Ever Changing

The report card is in from a number of places on the quality of high school students in the USA.  Despite what many parents claim about their child being overworked, the evidence is that they have not been overworked in the class room. Maybe it is all those extra curriculum activities, or sports, or parents taking them on vacations before the school gets out, but the evidence says that they are not very good in math and their verbal skills are horrible thanks to the tweets and twitter and social media.

Who knows all of the reasons why our students are failing badly. David Brooks does a report on a study UCLA does every four years.  There is trouble in the class room. No wonder it is such a hot political issue. Everybody wants our children to do better, but nobody knows how to make that happen. So every year there is a new effort made. No Child Left Behind, Common Core Curriculum, unlimited Charter Schools, reduce the number of teachers, Race to the Top. This is a partisan issue because both Democrats and Republicans think they have a new answer.

It will not get better as long as we keep changing the game plan every two or three years. It will not get better if we keep insulting the teachers. It will not get better if we do not start demanding that children read and write at 3rd grade level before they get promoted to the next level.  We may have to double the size of our elementary schools and create 3B, 3C, 3D levels to hold all of them, but until we do, we are going to have drop out rates,  GED, remedial, and all kinds of problems in education.

UNC was terribly upset when Mary Willingham said that a few jocks could not read. Here comes these studies that say most of the High School students can't do math very well. I wonder how they will react to that.