fuck Reagan, he was DISGUSTING

DURec

because so many of us moms had to go to work. Union bennies and wages being attacked, low minimum wage jobs.

Reagan was as bad as dotard, he just wasn't as blatantly mean or racist so he didn't whip up resistance like dotard is doing. The news media went to sleep during the Reagan years and so did most of America, even while citizens were dying by the thousands. Dotard keeps everyone distracted while Congress is screwing us and not aiding Puerto Rico or USVI.

and people were moaning and groaning about the poor quality of education even then. And we sold a lot of stuff to raise money for band activities and field trips.

But I agree on voodoo economics - it destroyed the middle class.

Grades are generally up, but that's a pointless indicator because of grade inflation.

SAT scores dropped in the early '70s, but that's also meaningless. Why?

Quick, what's the average of three scores 80, 80, and 70? (76.7.) What's the average of 82, 82, 72, and 60? (74.)

Is 76.7 lower than 71.5? Yup. But did three of the kids do better the second time 'round? Yup. What changed? Another kid, not as prepared, took the test. Was he around during the first test? Yeah, but he didn't take it.

That's the SATs in the '70s. A lot of kids who sat the test out took the test. Scores dropped. That's because of the GI bill but also aggressive affirmative action and higher expectations on the part of lesser prepared kids of all ethnicities. Disaggregate the data and look at subpops, and the traditional test takers were actually doing a bit better overall. But a lot of kids who didn't take the test because they weren't traditionally college bound brought down the average. I hate averages without standard deviations and some measure of skewness and kurtosis. They're not just meaningless, they're actually deceiving at times. Some people swear by them. I swear at them.


Since the early '70s the standards have been raised, there are higher teacher qualifications, and a whole lot more money has been spent. We may lament the cutting of school budgets in 2010 (give or take a year) but overall the K-12 budget's way, way up, and not all of that went to SpEd programs.

But grades and average SAT scores can't really be compared to the spending. There's no connection, you can't trust the unadjusted grade data and without digging into the SAT scores (somebody few care to do on a casual basis) and without looking at what the additional $ are spent on you don't know if it's buildings and food and student facilitators or lab equipment, textbooks, or really talented staff.

What you want to look at is NAEP data. It's carefully nursed and nurtured so you can usually compare it year to year. It's a cross sample of the US (and while schools can ask to be included in the testing, the stats are based on an a priori sample). The standards have been stable over time.

I find the NAEP reading scores to be depressing, and the only consolation is that it's remained fairly flat in spite of demographic changes that would lead to the opposite conclusion.



It's a bit better for math.

is that "we need to go back to teaching critical thinking."

Well, I'm not aware of any public school curriculum K-12 that actively taught critical thinking. Certainly none of the three grade schools I attended had a course in it. I never even heard of it as an explicit concept until sophomore year of college, when I took a course as a philosophy requirement.

It is my sense that much of what is criticized re: school performance is intended ultimately a smokescreen to hide the catastrophic damage wrought by decades of underfunding.


While we're at, standardized testing is a cold war relic that should be abandoned. It is an imprecise tool assumed to be accurate and used to make major policy decisions with profound, lifelong effects on the children subjected to them.

I asked the teacher if I could buy some stuff for the class instead of her doing it. She sighed and looked unhappy and told me that was against the rules and would get her in trouble.

I have moved around a lot and my children have been in schools in different states, and have run into a lot of stupid stuff but I think this was the worst.

So they do what they're told and only believe the bullshit propaganda they're taught by brainwashed educators on the payroll of the power hungry. Research it now for the sake of the future of this country. Make others aware of it. I've been trying for years sadly, but I guess it is hard to believe. Maybe you'll be more tactful and, no doubt, have more clout. Please try. It's 100% true!

The worse they seem to get. Forty years ago is also when we first declared a national education crisis.

Honestly, though, there are lots of data to look at on many different ways, so depending on how you look at it American schools are doing quite well. We are, for instance, educating special ed kids longer and to a greater extent than ever before; this is an excellent thing, without exception, but it does lower the test averages (which I don't really give a shit about). We don't let as many kids drop out and we keep much better track of those rates overall; in the old days the scores would be higher, but there would be a whole lot more people without a diploma. Just a couple of examples off the top of my head while I pump gas.

And then there's the steady re-segregation of our nation's schools...