"That coincided with two events: an easing of federal school accountability under No Child Left Behind, which was replaced in 2015, and the rise of smartphones, social media and personalized school laptops. The pandemic then accelerated learning declines.... [No Child Left Behind] set a goal that all students would be proficient in reading and math, and schools that did not show progress could face penalties. It coincided with a period of rising test scores, especially in math, though reading scores improved more modestly. Low-performing students saw the biggest gains. The law, though, was deeply unpopular with many educators and parents. Critics said it put an outsize focus on testing, pushing schools to teach to the test and spend less time on other important subjects, like the arts or social studies. In 2015, Congress replaced it, and many states dialed back on requirements. Like many who have studied the law, Brian A. Jacob, professor of education policy at the University of Michigan, [said] 'It was not a cure-all, but I think it really did improve student achievement.... There’s evidence that school accountability does change behaviors of teachers and administrators and probably parents and students.'"
From
"Your School District Is Probably Scoring Worse Than 10 Years Ago/The drops in U.S. scores go beyond the pandemic and cut across income, geographic and racial divides, new data shows" (NYT).
It was the screens and the pandemic — that's all they need to say to fend off the return of No Child Left Behind.
Posts
91 comments:
Two weeks to slow the children.
I would prefer to see the federal government cease financing education. Leave it to the states and the private sector. No matter who is financing education and who is providing it, though, the wish to escape accountability is widespread, as it is across all human endeavors.
Back in 2007 the DC school district brought in the performance-oriented Asian-American administrator Michelle Rhee. This resulted in outright fraud and cheating among the DC teachers, and this was clustered in the weakest school districts (SE DC; Anacostia River). Rhee was pushed out, and then later smartphones/COVID happened.
These were students who (a) cannot improve, (b) refuse to try, (c) are victims of fraudulent testing and systemic racism, (d) are distracted by phones, or (e) have useless and ineffective teachers? Select all that apply.
https://www.gbtribune.com/opinion/columnists/learning-from-the-rise-and-fall-of-michelle-rhee/
https://themerrowreport.com/2017/11/11/the-d-c-school-reform-fiasco-a-complete-history/
In Atlanta, the teachers and adminstrators used two simple tools: erasure parties where they raised their students' grades by changing the answers on the kids' tests, and feral greed, as they got huge cash bonuses for doing so, to fight back against just actually teaching or admitting that huge percentages of their kids were unteachable and the culture needed to change.
They were shocked -- shocked -- to be prosecuted and some even serving sentences for RICO (I think) fraud. But hey, that's Atlanta.
Government teachers everywhere hate having their performance measured.
"Accountability" was already dying before the repeal of No Child Left Behind. "High stakes tests" that young people had to pass to graduate were failed by an astoundingly large number of students. When the news is so bad, the messenger is shot. Passing scores were lowered, tests were made easier, and sometimes eliminated entirely. In some places, a "portfolio" of student work was enough to graduate.
Schools are expected to do more than humanly possible. They will inevitably fail. "Accountability" made the failure obvious. But that is politically unacceptable.
Crappy education was already apparent by 1990, it started with grade inflation.
Craig Mc said...
"Government teachers everywhere hate having their performance measured."
Government EMPLOYEES everywhere hate having their performance measured.
FIFY
deeply unpopular with many educators
There's the entire premise right there. Teachers did not like being held accountable. Standardized tests uphold a stadnard level of competence. But teachers have so much else they want to do to little Jonny other than, you know, teach.
This is how you get Missippi black grade school children outperforming California high school students in math and English. Rigor works. Playing dress up and activist doesn't learn 'em nothing except how to shirk work.
Hell I shoulda waited fior B Bob, who said it pithier.
Public schools should be eliminated for a variety of reasons.
Sending your kids to public school now should be categorized as child abuse.
Here's a crazy idea: ditch all the new theories, fire most of the administrators, and give power back to the communities. Let the parents decide. You know, like we did when students actually learned useful things at far lower cost.
In the public schools i found the same students knew less each year under nclb maybe that was the objective
Agree with what Kurt Schuler wrote and Bob Boyd. No need to repeat it.
It was a devils bargain with traitor kennedy
3,887 (43%!) of Madison 4 year old to third graders scored below the 25th national percentile in the 2024-2025 early literacy screener.
View literacy data for Madison Metropolitan School District, which lags the State of Wisconsin average. We spend > $26k per student annually.
https://sedso.io/maps/wi/?district=Madison+Metropolitan&grade=All+Grades
What exactly are they learing
With all the screen time now people have not needed to think, it show.
Yes it do show
Even in grade school (private or public) kids are using AI to do homework.
No Child Left Behind] set a goal that all students would be proficient in reading and math, and schools that did not show progress could face penalties. It coincided with a period of rising test scores
What a coinkydink! Schools faced a negative incentive and a thing changed.
I have several educators in my family, and I know that very many educators want the best for students and will take heroic measures to try to accomplish it. I also know that when the metric is test scores, there will be teaching to the test, and there will be testing fraud. (Why, speaking of, does anyone think this same fraud situation does not pertain in elections? No one doubts that the electoral equivalent of teaching to the test - campaigning for the electoral college - happens.) But when your schools are failing, you have to find some way to change something.
Is there a better way? Undoubtedly, I think, but it passes the reward/punishment structure to the kids, and We Just Don't Do That anymore. This, plus phonics.
The average IQ of public school teachers has fallen a full standard deviation since the 1960s.
It does seem that way, so apparently has their sanity quotient
My understanding is that the rise in Mississippi's reading levels is due to the mandatory adoption of phonics based teaching, which the various teachers unions forced them to abandon decades ago.
University students with the lowest SAT scores are who go into teaching programs. Often grouped with Social Work, Nutrition and Criminal Justice majors at the bottom of a roughly 100-major graph.
(Data sourced from Educational Testing Service by Cremieux Recueil, chart at X account @cremieuxrecueil)
I was on a public school board in the 2010s. It's hard to appreciate how loud the "Stop teaching to the test" mantra had become.
No Child Left Behind knocked teachers unions on their heels for a few years - a Republican administration taking the lead on education policy was unheard of. But they regrouped.
The incantation of "Stop teaching to the test" eventually warded off the evil accountability demons.
At this point this whole debate is stupid. Most places in the US spend some multiple- three four five ten times what other nations spend per pupil for better results. Waiting for Superman and the like highlight what needs to change but too much money, too much political power would he surrendered. Maybe if Democrats go extinct and we Indiana enough RINOs but I doubt even then…
I have several educators in my family, and I know that very many educators want the best for students and will take heroic measures to try to accomplish it
BUT we are far outnubered by lazy-ass clock watchers and even worse social justice warriors of low IQ who went into teaching to "make a difference" and did not mean by educating the kids, but by indoctrinating them. These are the ones parading the kids at pre-planned demostrattions when they should be in the classroom.
It's a sad day when a television character that was written as a dunce now compares favorably against actual modern students of a similar age. Here's to you, Jethro.
The Teacher's Union wants you to know that those standardized tests are harmful to student's feelings of self-worth, when they're embarrassed for doing poorly at the things they haven't been taught because the teachers didn't learn them, either.
Is it posible that diversity IS NOT our strength?
We need more Quality Learing Centers.
Institutions have a a life span, and just like everything else, they get to a point where it's all down hill from here, and you have to throw it out and start over. Public education got to that point about 50 years ago, but it's a zombie, and now it just stumbles around rotting. It cannot fix itself.
Let me be clear. Only the worst teachers "teach to the test." That is the equivalent of "cramming" for an exam in college: a poor strategy for actual "learning." IF you are following the curriculum, maintaining engagement with the class, quizzing as you go (even open-book works to reinforce lessons) to gauge effectiveness then you are ready when the standardized tests come around.
Teaching to the Test IRL means the class does whatever the teacher wants regardless of the curricula and then spends time teaching how to answer the expected test questions. The standardized testing doesn't ask anything that is outside the core curriculum. Adding an "essay" portion where kids can BS about the topic for which they were unprepared to answer on the multiple choice portion did not solve this problem either.
What works is setting high expectations ("I know all of you can learn this lesson!"), following through on engaging the various learning styles of your class (verbal, tactile, etc) and numerous small surprise quizzes that ID where the gaps in learning are. Reward good work. Exemplify excellence. It ain't rocket science!
The basic definition of learning is "a change in behavior." Like Instapundit likes to stay, "Even a flatworm learns to turn away from pain." If no observed change in behavior takes place, try teaching it a different way. That's why you fucks get half the days off every year!
In 2002, I attended the retirement dinner for teacher/principal who was wrapping a 39 year career. She noted, and I quote, "When I started you could pass along a struggling or disinterested student, give him D's, and at the end of 12th grade hand him a diploma. By the next week he'd be in the mills or machine shops making more than I did."
Her point was that the economy changed, but schools didn't "The struggling kids we then passed along into the adult world with few skills needed to build a life."
Her farewell came when No Child Left Behind came into being. "I know some of you are concerned about the standardized testing regimen. I see the potential for critics to abuse the results. But let's not downplay the data that is to come, for it will give us a rudimentary sense of what needs our attention."
Note: reason i have verbatim quotes is that I wrote the article for the local paper.
The culture use to make education possible. Now it makes it impossible.
I listened to a very interesting podcast - last year sometime maybe? I'm sure I bent everyone's ear here about it - about the phonics-vs-whole language "debate." Turns out that the tools of early reading used in whole language instruction, things like context clues, pictures, the literal shape of words, were students' strategies (shouldn't that be "tactics"? The strategy is "succeed at reading" - but, you know, jargon) observed by this young NZ teacher bucking for a master's degree, I think, who assumed that these students were good readers when in fact they were struggling and trying to cope with their deficits. So, whole language teaches all kids to try to learn to read by using the methods that kids who struggle to learn cobbled together to try to catch up to their peers.
And the way she ultimately formulated the curriculum just sounded so sweet. It's all positive feedback (the sentence is "The girl pets her puppy," the picture is of a dog - turns out that if the child says "The girl pets her dog," the child is told she's correct), there are cozy reading nooks, they were aiming to cultivate a love of reading (it's reading, decoding text so effortlessly that you forget you're doing anything, that results in a love of reading, for goshsakes). Early Childhood teachers loved the cuddliness of it all. And something like 80% of kids will learn to read no matter what you do. That's pretty good, right?
And then the more affluent parents whose kids are in the 20% pay for tutors who use phonics, and their kids catch up. Voila!
As so often happens, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and walked by Democrats unwilling to look squarely at the consequences of their actions*.
*(And also to accept that fact that sometimes the process of achieving better results is going to make them feel bad about themselves, something Republicans still tend to shrug and accept, more often than not - but of course they're always accused of "hating" the poor, people of color, "immigrants," etc., etc. when in fact what they're trying to do is execute policies that may cause temporary pain but will result in greater benefits, usually for these same people. At a price of not being able to boast about your deep compassion that prevents you from ever saying "no" when someone, especially someone from a "historically oppressed" or vulnerable group, wants something.)
The difference between schools in one neighborhood and those in another can be day and night. Supportive and inspiring to dismal and dangerous. It's really the people who live there and what their shared values demand.
"..less time on other important subjects, like the arts or social studies.."
Serious Question: just how "important" are subjects like the arts or social studies *IF* a student can't read (or write (or add (or subtract)))?
i mean; SURE, those subjects ARE important.. to their teachers.
but does it help students to study communism *IF* they can't READ?
and what about finger painting?
And the rise of the teacher union grift under Obama.
The only thing the teacher unions support improving is access for child predators.
Immature go on record: in America, we don't want workers to have children, only the wealthier "rentier" class, which is a shame because workers and newcomers offer up healthier stock than the rich idle, whose best physical lineage was generations ago.
We need to reform the rewards system, so those essentially contributing the most today have enough to live on. To heck with rewarding the stockholders ar the workers' expense. This economic inequality and fixing the game by choosing nepo contributors and jackpot winners has the most incompetent in leadership positions... look at higher ed, and understand how that trickles down in our schooling system.
In the end, independent thinking matter most of all, no matter what it costs you. Go beg for some tips for your latest contributions, ann. Milking suckers is a job and you're good at it. Lol
Oso Negro: Google Gemini agrees with you on this and their explanation seems to make sense that in the 1960s smart girls had little other choice besides nursing and teaching, so we ended up getting the smartest women teaching school. Once women started entering other professions like medicine and business in much larger numbers, there was essentially a brain drain away from public schools with low pay into higher paying professions.
Of course, it's phones. If we're talking about SATs though, bear in mind that they were rejiggered in the 90s to make them easier.
Also why we like to blame the teachers. I think another thing that stymies the profession is the over-reliance on teacher credentialing making it harder for someone with an advanced degree to be able to teach because they have to go through education training which is ridiculous.
Another problem of course. The same as in college these days is the explosion of administrators sucking up more and more money and also creating more and more rules that make it more difficult for teachers to install standards of behavior and conduct within their classrooms.
It must be nice for some of you people to blame it all on some straw man of a fat slob moron eating Twinkies and donuts all day licking their sausage. Fingers and allowing chaos to erupt in their classroom.
Like anything else. These are structural problems that have more to do with the idiot logical influence of the baby boomers who dominated education administration from k through PhD
California is the great petri dish incubator experiment of The logical conclusion of progressive policies. Socially economically educationally environmentally yada yada yada. California suffers from tremendous environmental damage due to fires because of its environmental policies. California has a greatly overtaxed water system because of the failure to build infrastructure California test scores plummeted from the envy of the world in the 1960s down to the bottom of the barrel. The economy is still going gangbusters however, the income inequality and the economic pressures on working class and poor people is tremendous. It's the paradox of progressivism where the actual result is regressive. Single mothers and minorities hardest hit by these so-called do-gooder policies.
Blackboard Jungle highlighted low-functioning urban public schools in 1955. There, war veteran Glenn Ford finally did a beat down on the main sociopathic hood, Vic Morrow. It was a pleasing finale.
I would also track the rise in wealth and influence of the main teachers unions, and track their donations to Democrats over that period. It is a huge part of the decline.
Its getting to the point where the ability to do math is just needed for a small number of engineers, scientists, etc. The computer does it for everyone else. When's the last time you did fractions? Or used Geometry? Or Algerbra?
the same is true of grammar and spelling - just run it through the computer.
I loved vic morrow, but he was the oldest, smartest, looking HS kid ever in Blackboard jungle. Another student in the movie is Sidney Poitier, who 4 years earlier had played a Doctor!
Like a lot of people, teacher's unions showed their true values during Covid. Educating kids was put last. The pandemic was one of my worst experiences. It felt like living under a communist regime: suffocating, claustrophobic, and infuriating, with a lingering fear of what would be imposed on you next. It was very Soviet, but just like the Soviet Union, some people actually liked it. We are not all the same.
Schools do all kinds of odd things these days and have done so a long time. Parents too. My wife insisted on driving my daughter to school every day - like most of the other parents. Crazy waste of money. Growing up, nobody did that. We all biked, walked, or took the bus.
The other thing is the "late start". Our HS now starts at 9 AM. Fortunately, were not driving her to school at that late hour.
Its getting to the point where the ability to do math is just needed for a small number of engineers, scientists, etc. The computer does it for everyone else.
Sure Jan.
When's the last time you did fractions? Or used Geometry? Or Algerbra?
Almost every day., at least some calculations are done in my head. Not only that, I can read an analog clock, find a book in the library using the cardfile system, and tell which way I'm going without a compass. Sure you might not need these skills, but when you DO need them that precious do-it-all in your hand might be worthless.
Want to fix the schools? Fine, eliminate truancy laws completely, and I mean completely.
"Critics said it put an outsize focus on testing, pushing schools to teach to the test "
"Teaching to the test" is exactly what you should be doing. Determine what knowledge needs to be learned (a.k.a. a curriculum) and teach that. But it bores teachers, so they cook up this charge that it is bad. And somehow they've gotten people to buy it. Teachers putting themselves ahead of the welfare of the children.
When I started you could pass along a struggling or disinterested student, give him D's, and at the end of 12th grade hand him a diploma
Well in 1963 when she started a student who got Ds could most likely still read and write and do basic math. Now kids who get 4.5 GPA (like A++) can graduate and NOT know those things.
The 9 am school start didn’t used to be late - it was the normal start. Maybe 8:15 at the earliest. In keeping with the real purpose of industrial-era instruction, get the kids habituated to the rhythms of the working world.
Then the start time kept getting pushed earlier and earlier - because of helicopter parents who just had to drive their kid to school but also get to their own 9am start. Then the start time for adult work got pushed earlier because those parents wanted to beat traffic, so of course the school start got pushed back earlier too. So you had helicopter parents running over each others kids in the dark. Bloody arms race.
Then one of those helicopter parents discovered adolescents can’t get up early, and called a halt to the arms race. CC, JSM
As so many have said in so many ways, if you don’t measure it, it won’t get done.
Howard, Don't blame the Boomers for things that were perpetrated by the 68'ers.
It's the paradox of progressivism where the actual result is regressive.
Just going to repeat what I said above: "the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and walked by Democrats unwilling to look squarely at the consequences of their actions."
And two other things: RCO, maybe people can rely on calculators on their phones to do the calculations, but you still have to know how to set up the problem. And grammar and spelling may be handled (still poorly, if my need to proofread my comments here is any indication) by the AI that we call autocorrect and, increasingly, more sophisticated versions therefore, you still have to be able to organize your thoughts at least minimally, to prompt the AI effectively.
And, as for teaching to the test: it works great as long as the test is well constructed and reflects mastery of the curriculum. A literature test that's multiple choice and asks the name of the main character's father is not reflecting mastery of the curriculum. But dang, essay tests are so hard to grade and take so much time, and multiple choice will give the teacher a sense of whether the student read the assigned piece. Or an AI summary, at least.
can we blame obama? I do.
school is now the following:
-Leftist diktats - you will be made to feel angry and protest whatever the teacher demands.
-Sex -sex -sex -gay sex especially.
-gender gender gender - confusion
-anti-Science anti-history religious green energy fear and BS.
“ The average IQ of public school teachers has fallen a full standard deviation since the 1960s.”
Absolutely correct. When far fewer people went to college, the overall intellect was higher.
Teachers, as a whole, are at the lower end of the college intellect spectrum. Naturally the quality of the profession will decline.
There is also a fallacy that every kid is teachable and is a Rhodes scholar if only the school had unlimited money.
"People hate being measured." We always have to go back to first principles. What incentives do we build into the system to encourage people to do the right thing?
@RCOCEAN II: Its getting to the point where the ability to do math is just needed for a small number of engineers, scientists, etc.
Do you like being led by a ring in your nose much? Do you like being a lemming? IMO, understanding statistics and probabilities is fundamental for safety and planning in contemporary life. Vendors sell medicines, propose COVID lockdowns, talk about war consequences, talk about economic impacts, talk about guns, talk about abortion, talk about global warming, etc. to audiences who fixate on the topic and "threat."
Average people don't appreciate how and why figures lie and liars figure. Stats requires core math knowledge plus a heavy focus on comparisons between groups and differences following from changes for one group.
Heh. Even with proofreading, my "therefore" should've been "thereof." Tiny screen, 60yo eyes.
@RCOCEAN II: "Its getting to the point where the ability to do math is just needed for a small number of engineers, scientists, etc."
How about voters?
This drop coincides with the dangerous wackos taking over the Democrat Party led by teachers’ unions that are also wrecking the education system.
@RCOCEAN II: Its getting to the point where the ability to do math is just needed for a small number of engineers, scientists, etc.
this Explains WHY (or, at least HOW) rc believes all the lies that the gazans told.
remember; according to rc; OVER a hundred Million BILLION gazans were REPEATED killed (over and over!) by the darned Jooze
if you don't know math (and don't think you need to), then believing lies is easy
Jamie at 10:21: “Just going to repeat what I said above: ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and walked by Democrats ….’” You are partially correct, but I have to take issue with the “good intentions” part. The Democrat elite are evil people intent on destabilizing the Republic for economic and political gain. Their followers are dupes, too ignorant to fully evaluate their intentions.
rco said..
"..math is just needed for a small number of engineers, scientists, etc. The computer does it for everyone else..."
and; WHY would you believe your computer?
because it's ALWAYS RIGHT
Just BELIEVE YOUR COMPUTER.. it would Never lie.
When google tells you that the chocolate ration was raised to 20 grams a week.. from last weeks 30 grams (a 200% increase!); just Thank Big Brother!
"if you don't know math (and don't think you need to), then believing lies is easy". Too true. Retired engineer here. I have what my family calls the "math bump". Several in my family share that trait. Or perhaps it is because math is considered important.
One example I read an article a few years ago where the Brit military guy said something like fewer than half our bomber fleet is combat ready. Out of 60 only 36..... That's when my math bump started throbbing. (NYT as I recall).
I used this example several times as a test. Most people could not pinpoint why I thought the report was faulty.
But, to the problem at hand the solution, as always, is easy. Spend more and more of tax payer dollars for NGO's, consultants, and the exploding number of non-teachers on the education gravy train.
Easy-peasy and a sure vote getter.
They're doing it wrong...NCLB meant "all true Scotsmen", not "all students". Only count those who should be counted. Dummies.
Speaking of science
https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/the-epuyen-extrapolation-challenging?
If you are not teaching to a test, what are you teaching to, and how do you know if it's working?
RCOCEAN II said...
Its getting to the point where the ability to do math is just needed for a small number of engineers, scientists, etc. The computer does it for everyone else. When's the last time you did fractions? Or used Geometry? Or Algerbra?
the same is true of grammar and spelling - just run it through the computer
I am fine with that as long as the people who “just run it through the computer” don’t get to vote or participate in government.
Too bad commenters can't make the case for average people knowing Geometry, Calculus, algerbra, or even spelling, other than .."Why trust the computer" or "Rcocean Bad".
I took higher math in HS and college and did quite well, thank you very much. And have worked in finance/budgeting where numbers matter. And I've never had to use Calculus, Algerbra, Geometry, etc.
As for spelling, the only thing you need when writing something that counts is to push the spellcheck button. And be smart enough to not let the computer re-spell it to something inappropriate.
The 9 am school start didn’t used to be late - it was the normal start.
That wasn't true of my HS or my older sisters HS in the 70s or early 80s. We started at 8 AM. Off at 230PM. The only kids who started at 9AM were elementary kids.
My daughter went to school in the 00's and HS started at 815.
I am such a tactile person, it blows my mind that so many kids are left out as to how so much of the world feels (and I mean the concrete world not emotional). All they know is how a screen feels. They don't touch or manipulate paper or other objects. No wonder brains are rotting as they lack actual 3D experience of the world.
Math isn't used in life as much as chemistry - IMHO.
Because if you don't practice writing a calculation then you also don't have the skills necessary to enter numbers in a calculator to get the correct answer. Try it. Ask a 20-something to figure out how many square yards of carpet you need for a room. There's geometry. Are you going to triple down on stupid or should I do algebra too. Throwing in "calculus" in your latest is an interesting twist. But even then, yes, I have used it IRL to solve for X when I know all but one number in something I'm working on. It's good to have processing power in your head. Use it or lose it as they say.
You go ahead and trust AI for that. It can't get facts straight but I'm sure it won't steer you wrong on higher calculations.
You go ahead and trust AI for that. It can't get facts straight but I'm sure it won't steer you wrong on higher calculations.
As you note calculators require understanding of what you are asking.
AGI is no different. The models aren’t failing “to get facts straight.” The people using them are.
If you don’t know how the models work and what they can do you are just a person using a calculator who doesn’t know math.
“The average IQ of public school teachers has fallen a full standard deviation since the 1960s.”
Only one standard deviation? Based on my experience teaching “education” majors, I bet it’s more than that.
The decline of primary and high school teachers likely mirrors the rise of 1970s female-focused career programs. In 1970, a tiny number of females went into STEM, became doctors, etc. Those without children were clustered in direct caregiving and customer service roles as school teachers, nurses, secretaries, waitresses, etc. Women are now >50% of new doctors and college professors.
The biggest female brains shifted away from the young.
I ought to look into the history of school PTAs (Parent-Teacher Associations) and see what's happened. I'm guessing it'll be a sad decline akin to Little League, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, etc.
RCOCEAN II Too bad commenters can't make the case for average people knowing...
...how to tie shoelaces, wipe their butts, feed themselves all alone, get dressed, or walk to the market and see if they have enough money in their bank account to buy pork rinds and a 40 oz malt liquor bottle.
An overarching point of higher education and developing cognitive skills is for value in structuring reasoning and logical argumentation. Cause effect. Solve the puzzle.
I'm done with this opposite day discussion. I've got to go pick my navel lint, as my nanny said I should keep it clean.
Jamie,
> but you still have to know how to set up the problem.
That's not all, you also have to know the plausible range or at least order of magnitude for the answer. In the days of slide rules that was built into the process. Now, if you just key in the numbers to the calculator app and don't notice you put the decimal place in the wrong place, or admitted it, you will get a very wrong answer without knowing it.
The dumbest people in the world are public school teachers.
Without math, you can't work out the true price of anything. You don't know how to compare different prices in the grocery store; you don't know how much a car or house costs with a twenty year mortgage. You don't know how much things bought on credit cost or why a down payment is a good idea. You can't adapt a recipe. You don't understand different percentages of protein, fat, sugar and salt in food.
Without geometry, you don't understand maps and their different scales or blueprints.
Without calculus you don't understand how orbits are calculated and it's easy to believe that landing on the moon can't done because you can't imagine how it is being done.
Without math, you get along by copying what you see around you and that means you lead to narrow, restricted life.
"I'm done with this opposite day discussion. I've got to go pick my navel lint, as my nanny said I should keep it clean."
Thanks anonymous somebody. We'll do better in the future. Promise.
Me: Too bad somebody cant make an agruement
Other People: Thats crazy. Just crazy. Flounces off
"It was the screens and the pandemic — that's all they need to say to fend off the return of No Child Left Behind."
Reminds me of the evergreen quote from David Burge aka iowahawk : "Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving."
Student scores were progressing. Now, they're progressing. One step forward, three steps backward.
After listening to NPR report on this I suspect this "study" is about proving the need for the Department of Education. The scores dropped once federal pressure was off - so we need the DOE that evil Trump has been shrinking.
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