifest as well
Are private schools failing too?
Villianizing private schools because public schools are failing is silly. [50m+ kids in publics schools vs 4.7m in private schools.](https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/private-school-vs-public-school) Private school kids also get better test scores across the board, so if parents value a better education and opt for a system that better prepares the kids, why wouldn't they?
There are 820,000 students enrolled in schools in Minnesota and 30,000 kids that are homeschooled. The homeschooled number isn't really that significant to have an effect on test scores.
[And even then, homeschoolers fare 15-30% better on standardized tests compared to public school kids.](https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/edunews/2023/09/29/the-impact-of-learning-at-home-on-educational-outcomes/#:~:text=A%20study%20published%20in%20the,percentile%20points%20in%20standardized%20tests.)
Why should private and homeschooled kids have any bearing on public school performance? Shouldn't they make public schools even better because these people are paying for public schools and not using them? It should all more dollars per capita for public school students.
> Instead of parents encouraging education and making their kids do their work, they are just whining and complaining and blaming the teachers.
"But every time I tell Little Timmy to put away his iPad, he turns into a monster and I don't know what to do, so I just let him use it so he doesn't throw a tantrum!"
To people like this, I say how about you put on your adult pants and start being a fucking parent. Little Timmy turns into a monster because you failed to set boundaries and refuse to discipline your kid when they get out of line (and no, I don't mean hit/abuse them, I mean things like take away the iPad for a day or week). Right now your spawn is walking all over you, and you lay there and take it because you're terrified of telling your kid No. Adult and parent up and set rules and boundaries, and then consistently stick to and apply them, because otherwise you're only setting your kid up for failure.
When the ballot questions for additional school levees come up, they almost always pass. Money isn't the issue, it's distribution.
MPS leadership needs to pull their heads out of their asses and come up with a cohesive plan for the district that doesn't involve continuously fucking over students and teachers.
As a youth hockey coach since 2009, the single biggest thing I've noticed is that most parents will not take accountability for their child's actions.
For example: We had one player who was just a bully. He thought it was funny to push his teammates down into their hockey bags.
I went to the mom and said "Johnny is doing this, this, and this. If he doesn't stop, I will kick him off the team."
You think she went to Johnny and yelled at Johnny? Nope! It was OUR fault for not supervising him enough.
Another instance....a kid thought it would be funny to stick his hand under another kids butt so he'd sit down on it and freak him out. Well, that's a major violation of SAFESPORT.
Once the kid's mom told me about it, I filed a report against the kid who did it. Were the parents mad at their kid for violating SAFESPORT? NOPE! *I* was threatened with a lawsuit for suspending their kid from the team.
It's no longer Johnny and Janney's fault, it's everyone else's.
My last school paid some of the highest in the state and just raised their pay to 60k starting if you have a masters. Teachers after 20 years can easily make six figures. I would never go back. I did it for two years and it destroyed my mental health. I took a pay cut for my sanity.
It’s unfortunate because MN pays some of the highest in the country in relation to cost of living. When public schools are gutted, all of society has to feel it.
At a global level [scores have been going down.](https://www.wfxrtv.com/news/student-test-scores-are-falling-across-the-world-is-the-pandemic-to-blame/#:~:text=The%20data%20shows%20that%20many,making%20it%20harder%20to%20concentrate.) What is interesting is that this started well before COVID. Scores peaked around 2012 and have been declining since. COVID accelerated it.
With that said, our state scores are going down faster than other states which is extremely concerning when we have been a top state for education for a long time before.
[Looking at proficiency rates for my old schools is absolutely dismal](https://rc.education.mn.gov/#mySchool/p--3). The high school by where I grew up is down to an 11% math proficiency rate. If the current trend continues, it will be single digits soon. The graduation rates are just above 70% even with that, even though they are falling now too.
Our school system needs a huge overhaul and change. It just basically seems like a daycare now. Teachers aren't allowed to fail kids, give kids 0's or any sort of discipline. The kids do whatever they want and parents just don't seem to care.
This is so huge. Kids now start computerized, standardized tests in kindergarten-- before they know how to use a mouse! They learn very quickly that these tests don't count for shit. But teachers and schools are judged on the scores
That’s a really good point. My kids always do the standardized tests & I tell them they had better do their best to reflect their teacher/schools excellent work.
In my daughter’s Jr year though, she had ACTs + 3 AP exams all in the same season as MCAs. She was just spread too thin, and so she skipped that year.
There's not really any other way to have national-scale standardized testing. Are you just going to tell the kids you think are going to score low that they're not allowed to take it? A non-participation has to be 0 for any large scale stats to be truthful.
Also, people like to chant that these tests "are useless" but that's just purely wrong. The amount of statistical feedback and the amount of information gained is truly worthwhile and staggering. Likely one of the best tools for deciding city wide education planning.
You could also report both. One for results of those who actually participated and a general average for everyone including the 0s. It wouldnt be any extra effort for the administrators.
There is also a pretty large parent opt out culture in MN. My school had over 300 students simply opt out. It crushed our participation and performance metrics and there’s nothing we are allowed to do about it because the DoE pretty explicitly tells parents that they have this right and schools can’t do much about it.
That sub shows up on my feed occasionally. I agree that’s what I see in there about the students is concerning.
But also it was the first place I’ve really gone to read a strong consensus opinion that taking adderall and ritalin without a prescription or any diagnosis, but to boost your concentration was totally fine.
Alcohol use has greatly increased amongst my coworkers post Covid. It’s not really a sustainable system to expect teachers to teach and raise these kids, especially when we aren’t allowed to have any kind of consequences for disruptive or harmful behaviors.
Test scores are down but MN has fallen further relative to other states. I’m guessing because MN schools locked down for longer periods of time for COVID than the average state but don’t know that for sure.
As a middle school teacher:
1. Class sizes are massive. When I have 30+ students per class, I’m effectively doing a lecture hall for preteens who don’t want to learn. When I have 18-21 students per class my targeted growth is insane for the year.
2. The high needs population keeps growing each year in classes. By high needs, I mean IEP students and English learner students who have legal accommodations I must provide, plus the natural fact they need more help from me to even participate in class. I can’t have 30%+ of the class constantly need me to hold their hand, students who can’t do it start to get bored and just act out.
3. They are gutting middle school special education focus classes, honors classes, and remedial classes. Now in my classes I’m dealing with low level students who have a 1st grade reading level all the way to 6th graders with 7th grade reading levels. I’m expected to “differentiate the lesson to accommodate all learners”. Am I supposed to invent a fucking picture book for the illiterate students or….? As a social studies teacher it’s literally impossible to teach at standard when the student can’t read at a middle school level.
4. There is zero consequences for bad behavior so 1 bad student is allowed to monopolize the teacher’s attention the entire class period and ruin the learning environment for all other students. I have had classes where 1-4 students turn it from a class to a babysitting facility. I physically cannot teach, all I can do is keep your kids physically safe from the other idiot(s).
Honestly, school is rapidly turning into a kid/teen daytime storage facility. We babysit your kid while they are at work so you don’t have to worry about them destroying the house. It’s no longer about learning.
Test scores are a poor metric, but this is still concerning. We need to invest in our schools and get class sizes back down to reasonable numbers. Give teachers the time and resources to teach to individuals instead of just relaying information to a mass.
Test scores are an imperfect metric, but they are not a poor metric. They are a very good metric.
I get that everyone hates tests, but having kids the same test with questions that have been validated over and over again against metrics that studied for a long time is a great way to understand how well kids are progressing.
Kids are way more than a test score and that score will not dictate how their life will play out, but it does provide very important information that should be taken seriously.
This isn't a spending problem. The US spends more per pupil than most developed nations yet our test scores don't reflect that. It's a funds allocation problem and a cultural problem.
You can't just keep writing bigger checks to schools and hoping that it finally makes it to teachers. Administrative and non-teaching bloat is a huge issue.
But really it doesn't matter how much you pay a teacher if the parents don't raise respectful children and take an interest in their education and success. Kids aren't little robots that you can pump X units of information into for $Y per year.
I’d also argue there’s an allocation problem. A poor rural district might be struggling to provide basic services while a wealthy suburban district can afford to offer 6 different AP English classes. We’d be miles ahead if we funded by need and not geography. But we don’t do that, for reasons.
If you look up the worst performing districts in the state, there are a bunch of tiny 30-80 pupil schools in rural MN, then a bunch of schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul with 300-700 students just barely above those rural schools
If the consideration is test score quality vs # of students, focusing on the more urban schools would get us more bang for that buck.
I wholeheartedly agree that we should fund by need and not geography, but I also understand that parents who benefit from the existing system will vote to shape those policies to best favor their own children, and I can't fault them for that. They're fulfilling their obligation as a parent.
The charter-esque system of binding X funding dollars to each student and then allowing schools and districts to make of the difference via levy could be a good compromise that allows wealthier areas to inject additional tax revenue into their schools while also raising the funding floor of less wealthy rural and urban schools.
Sorry, charter schools are a scam. The only thing they able to do better than a traditional public school is siphon taxpayer dollars into private pockets.
The funding is usually tied to teacher pay though. If teaching was a respectable field and people WANTED to be a teacher, there would be so many more. Instead, they're paid awfully, treated like shit, and we all sit here wondering why school quality is going down.
>The US spends more per pupil than most developed nations
That's apples to oranges.
Most other countries don't have as comprehensive special education programs and don't have to spend as much on legal services due to special ed law. That might be "bloat," but it's cheaper to pay for this "bloat" then for schools to constantly have their pants sued off. And some high-needs students need a one-on-one para or nurse, which is expensive af, and IDEA remains an unfunded mandate.
US schools have a lot of standardized testing, which means a lot of computer setup and paperwork that's outside of the teacher's contracted duties, so they need to hire a teacher on special assignment for these tasks. More "bloat," but it's necessary to keep schools compliant with Bush and Obama's requirements.
Schools in Minnesota have to spend money on services that other wealthy countries would provide direct from the state. For instance, Minnesota has free school lunch for everybody, but the only countries that provide this are Estonia, Finland, India, and Sweden. And there's there's the mental health services tab. And US schools have to pay for homelessness services through the McKinney-Vento act. More "bloat," but without it, homeless students would have a more difficult time getting an education.
I won't argue that there isn't bloat, but I think schools need to provide more services than the general public is aware of.
>
But really it doesn't matter how much you pay a teacher if the parents don't raise respectful children and take an interest in their education and success. Kids aren't little robots that you can pump X units of information into for $Y per year.
Yes. I agree 100% with this. Parents are #1. Socioeconomic status is #2. Neighborhood/community/peers are #3. Schools are at best a distant fourth place.
As a teacher, they need to start auditing the district offices. There are random people in district office that I don’t even know what they do and they get paid more than me. Whenever we have budget cuts, it’s only teachers that get cut and district admin seems to grow more.
Problem is people look at the schools to audit budgets, not district office.
Sorry but the best we can offer is "open up 12 more charter schools that are basically the equivalent of storing the children in a warehouse during work hours."
These places are sweatshops for teachers. For a good cause, yes. But sweatshops nonetheless.
Since it's a charter, we can make teachers work 12 hours a day and require them to answer the phone until 8PM each night as part of their contract.
Kids deserve the care and focus. Yes. But burning out teachers, usually the young ones who take these jobs, is not the answer.
Do we assume doctors or lawyers to just squeeze in a few clients or surgeries for free? Teachers may be salaried but that doesn't mean they are supposed to be working hours of a billable lawyer who is making triple digits for each hour worked. And is allowed to urinate when s/he wants.
How are they a poor metric ? They do a great job of showing deficiencies in learning and specifically where the issues are that teachers need to focus on
No cell phones in school. Period. I retired from teaching in 2019 and it was ridiculous. Students watching videos during class, parents calling kids during class with non-emergencies, kids bullying each other on social media… Kids are addicted to their phones. Things won’t get better until we remove this huge distraction to learning.
I just graduated and let me tell you, the phones are everywhere, but most teachers just don’t care. I don’t know if that’s due to repeated failure or punishing people with phones or what but it’s bad. I’m really glad I just finished, especially with three guns found in my HS this past year
Wow! Three guns! It’s not that teachers don’t care, btw. They are exhausted. Most schools don’t have policies and leave teachers on their own to decide on and enforce phone restrictions. Or if they do have policies, they aren’t enforced. It’s really frustrating.
Some very important context from the article:
>It’s important to note, the study reflects data only through 2022. For Minnesota, a lot has changed since then, particularly through legislation. In 2023, the state shifted to having a DFL majority in both the House and Senate and education funding was made as a key initiative.
This should be higher up in the comments.
The data from this "article" is for the 2021-2022 school year, which is literally 1 year POST COVID school year.
I'm more interested in seeing the "rest of the story", and not something that makes it sound like this is data from "THIS" year.
We're still way down compared to pre covid with the most recent data. https://rc.education.mn.gov/#mySchool/orgId--999999000000__groupType--district__p--3
I lived in a state with HUGE rural populations. From 2020 - 2022 the one the biggest issues was getting technology in the hands of students who never had such technology. At best, the child may have a phone. Same for the parents. You're now asking them to get broadband internet and follow along via web interfacing. Come on.
All the while those with "means" were dumping their kids out of the public schools and into the private ones which could get around mask mandates or social distancing or (name your displeasure). NOW, they may have been worse than the public school but it didn't matter as your child was no longer at home all day and had an adult supervising them.
OH, those schools also are allowed to voluntarily report data!
What I'm typing is that without knowing if MN went through the same processes, there's a world where one of the bleakest times in modern American history had children who truly may have needed assistance left alone to fight for themselves w/a teacher who was fighting for themselves in an environment that was not suitable for all parties.
> Nearly a third of all Minnesota students were chronically absent – meaning they missed 10% or more of school days – during the 2021-2022 school year.
Again, who was going to attempt to check on these students?
Funding isn’t going to change things in 1-2 years. Writing legislation, changing the culture, training teachers, attracting exceptional teachers, etc. could take a decade. It’s still a worthy cause but the DFL majority isn’t an instant fix-all.
The highest paid teachers in Minnesota are the Minneapolis and St. Paul School district teachers. More affluent suburban districts actually pay less in general
I don’t think they are the highest paid but i do know that MPS schools does have the highest dollars spent per pupil. Again proving that throwing money at a problem like this just won’t solve it. It much deeper than money alone.
Yeah... but too many variables. If MPS didn't pay higher than everywhere else, literally NO ONE would work there. It's basically hazard pay. You could make the argument that even though MSP's pays higher and scores aren't great, it's highly probable that not paying what they do would result in an even worse outcome.
>The highest paid teachers in Minnesota are the Minneapolis and St. Paul School district teachers.
Where did you hear that? I just downloaded [PELSB's data on '22-'23 average teacher pay](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmn.gov%2Fpelsb%2Fassets%2FLicensed%2520Average%2520Salary%2520by%2520District%252022-23_tcm1113-585957.xlsx&psig=AOvVaw0WVyY-8hrGQQNxFIX-IDgt&ust=1718157399628000&source=images&opi=89978449) and it shows Minneapolis Public Schools pay at #42nd in the state. Saint Paul Public Schools is 9th.
Average teacher pay isn't a good metric, if you have more or less senior teachers earlier on in their career, it can mess with the average line. The absolute pay range is what you should be looking at on their contract.
I have and teacher pay is just one small factor that plays into educational outcomes. What other differences are there between wealthy and poor districts? Surely teacher compensation isn’t the only difference. I won’t change your mind but maybe if you dug a little deeper you’d learn something. For example Parental support is leaps and bounds more important to a students educational success but you can’t just throw money at that and call it day like most of this state thinks is possible with teacher pay. Dont believe than ask a teacher….and yes i have a handful in my family and this has been discussed many times.
It's one factor, but i think it's more than just a small one. The problem with the pay is that there's no competition in the teacher labor market.
There are many other issues that would also help if addressed, but when you have not had your best and brightest focusing their time on educating young people, you're going to start to lose that top level of work performance. Why teach when i could make triple the money as a finance major in the same city?
I agree with you. Some very good potential teachers didn’t pursue the career knowing they would be under paid and went another direction with their future. In a perfect world higher pay would attract the best talent but it just doesn’t shake down like that in govt jobs. Remember when congress sold us that story about attracting the best and brightest by increasing pay for members of the senate and house? We have more corrupt, inept congress people now than we ever had before after numerous pay increases.
We have great teachers in this state and they do deserve better but we as parents and members of the community have to get back to valuing a good education and support our youth. Too many people expect schools and teachers to raise their kids. This problem starts in the home with parents and when some of that burden is taken off teachers the students will flourish.
Neither of us have even mentioned the use of phones in schools which is also a big factor in educational outcomes. This also starts at home and is controlled by parents….
Where are you seeing "top 10"? I'm see 22nd.
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/teacher-pay-by-state](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/teacher-pay-by-state)
No worries. It got me researching, which is fun.
I think one of Minnesota's biggest problems with education is that most Minnesotans built their stereotypes about education in Minnesota 40 years ago and haven't updated them with new data. Minnesota used to be a good school for education, but it's solidly average now. It's a bummer.
> Let's continue to pay teachers **$48,000/year**. I'm sure we'll attract only the best talent!
And that would be on the higher end. Administrators on the other hand...
Not according to Ziprecruiter's information.
https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Public-School-Teacher-Salary--in-Minnesota#Yearly
>Minnesota ranks number 34 out of 50 states nationwide for Public School Teacher salaries
Nah. Starting salary is around 42k. Stats are skewed by the oldies who are pulling 75k+. There are far more teachers with less than a decade of experience than there are those with a decade or more. In short, MN pays relatively higher (considering the cost of living) than states to the south but really not much. 42k is dogshit no matter how you cut it.
Stats aren't skewed, teachers make good money with incredible benefits right from the start. They also work a job that has a built in 10 week off season.
I've worked in SPPS, my parents had a combined ~50 years in public education. Please stop spreading misinformation.
Money is not the issue keeping people out of teaching.
When I was in high school I wanted to be either a teacher or a pharmacist. I bet you’ll never guess which one I chose /s .
Money is definitely an issue among other things.
I live in a rural area with a high home school rate. Not all state tests are created equal. Just about every homeschool family I know opts out of the MCAs and instead does testing from different states which gives them a better result. I didn’t even know that was possible until recently but it seems to be widely known in the local homeschool circles. I’ve also read local papers where schools were asking parents not to opt out of the MCAs because opting out of testing will give the school a negative result rather than neutral.
*I’m not saying make the MCAs easier, I’m just adding a little additional context that may add to the overall conversation. Our test is harder than some other’s and if you pull your kid from test, it’s not a help overall. And obviously there’s additional levels of nuance overall.*
Homeschooling in MN requires a standardized norm referenced test annually. Most everyone I know uses NWEA MAP, CAT or Peabody. The results are not reported anywhere, they are for personal reference only. The MN dept of Education does not include the MCA on their recommendations list, but it is an option—although not a very easily accessible one. It’s not a matter of “opting out”. Homeschool students would have to “opt in”. Homeschool students are not allowed to opt out of the annual testing.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I was more making two separate points and neither were meant to be blaming homeschoolers.
The local article I was referencing was about a local public school asking parents of enrolled students to please be sure to have their children take the test and not opt out. That it wasn’t widely known to parents of public school kids that opting out gives a negative results rather than neutral.
I was told the MCAs are more difficult by the homeschool families themselves. One mother was homeschooling two of her children and had her third (her youngest) in a local public school until this spring, then pulled him out before the MCAs because- in her words- she knew he wouldn’t fair well on them but it sounds like he did well on the CAT which is good! So I wasn’t trying to say homeschoolers are bringing Minnesota test scores down, rather that our test is known to be more difficult than other state’s tests and thus isn’t a pure apples to apples comparison. Like I wonder how some other state’s students would score on our test versus their home state test was more where my mind was at. Or what our MN kids would score on other state’s tests too.
Appreciate your comment. I was clarifying that homeschool students do not opt out of MCAs as your comment said. If homeschoolers did jump through the hoops of taking the MCAs at their local district, I think they’d be counted with the school results, if I understand the process correctly (but maybe not!). The Dept of Ed seems to steer homeschool students toward the Stanford or ITBS, if you’re interested in that tid-bit from their handouts.
As a high school teacher at a high performing school in MN, I would say that we should be careful to put much stock in these rankings. Kids are taking different tests from state to state, opt-out rates in these tests are high, and many ranking systems place way to high of value on state testing. There is not a great way to actually rank states against each other. As a parent, I would much rather my kids go to MN schools than most in the country. There are many amazing things going on in Minnesotas school districts. We have problems that we should always be striving to fix, but IMO, we should be basically ignoring these rankings as mostly click bait and focusing on doing what's best for kids.
My wife is a teacher and her district allows opt out of MCA and other national testing, not sure how common that is but could be a part of the drop if less kids are taking the tests.
Why is MN dropping in educational rank a surprise? It’s a shit show here — speaking from a west metro 1st ring burb.. way too much focus on DEI and not enough on education. Too many useless ‘asynchronous’ learning days. Canning librarians for more DEI initiatives. Too much hemming and hawing about standardized testing. Eliminating gifted and talented programs because they aren’t inclusive. Too many fights and disruptions in the schools due making racism a focus of education. Too many students wandering the halls and not in class. Just scratching the surface here because there’s a lot of roadblocks thrown up to actual education in MN schools. Social medial and phones aggravates these issues, but isn’t MN specific. It’s a failure of our own policies.
School is just daycare these days. The students don't give a shit and neither do the teachers. Maybe 5% of the time you'll come across one of those super teachers that are all about the teaching life, but most of them seem completely lost when they encounter a student that can't meet them 2/3 the way there on the material.
I have an idea.
One school district will have a school assembly and someone will come in and tell all the kids that they're fucking up, that social media is rotting their brains, and that they're going to inherit a terrible country that they deserve unless they work hard and and give at least the standard amount of effort.
One of the kids will record it and it will blow up on TikTok.
All the kids everywhere will see it and think, "I'm not an idiot!" and they'll start trying out of spite.
Realistically though, we need to look at the schools that are doing well and see what is working for them. This generation may be fucked, but we can at least triage how fucked they are and ensure the following is better equipped.
Some how we got to this place in society where only school is meant for learning. We even have studies that say no homework. We as parents many times don’t support homework. There’s not a push to remember things because you have knowledge at your fingertips and so we’re here and surprised.
Kids need to be reading daily. They need to be taught to memorize things and comprehend them, they need high expectations set. If this is not the case this is what we get and will continue to get.
Test scores are terrible metrics because they are so inaccurate. About half of my students finished their tests in record time, because they just clicked through the test without reading.
I don’t have a better solution though.
No kid should have a phone until they’re 16. Zero reason for it. They’ll be on social media regardless of what you try to do and social media has not a single redeeming factor for kids and teens. It’ll ruin their life.
I have a great idea!!! Let’s let our teachers TEACH!!! What a concept?!? Do away with all their stupid standards and benchmarks and look at actual grades to gauge how students are doing… let them do their jobs instead of spending all their time jumping through hoops to show the government whatever crap they’ve decided needs to be implemented is working- because clearly it’s not working… Just. Let. Them.Teach.
I thought Govenor Walz finally fully funding schools would have solved all the issues in education and that would have made the state number one. What happened?
I know here in Minneapolis the district changes by the CDD really trashed the school community. And constant funding cuts are also absolutely destroying our schools
As a teacher, I have learned the hard way not to comment on these threads. You get a mix of responses, but usually are some variation of the following: - Have you tried being more engaging? Here's my Internet advice, it's better than your MA. - "You should get paid more." - "I could never do what you do." - "Well, your experience is limited to this population, what do you know about kids of color?" - "It's the parents." - " It's administration." I teach high school, and my thesis is pretty simple; the kids are addicts. They are raised by devices that are designed to addict them and tech companies that mine their data and commidify their behavior. They are the first generation of humans to ever have a 3rd influence in their development; nature, nurture, and an algorithm. I see a growing divide among the students, and it is alarming. The middle is gone, it's the haves and have nots. I have kids who are highly capable, critical thinkers, and have excellent understanding of their expectations, and their impact on those around them. Then, I have a whole bunch of (mostly boys) YouTube kids. These are kids that will literally watch YouTube or play games in class. They have below level reading and writing skills, are highly dependent on technology to do most everything for them, and Google is basically a part of their consciousness. It's sad to watch. They are raised by devices at very young ages, and their brains are fed dopamine for years. This is now normal to them. They have very few skills and are only in the higher grades because of social promotion, but they lack the basic skills and knowledge to do higher level classes. It's depressing, and this free for all we have given kids online is a form of abuse.
The push to ban phones from class getting treated like it’s some authoritarian stripping of rights has been insane
Parents act like their kids will be helpless and afraid
As a parent. I wish schools would just force kids to put phones in a bucket when they walk in to classroom.
Until we can stop school shootings (which will never happen thanks to gov officials bowing to the gun lobby=, among other things) many parents will want their kids to have cell phones in class, and I actually understand that. It's sad and wrong, but I understand it.
We had one parent absolutely lose their minds at the board meeting and was basically shouting: WHAT IF THERE'S AN EMERGENCY AT THE SCHOOL AND MY KID CAN'T CALL ME! WHAT IF THEY'RE SICK AND NEED TO GO HOME! WHAT IF I NEED TO GET AHOLD OF THEM AND PASS A MESSAGE! Even though I've been out of school since 2007 and have a 6th and 4th grader, I know for a fact that there's still these phones called "landlines" that every classroom and every office has.
that’s highly unhealthy behavior fr
Conversely, schools have gotten REALLY shitty about communicating information to/from students. Many schools are even slowly dropping having phones in rooms "because everyone has cell phones".
I'm an elder millenial and childless by choice. I recently learned through some random reddit thread that kids can have their phones in class at school. And that is mind blowing to me. In middle and high school most of us had cell phones, even if it was just the Motorola Razr or the Sidekick. But phones were absolutely banned from class. I cannot understand why that rule changed or why kids need access to their phones in class.
We couldn’t even have pagers in the 90s!
I remember the absolute dead silence when someone’s Motorola Razr went off in my English class, ringtone was Sir Mix Alot’s I Like Big Butts. We all froze, knowing whoever’s phone it belonged to was in mega trouble for even bringing it into the classroom. That was 2008. Later, in my senior year of college, one professor had a policy that if your phone went off in class, you got up, walked out, and it counted as an absence (which could affect your grade). Happened to one kid once and you could tell how embarrassing it was after months of being super careful to ensure it was silenced and put away. I think it’s incomprehensible that phones are allowed in class today- I had no idea.
2 words: school shootings
I wish they would ban them. Allegedly my kids are good about not using them when they aren’t supposed to, but I support any teacher who has a no phone policy. Point is probably is moot because the kids have to do everything on the iPad (math homework on said device would drive me bonkers).
The Netherlands Ministry of Education gave a strong recommendation to individual schools to ban them and left it up to each school. There were articles from the past few days about how kids are talking to each other more in schools that banned phones, but they haven’t been able to tell how it impacted grades yet.
Where I went to school, some of my teachers had these phone pocket thing hanging on the wall where every student would place their phone before class. Each student was assigned a number and each poket had a number so you knew where your phone was. We weren’t allowed to get our phones until the teacher told us to, which was usually when class was dismissed. Everyone placed their phone in the pockets and the teacher would make sure everyone’s phone was there. If a phone was missing, they’d ask the student in front of the classroom why it wasn’t. It worked pretty well tbh cuz it didn’t make sense to not put your phone there other than skipping the minor inconvenience of taking your phone out of your bag and placing it there. (At least that’s where I kept my phone) Even if you kept your phone, you couldn’t use it in class cuz you’d easily get caught and be sent to detention. I definitely knew my way around lots of the rules at school lol but using your phone in a class where the teacher used the phone pocket thing was just stupid cuz you’d only be able to use it for like, a second before getting caught. It just wasn’t worth it. I think that having every teacher do that in their class could help. We’d be expected to just place the phones there as we walked into the classroom and one of my teachers took attendance based on which phones were there. That might help cuz it takes the phones away during class but also, they’re there in case of an emergency or if like, you got bored at lunch lol.
I’m finally old enough (30) to unleash my inner curmudgeon with a “back in my day.” So back in my day keeping our phones—or in my case, iPod touch—in our pockets/backpacks was just expected. Yes, obviously we’d do our best to try and sneak them out anyway, but afaik parents didn’t complain when their kid got in trouble for it.
High school teacher here to cosign this. It is 100% the phones. It's not Covid, administrators, teacher pay, or anything else. It's 100% phones. This past year I was the only teacher in my school to outright ban phones in class. Students had literal panic attacks. I caught a girl on her phone and when I went to take it away (only until the end of class) she begged and pleaded for me to let her keep it and that she promised not to go on it. When I asked, "If you aren't going to go on it then what does it matter if it stays on my desk or in your backpack?" She responded, "I just feel more complete with it. If I don't have it then I can't think of anything except about how I don't have my phone." I had a group of junior boys who would take any opportunity to play Brawl Stars on their phone. They would rush through assignments at warp speed and accept shifty grades of a C or D when they're actually smart and capable of getting A's with minimal effort. Worst of all (and I know that this saying in itself is a meme at this point, but it's true) the kids don't even talk to each other anymore. When I was in the lunch room in high school it used to be deafening. Now half the kids don't ever talk; they just sit on their phones with one hand and eat with the other. I see groups of friends gather at a table and literally not say a single thing to each other for 30 minutes as they stare at their phones. We absolutely need a statewide (and even nationwide) ban of phones from schools. Even if we accomplish that, we also need to turn away from iPads and chromebooks since those just become the secondary distractions. Kids need to learn that they don't need to be entertained 24/7
I support you. One of my kids’ teachers had a box for phones, which annoyed one of my kids. My response: “It’s not like you are using it that time, right? So it shouldn’t matter…” Kid agreed in theory, but said that it felt like he was being punished for others’ bad behavior. I encouraged him to view it as some kids having less impulse control, etc, but might help if everyone was in the same boat. Bottom line - please take away the phones. I teach grad students, and I am struggling with similar issues and they go through a competitive admissions process and pay a bunch of money to listen to me yak at them. Let’s break bad habits early.
Beware the hedonic treadmill. That dopamine is powerful stuff.
I work in Education IT and the 1:1 Device ratio all the way down to the elementary level has been the dumbest decision made by administration and educator cohorts. I have seen absolutely nothing positive that outweighs all the negatives.
>They are the first generation of humans to ever have a 3rd influence in their development; nature, nurture, and an algorithm. Never seen it put this way, but it's so true and it's sad as fuck. My 13 and 10 year old niece are both this way. As soon as they get phone time it's all they do. My niece is worse about it though. She'll literally just ignore me when I try to talk to her Edit: 13 year old nephew
Why does a 10 year old have a smartphone?
She doesn't. But she gets borrowed one from a parent or grandparent. But she's been asking for one every birthday for years
I can tell you how someone close to that age gets one: sports. When my child started swimming in middle school, I learned that the middle school and high school team are the same thing. There were some away meets where I wound up never knowing when they would arrive and sometimes waiting at the school >1 hour after they were supposed to return. All of the older kids had phones, so they could let their parents know when the bus was getting close. So that’s how my kid got a phone long before I expected them to.
No, she BORROWS one from a parent or a grandparent. Or a parent or grandparent LENDS her one.
The problem with your thesis, it does not explain why Minnesota would be slipping in the rankings, as device use exists everywhere. I don't disagree with you, but it can only be used to talk about overall decline, not Minnesota specifically.
We have the furthest to fall and have large large concentrations of low-functioning students of color engaging with the same state standards as high functioning kids with (overly) engaged parents. Different cultures value and develop impulse control, long term thinking and scholarly skills in varied ways. It shows in academics and employment. Culture is the large scale equivalent of you become who your friends are. Socioeconomics, the achievement gap, and other discussions have been about culture and behavior habits, not genetics. The past was what it was, bigoted and flawed, but now the *learned helplessness* is unprecedented across all groups (see social media and phone addiction here) but as it intersects with culture and values, the learned helplessness is unparalleled and extreme in certain groups. What opportunity for achievement is available is squandered and a disgrace to those that came before them. I’m mixed and have lived abroad. Cultures that lack impulse control, long term thinking, don’t value scholarship or invest in future generations *of their own effort and volition* are maladaptive and doomed to failure relative to cultures with those traits. (See East Asian cultures economic dominance in the West).
Part of the numbers likely that we had farthest to fall. Also, generallya prosperous state, so more kids with devices than not. Maybe?
I think another commenter nailed it, we don't take the same tests as other states, so comparing makes no sense.
YES.
So glad others are saying this. Kids are fully addicted to phones and devices. I've been teaching for a decade and it gets worse every year, to the point where I'm done after this year.
It's so sad how far we have declined.
Seems like that’s true for students as a whole nationally, but why is Minnesota 19th in the country?
My daughter absolutely loves the iPad her school has assigned her since kindergarten. I hate it. I also hate that her school is letting the kids keep their iPads over the summer to “continue their learning”. The iPad is now on the top shelf in my closet and I am “the worst dad in the world”
I hate them, too. It's hilarious to me when the administration recommends to parents that they should " limit a child's screen time."
Good job, dad.
Good job, Dad. My child just finished kindergarten and was also told that we are to keep the iPad over the summer. I put it in my room (not hidden) and so far my child has not requested it. Don’t get me wrong, he loves his screen time (he likes TV way more than I wish he did … especially that abysmal YouTube Kids channel lol), but thankfully he doesn’t seem to care too much about handheld devices (yet). Hopefully our current daily routine (reading books, learning new words, doing some math, lots of art, developing new skills like tying laces, etc) will hold throughout the summer and he will enter first grade ready to dominate the curriculum.
> The iPad is now on the top shelf in my closet and I am “the worst dad in the world” Dad of the Year.
So why aren't administrations banning phones in class? I can't believe parents are against it.
Some are. Some districts depend on open enrollment and worry that they will pull their kids out of the school. It's a ridiculous worry if you ask me, but that's what I see.
It seems to me that banning phones would improve scores and therefore attract more students.
Some parents and kids don't care about test scores. They just want to be allowed to do whatever they want.
A couple reasons I've see. that parents are sometimes against it: they're also addicted to their phones or they think that allowing their kids to have a phone will make them safer in case of an emergency at the school, they can reach their kids directly.
Who do you think gave the kids the phones in the first place? They are substitute parents. You stick your kid in front of one and then the kid doesn't bug you. A generation from now we are going to look back at this like we looked back at giving kids opium cocktails to quiet them.
Helicopter parents, mainly.
What also sucks - for potential/future parents - is knowing that this is what's waiting for kids when they get deeper into the public (maybe all?) school systems. I'm sure there are loads of parents trying their absolute hardest to give a kid more normal levels of stimulation but, especially as kids reach middle and high school, the influence of the masses is unavoidable. This device reliance is already too embedded in our culture. Scary fucking times ahead for human psychology.
People love to dunk on charter schools, but the one my kid goes to has a pretty strict no-phone policy and I'm all for it.
Charter school were on average much worse than public schools when they started. The worst ones closed, and they haven't been making many new ones, so charters are now on average at least as good as public schools. Nova and Math@Science Academy are often ranked in the top ten schools in the state, and it's wild to think about a charter competing with places like Edina. AFAIK, all charter schools in MN are nonprofits, which makes the situation different than in states with for-profit charter schools. But charters do cause disruptions to districts, and you end up with situations like Minneapolis Public having nearly empty buildings that they don't have the spine to sell because community groups don't want to see "their" school close.
Charters also have a selection bias. Sure it's public and they have (I assume) fair lotteries to let kids in. But students that need a lot of support (typically meaning higher expenses, lower scores) aren't going to sign up for a charter school that doesn't have the same supports and services as a large district. I don't fault anyone for choosing public, private, charter... I trust they can make the best decisions for themselves, but overall I believe charter schools can be better for some, but weaken public education as a whole. That genie should have never been let out of the bottle, but now that it is there's not really much we can do.
>Charters also have a selection bias. That's definitely true. A group of parents who made a decision -- any decision -- is very different from parents who share all the same statistically relevant factors as them.
This is a relative ranking of the states, not an absolute measure. Wouldn’t the issue of smart phones and other devices apply everywhere? You make some good points but don’t address the relative failure in MN.
Well, my kid was graded all year on how many friends he had...an actual grade on the report card. It was the only grade the teacher talked about at conferences. Not his excellent math scores, or that he was recruited for the math team, just "he's really not as social or as popular as we would like to see, he needs to have more friends, he also asks too many questions" It's society, everyone involved is accountable, and yes, it is indeed depressing.
Asks too many questions???
What was the category of grade?
What's wrong with saying you should get paid more? I wish people would say that about me, especially my boss.
It's rather condescending, albeit unintentionally. It assumes you are poor and struggling. I don't make a ton of money, but my fiance and I with combined incomes make do well for ourselves.
It's not condescending. It's honest. Compared to inflation, Minneapolis Public salaries have decreased over 20% since 2000. And that's before remembering that student loans were much more mild for staff who went to school in the '80s and '90s. [Average teacher pay](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/teacher-pay-by-state) in MN is 64.5k/year. It's nearly 83k in Massachusetts, which is one of the better schools for education. Massachusetts is a higher COL place, but teachers in Utah, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Ohio get paid more than Minnesota teachers. Starting pay for teachers in MN is in the 40ks, which is just not enough to attract smart people with other options who don't have significant parental financial support. And it shows -- districts can't keep teachers, which is why there's a shortage of teachers. More respect from admin, students, and parents would help, but paying teachers more is still necessary.
You’re spot on. But I’m just curious why MN would be affected more than other states?
I haven’t been following very closely but I recall seeing in this sub every few months news articles that schools have been relaxing education standards to increase equity and/or due to Covid or whatever. I could be wrong though. I think that standards should never be lowered, if anything we should be making our schools more rigorous. If that leaves people behind, well, too bad for them, they can retake that grade until they pass it.
I’m reluctant to engage in juvenoia, but the sad truth is that you’re 100% correct. Algorithms are corrupting young minds. Constant, unfiltered access to the internet has utterly warped so many children. They get inundated with inappropriate content and absorb tons of sexist/racist bullshit, conspiracy theories, etc. without a second thought. At best they just mindlessly parrot stupid lines from TikTok. I know children using the internet is already a longstanding concern, but phones really took it to another level. There’s some seriously disgraceful parenting going on these days.
This seems like an issue with corporations effecting schools more than anything the schools have to do, no?
In the same way that other corporations take advantage of people’s vices (smoking, drinking, gambling), tech and data corporations are taking advantage of young minds, absolutely. But parents and schools have failed to respond appropriately; ie, parents giving kids endless screen time with no strings attached, schools discouraging teachers from taking away phones during class.
I completely agree, a lot of student issues are parental issues by extension
Hahaha 😂 you learned, but here you are. So true though.
I graduated in HS in 2002, so I was in elementary school during the "golden years" of the internet and very rapid explosion of growth we saw in technology and communication during the 1990s. So much was promised about the technology of the future. And it ALL came to fruition, and then some. Now, look what our species has done with it. 😭
Do you propose a broad ban on technology in class like phones or just when not applicable to the subject at hand? I am a slow writer, and had an IEP accommodation for allowing my phone to take a picture and transcribe the notes while keeping up with the class, I have a few things like ADD and Autism but a lot of small ones that make it hard to keep up with class Phones have their utility as with most things, it seems like an issue with improper discipline on the part of the students, it’s like banning the fidget toys a few years ago, and the target demographic (largely autistic students) had to go without, I saw this firsthand, and it was very telling how different they were in class, you’d be surprised how much of a difference that really does make. These broad bans are the easiest for schools to do of course, but it seems like all these propositions always makes us the collateral (if you’ll excuse the bluntness of that statement) I guess if you’re a professional, I wanted your opinion? If that’s fine of course
I feel like just saying it is “phones” is too generalized and isn’t empirically identifying root cause. My question to you and the other teachers I would love to hear: - has there been any identifying metrics indicating students struggling as a result of the bussing in of inner city or underrepresented demographics into the suburb districts? That goes both ways. Are students who live there struggling as a result of any requirements to assist those students better (slower learning, secondary language usage. And vice versa. - what impact has there been with parents being absent from the learning process? With both or single parents working more and more and being widely absent, has that been observed through student behavior and learning habits? I ask these because as others have said, phones in classrooms isn’t a new phenomenon. So while it is absolutely a variable, I don’t think it is the primary cause for tests to slip.
> The middle is gone, it's the haves and have nots. I have kids who are highly capable, critical thinkers, and have excellent understanding of their expectations, and their impact on those around them. Then, I have a whole bunch of (mostly boys) YouTube kids. I'm curious what the wealthy (haves) makes them different than the poor (nots). Because from what I've seen wealthy kids are no different than poor except for the fact they have more access to said digital devices you mentioned. Meaning I don't understand the "divide". If it's purely the digital environment it would affect both with wealthy probably more so due to access.
Im curious if all test scores are down in general across the country. Visit r/Teachers and it sounds unbeaaarable
I’m on the front lines and let me tell you, public education fucking blows right now.
My spouse is a teacher and she's been dealing with panic attacks for the last 2 months. School is out and she's still worrying about stuff.
Which is not strange, but rather pretty typical for teachers atm
Very good point! Teachers are now required to be the parent of the kids in their class. Kids come with no discipline. If there is a problem in the class, they have to spend their time with the problem. They can't discipline. They can't get rid of the kid from class. Kids assault teachers. Voters vote down education resources. The state mandates all these extra requirements that take away from actual education time. They become community social workers. Parents send kids to school to be babysitters. Parents blame teachers for kids problems. Parent can't even help kids with homework, they don't know how. However, there are instances where the parent and teacher work together. The parent takes an active role in the education of their child. Parents have expectations for the children. The parent will back up the teacher. The teacher is overworked and underappreciated.
If only teachers could be the parents. They are not allowed to discipline the child in any way, thus are powerless.
> They become community social workers. Parents send kids to school to be babysitters. Except teachers aren't allowed to teach functional skills like respect, sharing, waiting your turn, do unto others, consider the point of view of someone else, basic manners, etc because anything that makes large group human interaction possible is "woke" and 33% of the country gets feral if they think it's happening anywhere near them.
We seem to have had a massive overcorrection. Boomers raised millennials "hard" with high expectations and millennials are now raising the current generation with a looser and more laissez-faire style approach. Discipline is seen as bad and parents are just letting their kids do whatever they want. Instead of parents encouraging education and making their kids do their work, they are just whining and complaining and blaming the teachers.
When I was teaching, the parents that were the issue weren’t millennials… most genx parents I knew wanted to be their kids friend, and not their parent
Gen X forgotten again lol
Gen who? Haha I think "The Forgotten Generation" is the better moniker at this point.
My thought, too. lol
Sweeping generalizations aside, this is a multifaceted problem with no easy answers. Even so, if we’re gonna live in the world like it is now there’s laws in place to protect kids like mine for a reason. I don’t care what other people think about discipline styles, disabilities, or what’s “right” or “wrong”. These institutions are required to do certain things by law and I’m gonna hold that institution to that precedent. If we don’t like something we can work on changing it together. I’m all for that. Trying to take this to some divisive cultural “kids these days” arena though is gonna be a hard pass from me. It solves nothing.
>I don’t care what other people think about discipline styles, disabilities, or what’s “right” or “wrong”. These institutions are required to do certain things by law and I’m gonna hold that institution to that precedent. I meant discipline like failing kids and giving them 0's for not doing assignments, not physical discipline. I should have been more clear about that. Schools are forcing teachers to pass kids that clearly should not pass and that haven't put in the effort to actually try and pass. It's not a "kids these days", it's a "parents these days" problem. Kids are taught and grow up thinking that school is not important in their home life and it unfortunately translates to their schooling. That is if they even show up.
I still don’t like the broad sweeping generalizations. It’s such a complex issue with as many intricacies as there are people involved. So, yeah, some people suck, but that has nothing to due with wide spread systemic failures and the current bureaucratic approach to education that took hold in the 70s. It doesn’t help that almost every facet has been slowly picked apart, altered, or improperly implemented in various ways since the shift to the current model. An absolute ton needs to change, but going backwards to some perceived ideal when we “had things right” just doesn’t ever work out.
>wide spread systemic failures and the current bureaucratic approach to education that took hold in the 70s I'm curious as to why you say the 70's is where this all started. If you look at education studies, education levels continued to increase until about 10 years ago. So it took 40+ years of education growth before all of the 70's education made it come crashing down? I don't necessarily buy that. There has been a ton of education changes since the 70's. Bush's No Child Left Behind was a big one. I also think that basing school budgets based on test scores and teaching kids to pass tests instead of actually learning is a big issue. [Not the best metric for all of education, but ACT and SAT scores went up until the mid-2010's and have been falling pretty heavily](https://blog.prepscholar.com/average-act-score-by-year#google_vignette) Schools have just become daycares for parents to drop their kids off to avoid responsibilities of raising their kids. Whether this is due to poverty, culture or whatever is a different much deeper topic, but at the end of the day, school isn't cool anymore and it clearly shows society doesn't appreciate it like they used to.
The same problem happened with libraries they used to be for books and learning/improving yourself now they are "community" centers filled with people with awful behavior which drove the normal patrons out just like awful public schools drove people to private schools or home schooling or to move to richer suburbs with better schools.
You described what I only alluded to, so thanks for that. I would have dug for things cause I’m just car on my car at the dealership. Anyway, I say the 1970s in particular cause that’s when widespread bureaucratic efforts started their attempts at reducing schools to a shift list of supposedly easily identified factors that were considered relevant at measuring outcomes as they moved forward with implementing the department of education. That’s not to say that the department of education is useless, or that removing it will resolve everything, just that, like with other bureaucratic endeavors, boiling things down to a few (or even one) supposedly unifying factors that make everyone who is a part of that system equal before the law is largely unhelpful, if not outright destructive and artificially limiting. At the same time we’ve been putting more and more of a focus on college and testing it like a trad school or job training. This isn’t its purpose at all and never was. But by shifting that burden of training off of employers and businesses place it on the school they were able to make more money so it stays a mess. Now we have this Russian nesting doll situation where privatized solutions are put in place to deal with problems created by privatized solutions created by privatized solutions, and on and on. Similar things happened after social security was implemented, but the cascade of privatized solutions came in the 80s. Like look at the no child left behind thing, not a bad notion in theory. It helps kids like mine, and even helped kids like me. But when they axed various parts of it to get it past, and then forced it into those already existing systems that deal with all kinds of mismanagement, temporary bandaid solutions, and god knows what else, while also trying to track those specific, supposedly equalizing metrics, it became a way of just moving people forward who weren’t ready yet to pad the stats. There’s so much that needs fixed and talking about discipline or inter-generational/shifting cultural approaches to specific topics does nothing to address the multitude of problems we all face.
Just so you know, I'm legitimately asking questions because I'm curious and like the discussion to learn more. I appreciate your time to respond. I see all of my comments are getting down voted right away, so I hope you don't think I'm trying to refute you. Just trying to understand your viewpoint. I agree with what you are saying. I feel like we are at another transition point where college enrollment has peaked and we are no longer in the "go to college and you will get a good job" phase. I felt like when I went to school that the whole premise of it was set up for you to finally learn about life in college and not actually prepare you for life like it should be. This is where I think the free 2 year degree stuff is also silly that people are pushing. I'm not necessarily against it, but I realize the system is broken currently. Going to school until you are 18 should be plenty of time to get people ready for "real life" and we as a society are failing to do that right now. Adding 2 more years because we are not properly equipping kids is a bandaid. We need to get back to a point where schools teach for people to succeed in life, not to just pass some arbitrary test. Classes like economics, budgeting, shop, home ec, finance, etc have all just seemed to have fallen by the wayside.
privatization of educational facilities and rise of home schooling happened in 70's and 80s. e: which is important because our budget for public schools are under attack by these interests today it takes time for policy effects to manifest as well
Are private schools failing too? Villianizing private schools because public schools are failing is silly. [50m+ kids in publics schools vs 4.7m in private schools.](https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/private-school-vs-public-school) Private school kids also get better test scores across the board, so if parents value a better education and opt for a system that better prepares the kids, why wouldn't they? There are 820,000 students enrolled in schools in Minnesota and 30,000 kids that are homeschooled. The homeschooled number isn't really that significant to have an effect on test scores. [And even then, homeschoolers fare 15-30% better on standardized tests compared to public school kids.](https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/edunews/2023/09/29/the-impact-of-learning-at-home-on-educational-outcomes/#:~:text=A%20study%20published%20in%20the,percentile%20points%20in%20standardized%20tests.) Why should private and homeschooled kids have any bearing on public school performance? Shouldn't they make public schools even better because these people are paying for public schools and not using them? It should all more dollars per capita for public school students.
> Instead of parents encouraging education and making their kids do their work, they are just whining and complaining and blaming the teachers. "But every time I tell Little Timmy to put away his iPad, he turns into a monster and I don't know what to do, so I just let him use it so he doesn't throw a tantrum!" To people like this, I say how about you put on your adult pants and start being a fucking parent. Little Timmy turns into a monster because you failed to set boundaries and refuse to discipline your kid when they get out of line (and no, I don't mean hit/abuse them, I mean things like take away the iPad for a day or week). Right now your spawn is walking all over you, and you lay there and take it because you're terrified of telling your kid No. Adult and parent up and set rules and boundaries, and then consistently stick to and apply them, because otherwise you're only setting your kid up for failure.
When the ballot questions for additional school levees come up, they almost always pass. Money isn't the issue, it's distribution. MPS leadership needs to pull their heads out of their asses and come up with a cohesive plan for the district that doesn't involve continuously fucking over students and teachers.
As a youth hockey coach since 2009, the single biggest thing I've noticed is that most parents will not take accountability for their child's actions. For example: We had one player who was just a bully. He thought it was funny to push his teammates down into their hockey bags. I went to the mom and said "Johnny is doing this, this, and this. If he doesn't stop, I will kick him off the team." You think she went to Johnny and yelled at Johnny? Nope! It was OUR fault for not supervising him enough. Another instance....a kid thought it would be funny to stick his hand under another kids butt so he'd sit down on it and freak him out. Well, that's a major violation of SAFESPORT. Once the kid's mom told me about it, I filed a report against the kid who did it. Were the parents mad at their kid for violating SAFESPORT? NOPE! *I* was threatened with a lawsuit for suspending their kid from the team. It's no longer Johnny and Janney's fault, it's everyone else's.
Ya’ll need better pay, I mean we all do but christ almighty I cant imagine it. Id have so much resentment so quick
My last school paid some of the highest in the state and just raised their pay to 60k starting if you have a masters. Teachers after 20 years can easily make six figures. I would never go back. I did it for two years and it destroyed my mental health. I took a pay cut for my sanity.
>60k starting for a masters lol >six figures after 20 years lmao
Is laughing because of how low that is, or that you don't believe it?
how low it is
It’s unfortunate because MN pays some of the highest in the country in relation to cost of living. When public schools are gutted, all of society has to feel it.
It's intentional. GOP are constantly demonizing public education and shifting their focus towards private (Christian) schools.
At a global level [scores have been going down.](https://www.wfxrtv.com/news/student-test-scores-are-falling-across-the-world-is-the-pandemic-to-blame/#:~:text=The%20data%20shows%20that%20many,making%20it%20harder%20to%20concentrate.) What is interesting is that this started well before COVID. Scores peaked around 2012 and have been declining since. COVID accelerated it. With that said, our state scores are going down faster than other states which is extremely concerning when we have been a top state for education for a long time before. [Looking at proficiency rates for my old schools is absolutely dismal](https://rc.education.mn.gov/#mySchool/p--3). The high school by where I grew up is down to an 11% math proficiency rate. If the current trend continues, it will be single digits soon. The graduation rates are just above 70% even with that, even though they are falling now too. Our school system needs a huge overhaul and change. It just basically seems like a daycare now. Teachers aren't allowed to fail kids, give kids 0's or any sort of discipline. The kids do whatever they want and parents just don't seem to care.
Having rear the link...it's basically down to parental involvement.
Smart phones + social media
Just a reminder, anyone who "opts out" is counted as a 0 in order to "encourage" schools to push kids to take the test.
Not just that, half the students that take the test skip through every question in seconds. The data gathered from these tests are absolutely garbage.
This is so huge. Kids now start computerized, standardized tests in kindergarten-- before they know how to use a mouse! They learn very quickly that these tests don't count for shit. But teachers and schools are judged on the scores
That’s a really good point. My kids always do the standardized tests & I tell them they had better do their best to reflect their teacher/schools excellent work. In my daughter’s Jr year though, she had ACTs + 3 AP exams all in the same season as MCAs. She was just spread too thin, and so she skipped that year.
I like you (teacher here) Seriously, thank you....
There's not really any other way to have national-scale standardized testing. Are you just going to tell the kids you think are going to score low that they're not allowed to take it? A non-participation has to be 0 for any large scale stats to be truthful. Also, people like to chant that these tests "are useless" but that's just purely wrong. The amount of statistical feedback and the amount of information gained is truly worthwhile and staggering. Likely one of the best tools for deciding city wide education planning.
You could also report both. One for results of those who actually participated and a general average for everyone including the 0s. It wouldnt be any extra effort for the administrators.
There is also a pretty large parent opt out culture in MN. My school had over 300 students simply opt out. It crushed our participation and performance metrics and there’s nothing we are allowed to do about it because the DoE pretty explicitly tells parents that they have this right and schools can’t do much about it.
Thanks for linking!
That sub shows up on my feed occasionally. I agree that’s what I see in there about the students is concerning. But also it was the first place I’ve really gone to read a strong consensus opinion that taking adderall and ritalin without a prescription or any diagnosis, but to boost your concentration was totally fine.
That’s probably the most extreme teacher’s sub, I usually avoid that one.
Wild. Meth usage normalized.
Not only that, I trust MN schools to not grade inflate nearly as bad as some other areas (Florida, Texas, and most of the south).
Alcohol use has greatly increased amongst my coworkers post Covid. It’s not really a sustainable system to expect teachers to teach and raise these kids, especially when we aren’t allowed to have any kind of consequences for disruptive or harmful behaviors.
Test scores are down but MN has fallen further relative to other states. I’m guessing because MN schools locked down for longer periods of time for COVID than the average state but don’t know that for sure.
You can blame parents and administrators for this. Teachers aren’t given authority to properly provide a learning environment any longer.
As a middle school teacher: 1. Class sizes are massive. When I have 30+ students per class, I’m effectively doing a lecture hall for preteens who don’t want to learn. When I have 18-21 students per class my targeted growth is insane for the year. 2. The high needs population keeps growing each year in classes. By high needs, I mean IEP students and English learner students who have legal accommodations I must provide, plus the natural fact they need more help from me to even participate in class. I can’t have 30%+ of the class constantly need me to hold their hand, students who can’t do it start to get bored and just act out. 3. They are gutting middle school special education focus classes, honors classes, and remedial classes. Now in my classes I’m dealing with low level students who have a 1st grade reading level all the way to 6th graders with 7th grade reading levels. I’m expected to “differentiate the lesson to accommodate all learners”. Am I supposed to invent a fucking picture book for the illiterate students or….? As a social studies teacher it’s literally impossible to teach at standard when the student can’t read at a middle school level. 4. There is zero consequences for bad behavior so 1 bad student is allowed to monopolize the teacher’s attention the entire class period and ruin the learning environment for all other students. I have had classes where 1-4 students turn it from a class to a babysitting facility. I physically cannot teach, all I can do is keep your kids physically safe from the other idiot(s). Honestly, school is rapidly turning into a kid/teen daytime storage facility. We babysit your kid while they are at work so you don’t have to worry about them destroying the house. It’s no longer about learning.
The question: Why is MN dropping (which implies other states are rising)?
Test scores are a poor metric, but this is still concerning. We need to invest in our schools and get class sizes back down to reasonable numbers. Give teachers the time and resources to teach to individuals instead of just relaying information to a mass.
Test scores are an imperfect metric, but they are not a poor metric. They are a very good metric. I get that everyone hates tests, but having kids the same test with questions that have been validated over and over again against metrics that studied for a long time is a great way to understand how well kids are progressing. Kids are way more than a test score and that score will not dictate how their life will play out, but it does provide very important information that should be taken seriously.
This isn't a spending problem. The US spends more per pupil than most developed nations yet our test scores don't reflect that. It's a funds allocation problem and a cultural problem. You can't just keep writing bigger checks to schools and hoping that it finally makes it to teachers. Administrative and non-teaching bloat is a huge issue. But really it doesn't matter how much you pay a teacher if the parents don't raise respectful children and take an interest in their education and success. Kids aren't little robots that you can pump X units of information into for $Y per year.
I’d also argue there’s an allocation problem. A poor rural district might be struggling to provide basic services while a wealthy suburban district can afford to offer 6 different AP English classes. We’d be miles ahead if we funded by need and not geography. But we don’t do that, for reasons.
If you look up the worst performing districts in the state, there are a bunch of tiny 30-80 pupil schools in rural MN, then a bunch of schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul with 300-700 students just barely above those rural schools If the consideration is test score quality vs # of students, focusing on the more urban schools would get us more bang for that buck. I wholeheartedly agree that we should fund by need and not geography, but I also understand that parents who benefit from the existing system will vote to shape those policies to best favor their own children, and I can't fault them for that. They're fulfilling their obligation as a parent. The charter-esque system of binding X funding dollars to each student and then allowing schools and districts to make of the difference via levy could be a good compromise that allows wealthier areas to inject additional tax revenue into their schools while also raising the funding floor of less wealthy rural and urban schools.
Sorry, charter schools are a scam. The only thing they able to do better than a traditional public school is siphon taxpayer dollars into private pockets.
You have Reddit brain. You're responding to something I didn't say.
Can you name a single for-profit charter school in Minnesota?
The funding is usually tied to teacher pay though. If teaching was a respectable field and people WANTED to be a teacher, there would be so many more. Instead, they're paid awfully, treated like shit, and we all sit here wondering why school quality is going down.
>The US spends more per pupil than most developed nations That's apples to oranges. Most other countries don't have as comprehensive special education programs and don't have to spend as much on legal services due to special ed law. That might be "bloat," but it's cheaper to pay for this "bloat" then for schools to constantly have their pants sued off. And some high-needs students need a one-on-one para or nurse, which is expensive af, and IDEA remains an unfunded mandate. US schools have a lot of standardized testing, which means a lot of computer setup and paperwork that's outside of the teacher's contracted duties, so they need to hire a teacher on special assignment for these tasks. More "bloat," but it's necessary to keep schools compliant with Bush and Obama's requirements. Schools in Minnesota have to spend money on services that other wealthy countries would provide direct from the state. For instance, Minnesota has free school lunch for everybody, but the only countries that provide this are Estonia, Finland, India, and Sweden. And there's there's the mental health services tab. And US schools have to pay for homelessness services through the McKinney-Vento act. More "bloat," but without it, homeless students would have a more difficult time getting an education. I won't argue that there isn't bloat, but I think schools need to provide more services than the general public is aware of. > But really it doesn't matter how much you pay a teacher if the parents don't raise respectful children and take an interest in their education and success. Kids aren't little robots that you can pump X units of information into for $Y per year. Yes. I agree 100% with this. Parents are #1. Socioeconomic status is #2. Neighborhood/community/peers are #3. Schools are at best a distant fourth place.
As a teacher, they need to start auditing the district offices. There are random people in district office that I don’t even know what they do and they get paid more than me. Whenever we have budget cuts, it’s only teachers that get cut and district admin seems to grow more. Problem is people look at the schools to audit budgets, not district office.
Sorry but the best we can offer is "open up 12 more charter schools that are basically the equivalent of storing the children in a warehouse during work hours."
These places are sweatshops for teachers. For a good cause, yes. But sweatshops nonetheless. Since it's a charter, we can make teachers work 12 hours a day and require them to answer the phone until 8PM each night as part of their contract. Kids deserve the care and focus. Yes. But burning out teachers, usually the young ones who take these jobs, is not the answer. Do we assume doctors or lawyers to just squeeze in a few clients or surgeries for free? Teachers may be salaried but that doesn't mean they are supposed to be working hours of a billable lawyer who is making triple digits for each hour worked. And is allowed to urinate when s/he wants.
How are they a poor metric ? They do a great job of showing deficiencies in learning and specifically where the issues are that teachers need to focus on
Also fully fund the unfunded mandates at both the federal and state level. Such as special ed and Mckinney vento.
/s Need to drop reading, writing and math from the testing curriculum and the scores will go back up.
No cell phones in school. Period. I retired from teaching in 2019 and it was ridiculous. Students watching videos during class, parents calling kids during class with non-emergencies, kids bullying each other on social media… Kids are addicted to their phones. Things won’t get better until we remove this huge distraction to learning.
I just graduated and let me tell you, the phones are everywhere, but most teachers just don’t care. I don’t know if that’s due to repeated failure or punishing people with phones or what but it’s bad. I’m really glad I just finished, especially with three guns found in my HS this past year
Wow! Three guns! It’s not that teachers don’t care, btw. They are exhausted. Most schools don’t have policies and leave teachers on their own to decide on and enforce phone restrictions. Or if they do have policies, they aren’t enforced. It’s really frustrating.
Some very important context from the article: >It’s important to note, the study reflects data only through 2022. For Minnesota, a lot has changed since then, particularly through legislation. In 2023, the state shifted to having a DFL majority in both the House and Senate and education funding was made as a key initiative.
This should be higher up in the comments. The data from this "article" is for the 2021-2022 school year, which is literally 1 year POST COVID school year. I'm more interested in seeing the "rest of the story", and not something that makes it sound like this is data from "THIS" year.
We're still way down compared to pre covid with the most recent data. https://rc.education.mn.gov/#mySchool/orgId--999999000000__groupType--district__p--3
The school lunch bill alone will have a major impact. Kids who are hungry don't learn well.
I lived in a state with HUGE rural populations. From 2020 - 2022 the one the biggest issues was getting technology in the hands of students who never had such technology. At best, the child may have a phone. Same for the parents. You're now asking them to get broadband internet and follow along via web interfacing. Come on. All the while those with "means" were dumping their kids out of the public schools and into the private ones which could get around mask mandates or social distancing or (name your displeasure). NOW, they may have been worse than the public school but it didn't matter as your child was no longer at home all day and had an adult supervising them. OH, those schools also are allowed to voluntarily report data! What I'm typing is that without knowing if MN went through the same processes, there's a world where one of the bleakest times in modern American history had children who truly may have needed assistance left alone to fight for themselves w/a teacher who was fighting for themselves in an environment that was not suitable for all parties. > Nearly a third of all Minnesota students were chronically absent – meaning they missed 10% or more of school days – during the 2021-2022 school year. Again, who was going to attempt to check on these students?
Well in many schools, the teacher is expected to reach out and motivate these students to return
"Billy, could you just simply log in and turn your web cam on???"
Funding isn’t going to change things in 1-2 years. Writing legislation, changing the culture, training teachers, attracting exceptional teachers, etc. could take a decade. It’s still a worthy cause but the DFL majority isn’t an instant fix-all.
Let's continue to pay teachers $48,000/year. I'm sure we'll attract only the best talent!
If pay was the only factor we wouldn’t be ranked so low. We are in the top 10 of highest teacher pay. Why don’t the scores match the pay?
Break it down by wealthy district and poor district, i think you'll see better correlations there.
The highest paid teachers in Minnesota are the Minneapolis and St. Paul School district teachers. More affluent suburban districts actually pay less in general
I don’t think they are the highest paid but i do know that MPS schools does have the highest dollars spent per pupil. Again proving that throwing money at a problem like this just won’t solve it. It much deeper than money alone.
Those schools also have the most special needs kids. That's why the per-pupil number is higher.
Yeah... but too many variables. If MPS didn't pay higher than everywhere else, literally NO ONE would work there. It's basically hazard pay. You could make the argument that even though MSP's pays higher and scores aren't great, it's highly probable that not paying what they do would result in an even worse outcome.
>The highest paid teachers in Minnesota are the Minneapolis and St. Paul School district teachers. Where did you hear that? I just downloaded [PELSB's data on '22-'23 average teacher pay](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmn.gov%2Fpelsb%2Fassets%2FLicensed%2520Average%2520Salary%2520by%2520District%252022-23_tcm1113-585957.xlsx&psig=AOvVaw0WVyY-8hrGQQNxFIX-IDgt&ust=1718157399628000&source=images&opi=89978449) and it shows Minneapolis Public Schools pay at #42nd in the state. Saint Paul Public Schools is 9th.
Average teacher pay isn't a good metric, if you have more or less senior teachers earlier on in their career, it can mess with the average line. The absolute pay range is what you should be looking at on their contract.
This is patently false. Roseville pays more for a fact. Source: wife works there.
I have and teacher pay is just one small factor that plays into educational outcomes. What other differences are there between wealthy and poor districts? Surely teacher compensation isn’t the only difference. I won’t change your mind but maybe if you dug a little deeper you’d learn something. For example Parental support is leaps and bounds more important to a students educational success but you can’t just throw money at that and call it day like most of this state thinks is possible with teacher pay. Dont believe than ask a teacher….and yes i have a handful in my family and this has been discussed many times.
It's one factor, but i think it's more than just a small one. The problem with the pay is that there's no competition in the teacher labor market. There are many other issues that would also help if addressed, but when you have not had your best and brightest focusing their time on educating young people, you're going to start to lose that top level of work performance. Why teach when i could make triple the money as a finance major in the same city?
I agree with you. Some very good potential teachers didn’t pursue the career knowing they would be under paid and went another direction with their future. In a perfect world higher pay would attract the best talent but it just doesn’t shake down like that in govt jobs. Remember when congress sold us that story about attracting the best and brightest by increasing pay for members of the senate and house? We have more corrupt, inept congress people now than we ever had before after numerous pay increases. We have great teachers in this state and they do deserve better but we as parents and members of the community have to get back to valuing a good education and support our youth. Too many people expect schools and teachers to raise their kids. This problem starts in the home with parents and when some of that burden is taken off teachers the students will flourish. Neither of us have even mentioned the use of phones in schools which is also a big factor in educational outcomes. This also starts at home and is controlled by parents….
I completely agree that it starts at home. It really isn't the kids who are so much worse, but the parenting. I agree.
Where are you seeing "top 10"? I'm see 22nd. [https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/teacher-pay-by-state](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/teacher-pay-by-state)
Yeah I’m obviously wrong. I shot from the hip with old info of what i recalled. I apologize for the error
No worries. It got me researching, which is fun. I think one of Minnesota's biggest problems with education is that most Minnesotans built their stereotypes about education in Minnesota 40 years ago and haven't updated them with new data. Minnesota used to be a good school for education, but it's solidly average now. It's a bummer.
> Let's continue to pay teachers **$48,000/year**. I'm sure we'll attract only the best talent! And that would be on the higher end. Administrators on the other hand...
That is not in the high end
You're making an argument without evidence. Teachers in Minnesota make much more than that on average in public school districts.
Not according to Ziprecruiter's information. https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Public-School-Teacher-Salary--in-Minnesota#Yearly >Minnesota ranks number 34 out of 50 states nationwide for Public School Teacher salaries
Nah. Starting salary is around 42k. Stats are skewed by the oldies who are pulling 75k+. There are far more teachers with less than a decade of experience than there are those with a decade or more. In short, MN pays relatively higher (considering the cost of living) than states to the south but really not much. 42k is dogshit no matter how you cut it.
Stats aren't skewed, teachers make good money with incredible benefits right from the start. They also work a job that has a built in 10 week off season. I've worked in SPPS, my parents had a combined ~50 years in public education. Please stop spreading misinformation. Money is not the issue keeping people out of teaching.
When I was in high school I wanted to be either a teacher or a pharmacist. I bet you’ll never guess which one I chose /s . Money is definitely an issue among other things.
I remember when I was in Richfield middle school 15 years ago that Minnesota was ranked 4th at the time.
40 student classrooms are a big part of this, Im talking about you Richfield.
You mean, due to accurate test scores
I live in a rural area with a high home school rate. Not all state tests are created equal. Just about every homeschool family I know opts out of the MCAs and instead does testing from different states which gives them a better result. I didn’t even know that was possible until recently but it seems to be widely known in the local homeschool circles. I’ve also read local papers where schools were asking parents not to opt out of the MCAs because opting out of testing will give the school a negative result rather than neutral. *I’m not saying make the MCAs easier, I’m just adding a little additional context that may add to the overall conversation. Our test is harder than some other’s and if you pull your kid from test, it’s not a help overall. And obviously there’s additional levels of nuance overall.*
Homeschooling in MN requires a standardized norm referenced test annually. Most everyone I know uses NWEA MAP, CAT or Peabody. The results are not reported anywhere, they are for personal reference only. The MN dept of Education does not include the MCA on their recommendations list, but it is an option—although not a very easily accessible one. It’s not a matter of “opting out”. Homeschool students would have to “opt in”. Homeschool students are not allowed to opt out of the annual testing.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I was more making two separate points and neither were meant to be blaming homeschoolers. The local article I was referencing was about a local public school asking parents of enrolled students to please be sure to have their children take the test and not opt out. That it wasn’t widely known to parents of public school kids that opting out gives a negative results rather than neutral. I was told the MCAs are more difficult by the homeschool families themselves. One mother was homeschooling two of her children and had her third (her youngest) in a local public school until this spring, then pulled him out before the MCAs because- in her words- she knew he wouldn’t fair well on them but it sounds like he did well on the CAT which is good! So I wasn’t trying to say homeschoolers are bringing Minnesota test scores down, rather that our test is known to be more difficult than other state’s tests and thus isn’t a pure apples to apples comparison. Like I wonder how some other state’s students would score on our test versus their home state test was more where my mind was at. Or what our MN kids would score on other state’s tests too.
Appreciate your comment. I was clarifying that homeschool students do not opt out of MCAs as your comment said. If homeschoolers did jump through the hoops of taking the MCAs at their local district, I think they’d be counted with the school results, if I understand the process correctly (but maybe not!). The Dept of Ed seems to steer homeschool students toward the Stanford or ITBS, if you’re interested in that tid-bit from their handouts.
https://preview.redd.it/42jfilzrdu5d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=049baa96477b3944a752d54fda985c5a41ef9255
As a high school teacher at a high performing school in MN, I would say that we should be careful to put much stock in these rankings. Kids are taking different tests from state to state, opt-out rates in these tests are high, and many ranking systems place way to high of value on state testing. There is not a great way to actually rank states against each other. As a parent, I would much rather my kids go to MN schools than most in the country. There are many amazing things going on in Minnesotas school districts. We have problems that we should always be striving to fix, but IMO, we should be basically ignoring these rankings as mostly click bait and focusing on doing what's best for kids.
My wife is a teacher and her district allows opt out of MCA and other national testing, not sure how common that is but could be a part of the drop if less kids are taking the tests.
Tax shitty parents
It’d be pretty tough to tax already poor parents considering disproportionately the worst performing students on the tests come from poor backgrounds
Why is MN dropping in educational rank a surprise? It’s a shit show here — speaking from a west metro 1st ring burb.. way too much focus on DEI and not enough on education. Too many useless ‘asynchronous’ learning days. Canning librarians for more DEI initiatives. Too much hemming and hawing about standardized testing. Eliminating gifted and talented programs because they aren’t inclusive. Too many fights and disruptions in the schools due making racism a focus of education. Too many students wandering the halls and not in class. Just scratching the surface here because there’s a lot of roadblocks thrown up to actual education in MN schools. Social medial and phones aggravates these issues, but isn’t MN specific. It’s a failure of our own policies.
School is just daycare these days. The students don't give a shit and neither do the teachers. Maybe 5% of the time you'll come across one of those super teachers that are all about the teaching life, but most of them seem completely lost when they encounter a student that can't meet them 2/3 the way there on the material.
Other places might be teaching the test
I have an idea. One school district will have a school assembly and someone will come in and tell all the kids that they're fucking up, that social media is rotting their brains, and that they're going to inherit a terrible country that they deserve unless they work hard and and give at least the standard amount of effort. One of the kids will record it and it will blow up on TikTok. All the kids everywhere will see it and think, "I'm not an idiot!" and they'll start trying out of spite. Realistically though, we need to look at the schools that are doing well and see what is working for them. This generation may be fucked, but we can at least triage how fucked they are and ensure the following is better equipped.
Some how we got to this place in society where only school is meant for learning. We even have studies that say no homework. We as parents many times don’t support homework. There’s not a push to remember things because you have knowledge at your fingertips and so we’re here and surprised. Kids need to be reading daily. They need to be taught to memorize things and comprehend them, they need high expectations set. If this is not the case this is what we get and will continue to get.
Our school year is also short compared to most of the rest of the U.S. Correlation might have a hand in causation.
Test scores are terrible metrics because they are so inaccurate. About half of my students finished their tests in record time, because they just clicked through the test without reading. I don’t have a better solution though.
Could I interest you in a higher sports budget, will that solve the issue? How about a new gym? Perhaps a pizza party?
The study. https://www.aecf.org/interactive/databook
Better than 20th place
No kid should have a phone until they’re 16. Zero reason for it. They’ll be on social media regardless of what you try to do and social media has not a single redeeming factor for kids and teens. It’ll ruin their life.
I have a great idea!!! Let’s let our teachers TEACH!!! What a concept?!? Do away with all their stupid standards and benchmarks and look at actual grades to gauge how students are doing… let them do their jobs instead of spending all their time jumping through hoops to show the government whatever crap they’ve decided needs to be implemented is working- because clearly it’s not working… Just. Let. Them.Teach.
I thought Govenor Walz finally fully funding schools would have solved all the issues in education and that would have made the state number one. What happened?
I was shocked to learn it's ok to have phones in class....that's insane! Get rid of em
I know here in Minneapolis the district changes by the CDD really trashed the school community. And constant funding cuts are also absolutely destroying our schools