The American Education Experiment is Dead--Welcome to Dumb America

[GOHOX69]

My friend @cigaretteman posted an article on how the Iowa City Kirkwood Community College is closing. I taught there many many decades ago as an adjunct faculty member. I also know the folks running the Coralville branch. My lab used to have shared meetings in the new location, which is very nice, and I noticed one thing rather consistently. The building was _empty_. Like as if a neutron bomb hit it empty. I asked the guy in charge and said, "Where are the students?" He said, "oh people don't want to take classes anymore" and chuckled, perhaps with some embarrassment. Anyways, here are my observations. Feel free to add, agree, disagree.

1. Kids don't want to go to undergrad anymore. They see lots better options. If you are an athlete, regardless of gender, there's money in revenue sports.
2. If you aren't an athlete, you can make money by being on youtube or tiktok. Kids are addicted and obsessed with social media and the so-called gig economy and don't see a need to go to college.
3. The gig-economy means they don't want real jobs that involve discipline, timeliness and oversight and perhaps even, hardwork.
4. Americans, we, have become dumb. No one reads a damn paper. No one betters themselves mentally. We have instant gratification from our smart phone and punching a few buttons to pay bills or get food.
5. Schools suck. Teachers (kind of) suck. American schools are the easiest things ever and getting dumber by the day. We have the most resources yet we focus on prom and homecoming. Nobody gives a damn to the hard sciences, math, calculus and the like. Teachers aren't trained and many are incompetent. My physics and chemistry teacher in high school were incompetent and laughable.
6. Junior college and undergrad are money making rackets. No one (ok, like 3 nerds), wants to learn about Socrates or the Tokugawa Shogunate. There are many many majors, which are wholly worthless. Even junior colleges have long deviated from their mission of being technical schools to try to take a piece of the pie of undergrad education. Plainly, this will implode. College and now even JC tuition are becoming untenable to working class people. Add inflation, over borrowing, and persistent debt and see if you can send your kid to college w/o merit based scholarships. For ex, Stanford medical school is 63k per year. Just tuition.

In short, we are f'd and may be rightfully so. Today, it's Kirkwood. In less than 5 years, UIowa. It will continue to happen unless we change. We won't and we'll keep paying athletes and coaches insane sums of cash but eventually there will be no fans. They won't be able to afford to show up.

 

[millah_22]

If you think they're dumb now, wait until you see whats coming down the pipeline. Lots of jr high kids right now reading at a 4th grade level bc they fell way behind during school from home. They're still learning to read instead of reading to learn.

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

My friend @cigaretteman posted an article on how the Iowa City Kirkwood Community College is closing. I taught there many many decades ago as an adjunct faculty member. I also know the folks running the Coralville branch. My lab used to have shared meetings in the new location, which is very nice, and I noticed one thing rather consistently. The building was _empty_. Like as if a neutron bomb hit it empty. I asked the guy in charge and said, "Where are the students?" He said, "oh people don't want to take classes anymore" and chuckled, perhaps with some embarrassment. Anyways, here are my observations. Feel free to add, agree, disagree.

1. Kids don't want to go to undergrad anymore. They see lots better options. If you are an athlete, regardless of gender, there's money in revenue sports.
2. If you aren't an athlete, you can make money by being on youtube or tiktok. Kids are addicted and obsessed with social media and the so-called gig economy and don't see a need to go to college.
3. The gig-economy means they don't want real jobs that involve discipline, timeliness and oversight and perhaps even, hardwork.
4. Americans, we, have become dumb. No one reads a damn paper. No one betters themselves mentally. We have instant gratification from our smart phone and punching a few buttons to pay bills or get food.
5. Schools suck. Teachers (kind of) suck. American schools are the easiest things ever and getting dumber by the day. We have the most resources yet we focus on prom and homecoming. Nobody gives a damn to the hard sciences, math, calculus and the like. Teachers aren't trained and many are incompetent. My physics and chemistry teacher in high school were incompetent and laughable.
6. Junior college and undergrad money making rackets. No one (ok, like 3 nerds), wants to learn about Socrates or the Tokugawa Shogunate. There are many many majors, which are wholly worthless. Even junior colleges have long deviated from their mission of being technical schools to try to take a piece of the pie of undergrad education. Plainly, this will implode. College and now even JC tuition are becoming untenable to working class people. Add inflation, over borrowing, and persistent debt and see if you can send your kid to college w/o merit based scholarships. For ex, Stanford medical school is 63k per year. Just tuition.

In short, we are f'd and may be rightfully so. Today, it's Kirkwood. In less than 5 years, UIowa. It will continue to happen unless we change. We won't and we'll keep paying athletes and coaches insane sums of cash but eventually there will be no fans. They won't be able to afford to show up.

Don't agree with everything you wrote....but agree with a lot.

 

[GOHOX69]

If you think they're dumb now, wait until you see whats coming down the pipeline. Lots of jr high kids right now reading at a 4th grade level bc they fell way behind during school from home. They're still learning to read instead of reading to learn.

I agree with you. That was part of the reason I posted. We are increasingly f'd.

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

If you think they're dumb now, wait until you see whats coming down the pipeline. Lots of jr high kids right now reading at a 4th grade level bc they fell way behind during school from home. They're still learning to read instead of reading to learn.

Agree.

Would like to know what @Tom Paris is seeing on that front....think he's teaching middle school.

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

Too pessimistic.

I am surrounded by high-achieving students, my kids included. They have knowledgeable, engaged teacher and are doing stuff in class I never did 30-40 years ago. They are thinking about college choices, careers, etc at a younger and younger age. If anything, I often think they’re all too focused on the future.

I’m not too worried.

 

[onlyTheObvious]

Lots of horrible parents leads to kids entering school with no love. Pretty damn difficult to teach kids anything when their home life sucks.

These issues lead to the schools being anchored down with these kids. Makes everything worse for the kids with good home life that are ready to learn.

If the community is big enough and the parents are rich enough a percentage goes private. Which means the public schools have the leftovers that require paras and slower learning.

It’s an awful cycle with no easy answers. No way in hell should a dime of tax money go to private.

What is needed is before and after school programs that are damn near 24/7/365. A place where kids can be fed, clothed, bathed, and mentored. Not 24/7 schooling but 24/7 love and normalcy as best as can be facilitated. Frankly it’s what BLM should have pushed for and got corporations to help fund and supply it.

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

Lots of horrible parents leads to kids entering school with no love. Pretty damn difficult to teach kids anything when their home life sucks.

These issues lead to the schools being anchored down with these kids. Makes everything worse for the kids with good home life that are ready to learn.

If the community is big enough and the parents are rich enough a percentage goes private. Which means the public schools have the leftovers that require paras and slower learning.

It’s an awful cycle with no easy answers. No way in hell should a dime of tax money go to private.

What is needed is before and after school programs that are damn near 24/7/365. A place where kids can be fed, clothed, bathed, and mentored. Not 24/7 schooling but 24/7 love and normalcy as best as can be facilitated. Frankly it’s what BLM should have pushed for and got corporations to help find and supply it.

This has always been the case, sadly. Many kids will struggle their entire lives due to their parent’s or parents’ life choices.

 

[GOHOX69]

This has always been the case, sadly. Many kids will struggle their entire lives due to their parent’s or parents’ life choices.

And these days there are even more broken homes.

 

[DFSNOLE]

If you think they're dumb now, wait until you see whats coming down the pipeline. Lots of jr high kids right now reading at a 4th grade level bc they fell way behind during school from home. They're still learning to read instead of reading to learn.

While that certainly played a part, it is just a fraction of the problem.

 

[BioHawk]

My friend @cigaretteman posted an article on how the Iowa City Kirkwood Community College is closing. I taught there many many decades ago as an adjunct faculty member. I also know the folks running the Coralville branch. My lab used to have shared meetings in the new location, which is very nice, and I noticed one thing rather consistently. The building was _empty_. Like as if a neutron bomb hit it empty. I asked the guy in charge and said, "Where are the students?" He said, "oh people don't want to take classes anymore" and chuckled, perhaps with some embarrassment. Anyways, here are my observations. Feel free to add, agree, disagree.

1. Kids don't want to go to undergrad anymore. They see lots better options. If you are an athlete, regardless of gender, there's money in revenue sports.
2. If you aren't an athlete, you can make money by being on youtube or tiktok. Kids are addicted and obsessed with social media and the so-called gig economy and don't see a need to go to college.
3. The gig-economy means they don't want real jobs that involve discipline, timeliness and oversight and perhaps even, hardwork.
4. Americans, we, have become dumb. No one reads a damn paper. No one betters themselves mentally. We have instant gratification from our smart phone and punching a few buttons to pay bills or get food.
5. Schools suck. Teachers (kind of) suck. American schools are the easiest things ever and getting dumber by the day. We have the most resources yet we focus on prom and homecoming. Nobody gives a damn to the hard sciences, math, calculus and the like. Teachers aren't trained and many are incompetent. My physics and chemistry teacher in high school were incompetent and laughable.
6. Junior college and undergrad are money making rackets. No one (ok, like 3 nerds), wants to learn about Socrates or the Tokugawa Shogunate. There are many many majors, which are wholly worthless. Even junior colleges have long deviated from their mission of being technical schools to try to take a piece of the pie of undergrad education. Plainly, this will implode. College and now even JC tuition are becoming untenable to working class people. Add inflation, over borrowing, and persistent debt and see if you can send your kid to college w/o merit based scholarships. For ex, Stanford medical school is 63k per year. Just tuition.

In short, we are f'd and may be rightfully so. Today, it's Kirkwood. In less than 5 years, UIowa. It will continue to happen unless we change. We won't and we'll keep paying athletes and coaches insane sums of cash but eventually there will be no fans. They won't be able to afford to show up.

While examples of all of these things can certainly be found, I think your sentiment is a bit apocalyptic.

Here's the thing. America has always been full of uneducated people that didn't want to learn math or science. Prior to 1980, these people ended up working on an assembly line at a factory building stuff. And getting paid fairly well for doing it (thanks unions!). However, those jobs are few and far between now and far more automated. But we still have a huge segment of the population that doesn't want to and can't perform in college but they still need to work. Keep in mind, these people generally aren't lazy, they will work, but there aren't enough low skill jobs for them (well, low skill jobs that pay enough money to afford a house and car anyway). Then comes YouTube and TikTok. YouTube is actually the big one because they have such a creator friendly funding model. People can make really good money simply by making videos. For many, this is a viable way to earn a living.

Now, colleges haven't helped themselves here with how expensive they've made it. Many (most?) schools have risen prices so much that the ROI of getting the degree isn't there. The starting salaries for the jobs being trained for, like teaching, don't justify the amount of money it takes to get the degree.

There certainly is a problem getting qualified math and science teachers in classrooms. My school is going to have 4 math teachers retire over 4 years. We have yet to replace any of them and likely won't. The teacher that retired last year, we got one applicant. However, the applicant was going to have to take a massive pay cut to move here so she didn't. I have no idea what we are going to do in the future, but I'm sure it will involve hoping we can talk these retired teachers into coming back part time. It will be difficult to do, but I think the solution involves starting to pay different salaries for different teaching positions, depending on demand.

 

[alaskanseminole]

If you think they're dumb now, wait until you see whats coming down the pipeline. Lots of jr high kids right now reading at a 4th grade level bc they fell way behind during school from home. They're still learning to read instead of reading to learn.

My son (who for the sake of the discussion is a straight A student in the 4th grade). He's bored to tears in school and begs us not to make him go. I tried to explain to him how important an education is and his response:

"But dad, all I have to do is ask Alexa or Google and I get the answer. Why to I have to learn anything?"

I was pretty much at a loss for words at that point and found myself explaining to him what an EMP device was and what we'd do if tech died. My God his generation is screwed.

 

[Nole Lou]

Too pessimistic.

I am surrounded by high-achieving students, my kids included. They have knowledgeable, engaged teacher and are doing stuff in class I never did 30-40 years ago. They are thinking about college choices, careers, etc at a younger and younger age. If anything, I often think they’re all too focused on the future.

I’m not too worried.

I think what the OP is describing is the other side of what you are, and is part of the real problem which is a general divide between super high achievers, and everyone else.

It's not all that different than what has become of youth sports, where you are on a travel team by age 10 and playing 6 days per week 50 weeks per year, or you're done with sports. Sure, there are still a poorly run town leagues, or "don't keep score" church leagues. Technically your kid can keep playing at 11 or 12 years old, but he or she knows it's not "real" sports, they know it's shoddy all around, the coaching they get is mediocre at best, the competitive aspect is downplayed. Every kid knows by that age they are on the "short bus" of sports, so the vast majority of them quit.

It's no different in education...a small minority of kids with natural abilities AND familial resources have coopted the entire experience and basically industrialized it if not weaponized it. The top 2% of high school seniors are WAY smarter and more well accomplished than they were in 1960, just like the top 2% of 12 year old travel baseball players in a city throw and hit a curve better than Willie Mays or Gaylord Perry did at 12.

But the other 98% are way worse. Because actually pursuing education, like baseball, is not "for everyone" anymore. You're either good at naturally AND have well off parents, or you're just in it for as long as you kind of have to. So, community colleges are as the OP describes, and yet Harvard and Stanford have record applications every year.

I am avowed capitalist, but as a nation we do little to mitigate the negative effects that we should be morally obligated to try to offset. The reduction of education to just another industry, marked by a few winners and mostly losers, rather than a common cultural value, is a result of that.

 

[tarheelbybirth]

Too pessimistic.

I am surrounded by high-achieving students, my kids included. They have knowledgeable, engaged teacher and are doing stuff in class I never did 30-40 years ago. They are thinking about college choices, careers, etc at a younger and younger age. If anything, I often think they’re all too focused on the future.

I’m not too worried.

I am looking out over a classroom of students using CAD to create gliders using the principles of aeronautic engineering. I can monitor everything they do from my desktop. They are competing virtually against each other to build a glider with the longest flight time. Later, we'll go into the shop and they will build their designs IRL and we'll evaluate actual performance against what they saw virtually. My classes reflect the demographics of my district so majority minority with about half on free/reduced lunch.

And that's why I'm still teaching five years now after my retirement date.

 

[lucas80]

My youngest daughter sent me a copy of her grades for the Fall semester last week. I was shocked to see a B+, dragging he cumulative GPA at Iowa to 3.95. Just doing our part to keep Iowa for being drug down to Mississippi levels.

 

[RNHawk]

This is exactly why we need to increase education on gender studies especially for 1st graders. Only then can we start to recover

 

[ICWestfan]

My friend @cigaretteman posted an article on how the Iowa City Kirkwood Community College is closing. I taught there many many decades ago as an adjunct faculty member. I also know the folks running the Coralville branch. My lab used to have shared meetings in the new location, which is very nice, and I noticed one thing rather consistently. The building was _empty_. Like as if a neutron bomb hit it empty. I asked the guy in charge and said, "Where are the students?" He said, "oh people don't want to take classes anymore" and chuckled, perhaps with some embarrassment. Anyways, here are my observations. Feel free to add, agree, disagree.

1. Kids don't want to go to undergrad anymore. They see lots better options. If you are an athlete, regardless of gender, there's money in revenue sports.
2. If you aren't an athlete, you can make money by being on youtube or tiktok. Kids are addicted and obsessed with social media and the so-called gig economy and don't see a need to go to college.
3. The gig-economy means they don't want real jobs that involve discipline, timeliness and oversight and perhaps even, hardwork.
4. Americans, we, have become dumb. No one reads a damn paper. No one betters themselves mentally. We have instant gratification from our smart phone and punching a few buttons to pay bills or get food.
5. Schools suck. Teachers (kind of) suck. American schools are the easiest things ever and getting dumber by the day. We have the most resources yet we focus on prom and homecoming. Nobody gives a damn to the hard sciences, math, calculus and the like. Teachers aren't trained and many are incompetent. My physics and chemistry teacher in high school were incompetent and laughable.
6. Junior college and undergrad are money making rackets. No one (ok, like 3 nerds), wants to learn about Socrates or the Tokugawa Shogunate. There are many many majors, which are wholly worthless. Even junior colleges have long deviated from their mission of being technical schools to try to take a piece of the pie of undergrad education. Plainly, this will implode. College and now even JC tuition are becoming untenable to working class people. Add inflation, over borrowing, and persistent debt and see if you can send your kid to college w/o merit based scholarships. For ex, Stanford medical school is 63k per year. Just tuition.

In short, we are f'd and may be rightfully so. Today, it's Kirkwood. In less than 5 years, UIowa. It will continue to happen unless we change. We won't and we'll keep paying athletes and coaches insane sums of cash but eventually there will be no fans. They won't be able to afford to show up.

Both Iowa City and Coralville or just IC? IC campus is a shithole and should have closed when they opened the CVille campus.

That said, I don't think things are as dire as you are making them out to be.

 

[BioHawk]

My son (who for the sake of the discussion is a straight A student in the 4th grade). He's bored to tears in school and begs us not to make him go. I tried to explain to him how important an education is and his response:

"But dad, all I have to do is ask Alexa or Google and I get the answer. Why to I have to learn anything?"

I was pretty much at a loss for words at that point and found myself explaining to him what an EMP device was and what we'd do if tech died. My God his generation is screwed.

Ask him when was the last time he stopped to use Google or Alexa when he was in a conversation or listening to something on TV/YouTube. The reality is, people won't check those things and if they don't know something in the first place, they won't have the knowledge to understand when they are being mislead about something.

For critical thinking to work, you need to have a strong knowledge base to apply to problems and situations. If you don't have that base of knowledge, then you don't have the tools to critically think very well. It's like trying to build something with legos, but not having the lego bricks. You just can't do it.

And finally, tell him you need to learn to walk before you can run. You need to know how things work before you can start using shortcuts for them. Sure, we could teach kids how to use a calculator in 1st grade, but that doesn't mean they would actually understand what long division is. They need to actually do the process so they know how something works to truly understand it. Once they've proven they have mastered that, then sure, calculators for everyone.

 

[GOHOX69]

Both Iowa City and Coralville or just IC? IC campus is a shithole and should have closed when they opened the CVille campus.

That said, I don't think things are as dire as you are making them out to be.

The IC one is shutting down. The Coralville one is like a rolls royce but empty. Great for meeting or cocktail parties however.

No one has a crystal ball so let's revisit but I do think there will be massive contraction of the education system. Couple this with a push for private education and soon, many will not be either able to afford a good education or will simply say, eh not for me.

 

[Hawkdiver]

I am living both ends of the spectrum right now. My youngest son is off the charts smart, loves school, and is soaking up everything he can in college. My older son, school was always a struggle/chore and that continued through University of Iowa. He didn't see the point in any class he took, could not see real world application and upon graduating (a long ordeal) announced he was done wasting over $100,000.

Now that the older son is in the real world/real job he is starting to realize the benefits he got from all that wasted time in college. He has, on numerous occasions, asked me if I remembered when he took class X because something from that class was applicable to something he had to do at work, he is surprising himself. He loves his job (wouldn't have gotten it without the degree) and is now talking about law school as his company would pay for it and it is the best route to moving up quickly within his organization. This is less than a year from throwing his diploma in the garbage because it was worthless (in his mind) and never wanting to see a college campus again. Sometimes it takes time, perspective, and someone in the background to force the issue.

 

[GOHOX69]

PROOF POINTS: 861 colleges and 9,499 campuses have closed down since 2004

Students are left without easy transfer options and most drop out

hechingerreport.org

 

[Pete Malloy]

Some school districts give you a passing grade for just showing up. You don’t need to crack a book or complete a test. Every child will succeed whether they try to or not.

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

I think what the OP is describing is the other side of what you are, and is part of the real problem which is a general divide between super high achievers, and everyone else.

It's not all that different than what has become of youth sports, where you are on a travel team by age 10 and playing 6 days per week 50 weeks per year, or you're done with sports. Sure, there are still a poorly run town leagues, or "don't keep score" church leagues. Technically your kid can keep playing at 11 or 12 years old, but he or she knows it's not "real" sports, they know it's shoddy all around, the coaching they get is mediocre at best, the competitive aspect is downplayed. Every kid knows by that age they are on the "short bus" of sports, so the vast majority of them quit.

It's no different in education...a small minority of kids with natural abilities AND familial resources have coopted the entire experience and basically industrialized it if not weaponized it. The top 2% of high school seniors are WAY smarter and more well accomplished than they were in 1960, just like the top 2% of 12 year old travel baseball players in a city throw and hit a curve better than Willie Mays or Gaylord Perry did at 12.

But the other 98% are way worse. Because actually pursuing education, like baseball, is not "for everyone" anymore. You're either good at naturally AND have well off parents, or you're just in it for as long as you kind of have to. So, community colleges are as the OP describes, and yet Harvard and Stanford have record applications every year.

I am avowed capitalist, but as a nation we do little to mitigate the negative effects that we should be morally obligated to try to offset. The reduction of education to just another industry, marked by a few winners and mostly losers, rather than a common cultural value, is a result of that.

I don’t think it’s that bad.
There have always been the super-elite prep school, Ivy League is guaranteed crowd. I’m talking about the hard working middle- and upper-middle class kids who go from public schools to mostly public universities. Those are the ones I’m familiar with and who I see all the time. There have also always been the kids from broken homes, lower-income homes, etc, who struggle.

It’s an issue too long to be discussing by typing in an iPhone but in general I’d say we need to fund our schools better, pay teachers much more than they are paid now, and stop trying to strip public school funds to give to private schools. For starters.

 

[Whiskeydeltadeltatango]

If you supported no child left behind, play in traffic.

 

[BelemNole]

I guess it all depends on what you're looking at. I know parents who are more concerned about how their kid does in sports or if they are cool than about grades. Those kids turn out how you think they would. I know a lot of other kids from the same school who are getting into all the UC schools and some Ivys. Smartest kid I know (some day she'll be a senator or something) has a dad who is a manager at Chik-fil-A. Parenting matters.
The lazy kids will always scrape by and not get much out of school, but the kids who care are much better prepared than we were.
The average GPA for students accepted into UC programs is higher than 4.0. For our 'lower tier' CSU programs it's about 3.3
There are lots of smart kids still out there.

 

[ICWestfan]

The IC one is shutting down. The Coralville one is like a rolls royce but empty. Great for meeting or cocktail parties however.

No one has a crystal ball so let's revisit but I do think there will be massive contraction of the education system. Couple this with a push for private education and soon, many will not be either able to afford a good education or will simply say, eh not for me.

Hey! The world needs ditch diggers too!

 

[NDallasRuss]

5. Schools suck. Teachers (kind of) suck. American schools are the easiest things ever and getting dumber by the day. We have the most resources yet we focus on prom and homecoming. Nobody gives a damn to the hard sciences, math, calculus and the like. Teachers aren't trained and many are incompetent. My physics and chemistry teacher in high school were incompetent and laughable.

I think this varies widely depending on the school. Affluent schools/districts have more resources, more involved parents, and students with higher goals.

For the daughter's (no pics) school, I'd guess that most all the teachers have master's degrees. They offer a ton of AP classes - including math and science. The majority of the kids are high achievers, and you have a bunch of parents who are involved with their kids' education (in some cases overly involved).

I get that she's lucky, and that not everywhere is like that. But I don't think it's the schools, as much as it's where the school is located. Schools located in poor areas are going to be worse, for several different reasons. Less money for teachers and staff, kids who haven't grown up with positive role models and goals, and who don't see education as a way to succeed.

That's what makes fixing education so difficult - things that make a school and its students successful go beyond funding, and aren't transferable to other schools/areas. But I don't think it's fair to say that schools are worse, teachers are worst, students are worse, etc. It's a lot more than that.

I think the high achieving students are probably higher-achieving than they've ever been in the history of education. I'd think that test scores, AP/DE courses, and college readiness are the highest they've been - not because the tests and AP courses are easier, but because the number of kids who have access to them (and the extra prep/support stuff) are at their highest.

 

[Tom Paris]

Agree.

Would like to know what @Tom Paris is seeing on that front....think he's teaching middle school.

I'm in a couple high scoring public school buildings. Other buildings are seeing this but most of the issues discussed about the middle schools is the insane behavior. Basically the kids are running things and teachers are just trying to survive. There are significant behavior issues in our best middle school.

I would guess that some test scores are going down. One of my schools I know we caught the kids back up pretty quickly. It took a little over a year but the vast majority of our students are easily proficient in reading and math now.

 

[onlyTheObvious]

Schools give letter grades away like water.

A shook board member told me gpa compared to ACT is getting worse and worse.

They said kids with 3.8 GPAs were getting 18 ACT.

When I was on school the kids skipping class and smoking cigarettes in rusted out Novas in the parking lot were getting 18’s.

Letter grades mean zero.

 

[GOHOX69]

Schools give letter grades away like water.

A shook board member told me gpa compared to ACT is getting worse and worse.

They said kids with 3.8 GPAs were getting 18 ACT.

When I was on school the kids skipping class and smoking cigarettes in rusted out Novas in the parking lot were getting 18’s.

Letter grades mean zero.

When I was at IC West, it was well known that kids who had prominent parents in town did better in classes (higher GPA), even if they never attended them or were pretty much reprobates.

 

[Whiskeydeltadeltatango]

Schools give letter grades away like water.

A shook board member told me gpa compared to ACT is getting worse and worse.

They said kids with 3.8 GPAs were getting 18 ACT.

When I was on school the kids skipping class and smoking cigarettes in rusted out Novas in the parking lot were getting 18’s.

Letter grades mean zero.

Pic of Nova?

 

[BelemNole]

Schools give letter grades away like water.

A shook board member told me gpa compared to ACT is getting worse and worse.

They said kids with 3.8 GPAs were getting 18 ACT.

When I was on school the kids skipping class and smoking cigarettes in rusted out Novas in the parking lot were getting 18’s.

Letter grades mean zero.

Maybe they are, but I'll tell you straight up that the things my kids were doing in their AP classes were much more advanced than anything I was taught and I went to very good schools.

 

[Obviously Oblivious]

Nothing is a better predictor of a child's level of school success than the income levels of their respective parents. The higher their income, the higher likelihood that their children will be high performing students and achievers after their schooling is done. High earners by and large are highly educated as well and emphasize to their kids the importance of a good education and hold them responsible for their performance. It's a very good cycle of behavior for your family to adhere to. The schools they attend have far less of an impact on this.

 

[bhawk24bob]

It’s not just school kids, it’s everybody. I’ve made it a point to not take my phone to anything social. Take a look around and everybody is glued to their phones or tablets young or old. They’re not learning anything, they’re not interacting with the people they’re with, and they don’t think through anything complex.

Next time you’re in a meeting for work, take a look around the room. Everybody is finding something better to do on their laptops or phones. Nothing is getting accomplished because nobody is capable of giving their undivided attention to anything

 

[spiderland]

The IC one is shutting down. The Coralville one is like a rolls royce but empty. Great for meeting or cocktail parties however.

No one has a crystal ball so let's revisit but I do think there will be massive contraction of the education system. Couple this with a push for private education and soon, many will not be either able to afford a good education or will simply say, eh not for me.

A lot of good points and discussion in this thread.

To this point (the contraction of the American higher educational system), I agree and posit that future disruption in the traditional “credentialing” model (aka, the college degree) will be a major driver. For those in this thread who haven’t read it, I highly recommend Harvard Business Professor Rita McGrath’s book Seeing Around Corners. The principal topic of the book is asking how can businesses detect and take advantage of disruption (an “inflection point”) well before it actually happens, to which she devotes a portion of one of the chapters to discussing American colleges and universities.

Quoting the book: “A great many participants in the American system are not being well served. Many students are taking on debt they will struggle to pay off. Employers can’t find the kinds of employees they need. Opportunities are closed to millions of people who could quite adequately perform a particular work role. And all because we continue to use a degree as a proxy for other things we really care about—soft skills, the ability to write cogently, the ability to interact with technology, and so on.

Whenever a system has a sufficient number of badly served constituents, an inflection point has fertile ground to take root. I believe that alternative forms of credentialing, in which some kind of respected accreditation body certifies skills based on the level of skill, rather than the degree, are beginning to gain real traction.”

As others have noted in this thread, there are careers such as elementary and secondary educators that require a six-figure dollar investment with a return (currently) that just doesn’t make sense. It’s an untenable system. So I agree with Ms. McGrath that future alternative models will HAVE to emerge. Which will further shrink the consumer base for the traditional college and university, and thus, there will be even fewer of them in the (not too distant, I believe) future.

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

Schools give letter grades away like water.

A shook board member told me gpa compared to ACT is getting worse and worse.

They said kids with 3.8 GPAs were getting 18 ACT.

When I was on school the kids skipping class and smoking cigarettes in rusted out Novas in the parking lot were getting 18’s.

Letter grades mean zero.

While I do not agree this is an everywhere occurrence, I wonder if grade inflation plus test optional policies has created a load of students who will never finish college.

 

[BioHawk]

Schools give letter grades away like water.

A shook board member told me gpa compared to ACT is getting worse and worse.

They said kids with 3.8 GPAs were getting 18 ACT.

When I was on school the kids skipping class and smoking cigarettes in rusted out Novas in the parking lot were getting 18’s.

Letter grades mean zero.

That's an administrative issue. Likely, teachers are being evaluated down if a lot of students are failing their class. Sometimes it might be warranted but if the teacher is being punished because they have students who are absent a lot or just won't do work, that's a problem.

 

[ihhawk]

With the breakdown of the family structure also comes the breakdown in learning. The USA has way too many kids born to single mothers. The data across race highlights a pretty stark difference in the future of specific groups of kids. I saw a chart recently that showed something like 11% of Asian kids in the USA were born to single mothers. The highest group was 77%.

We are absolutely fuked. The racial divide in education will continue to grow therefore income will be way different.

Lastly, we are pumping out a lot of kids that have no skills and then they have to compete with a ton of new folks coming into the country

 

[fsu1jreed]

With the breakdown of the family structure also comes the breakdown in learning. The USA has way too many kids born to single mothers. The data across race highlights a pretty stark difference in the future of specific groups of kids. I saw a chart recently that showed something like 11% of Asian kids in the USA were born to single mothers. The highest group was 77%.

We are absolutely fuked. The racial divide in education will continue to grow therefore income will be way different.

Lastly, we are pumping out a lot of kids that have no skills and then they have to compete with a ton of new folks coming into the country

Which will only get worse with restricting abortion

 

[EZ2BJZ]

Some school districts give you a passing grade for just showing up. You don’t need to crack a book or complete a test. Every child will succeed whether they try to or not.

Yeah, George W Bush was so great for education. 🙄