I’ve been seeing news like this more so over the past year.
Speaking from experience as someone who spent time as an educator (and still has friends in the profession) I can definitely say that the students of today, even with all the additional spending, are by NO MEANS smarter than our generation (assuming most are GenX)! My experience was in a middle/upper middle-class district, which really reflected the demographic changes in the country over the past 20 years. The student population went from over 95% white to about 65% white over that time. Regarding science capable students I would say there was a decline in student ability. Another thing I saw was a significant increase in special ed students and those needing accommodations.
There are two main factors as far as I’m concerned. One being the rise of gaming, cell phones especially with all the distractions that brings, and the second being the decline of the American family. The second factor I didn’t see as much in my district as the large percentage of the new immigrant students were from married two parent households (teachers have access to parent info). Even students from divorced parents were rare in my experience. I can say emphatically that the number one factor in student success in school is absolutely one’s parents and their involvement in their child’s education. With more and more children coming from broken families and from the illegal immigrant population it’s only going to get worse.
If these colleges think it’s bad now, just wait ten twenty years from now! as it will only get worse.
I would opine that the rigor of the content of the basic subjects has declined. We don’t teach children how to write (use a keyboard instead.) They use calculators for simply math, instead of using their brain power. Multiple guess, rather than fill in the blank. Of course, fill in the blank means you have to actually know the answer. We aren’t teaching the foundations in the early years anymore. It isn’t that the topics are harder, it is that the students have been given the proper basic skills.
Before lecturing at NYU, Jones pioneered a new way of teaching that emphasized problem-based learning over a “lecture-memorize-regurgitate facts” style, Princeton University’s Dean of Faculty wrote.
Our aim is to teach the best course in organic chemistry anywhere," the course description for his organic chemistry class read.
His pioneered method is obviously trash. Those students would have been better off with a normal teacher that didn’t make a hobby of playing games with people’s money.
Memorizing the facts has worked good enough for generations and generations of students all over the world. Maybe if he tries it, his class won’t perform so far below the classes of his peers.
Agreed. Education in the US needs to be overhauled, starting with the lowest grades.
By the time a student is ready for high school, there needs to be a votech path for those that want to work with their hands. A lot of kids lose interest in high school because they find college prep courses boring and would rather take a class in welding rather than a class in art appreciation.
Besides there would be a lot of appeal to start a well paying career as a tradesman rather than continuing into college and building up debt and getting a degree that ends up being more or less worthless.
Part of the problem is the increasing number of students who come from impoverished broken homes, especially those coming across the border, most of whom don’t have any family that speak English.
It’s not that it isn’t being taught so much as some people aren’t willing to learn. My oldest went to public school and breezed through both college and medical school with ease. But most of the kids in her school were there to learn. O chem was a breeze for her because she had already done it in high school AP class form. I am sure it’s a lot harder if a student opted not to take that high school level course.
Kids coming from impoverished single moms have many problems that a child from stable two parent homes, and bring many of those problems into the schools with them. And all these illegal immigrant children are even worse off because most don’t have anyone in their home who speak English. Teachers with students like these aren’t able to just teach as they have to deal with all the problems that these kids bring in the classroom.
Many, if not most children from LATAM countries have a much better grounding in educational basics than the native products of this educational system. If they had the ability to attend.
Many of those young people have college degrees and arecwashing dishes or roofing houses.
In other words, in this case at least, the students were right. Interesting.
Also interesting is that in the third article in the OP, most colleges admit to enrolling students who are not ready for college level studies. I smell greed on their part.
Well I for one am glad some of them do. I wasn’t really ready, dropped out in the ninth grade, they had me do some remedial english and math and then I was ready and went on to graduate. Would it have been better if they just turned me away?
