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There has always been that cohort who are proficient at a 4th to 7ty grade level. Always been there, always will be there.
A lot of the issue I always see in these types of threads is the same one I saw in many, if not most, first year teachers over the years.
Like them, most people here were fairly good in academics (or could have been had they wanted to be) and never associated in school, except maybe Art or PE classes, with those who are academically challenged due to cognitive ability. Those first year teachers can't believe how, behind is the word I'll use, most of the kids in their classes are. That's because, as I told them, they were never around them in school. Even today when tracking isn't used most schools still carve out Honors and General classes.
People, meaning voters, and, more importantly, business started demanding a higher graduation rate starting in earnest in the 1980s when A Nation At Risk was released.
Since then, every single education initiative-every single one-has been aimed at the lowest performing cohort of students. Schools game the system by having remediation classes, substitutes for test scores (projects), multiple chances to pass the tests (we had one girl who took the Functional Math Test, basically Algebra, 27 times before she passed it the day before graduation. That test was replaced by the High School Assessment in Data Analysis and now PARCC), credit recovery, TESA, GESA, NCLB, R3T, ESSA, Bridge to Excellence. All of them are aimed at the lowest performing groups.
"Since then, every single education initiative-every single one-has been aimed at the lowest performing cohort of students"
You were on Prince Georges County, no wonder.
Please speak for Prince George's County schools ONLY.
MY schools have AP courses and STEM programs and were in the SAME STATE as you.
Blame it on the Internet, social media and cell-phones. We had none of those things when I was in high school and our class got the highest average score by students from any public school in the country, on a 12-hour comprehensive achievement test. The only other school whose students scored higher, was a private boarding school with very high entrance standards and less than 25% of our enrollment.
"Blame it on the Internet, social media and cell-phones."
Sorry to break it to you but, the decline started WAY BEFORE the Internet, social media ans cell phones.
Blame it on the Internet, social media and cell-phones. We had none of those things when I was in high school and our class got the highest average score by students from any public school in the country, on a 12-hour comprehensive achievement test. The only other school whose students scored higher, was a private boarding school with very high entrance standards and less than 25% of our enrollment.
You're missing the point. Among other things, that adult workplace skills test (OECD's PIAAC) tests technological problem-solving. So... all those millennials who use the internet, social media, and cell phones all the time alsosuck at using/managing that technology.
If I were to venture a guess, I'd say it's because the US graduates too few STEM majors and WAY too many Liberal Arts majors. I can see how a PhD in "*[insert any descriptor here] Studies" CANNOT use or manage technology competently.
"Since then, every single education initiative-every single one-has been aimed at the lowest performing cohort of students"
You were on Prince Georges County, no wonder.
Please speak for Prince George's County schools ONLY.
MY schools have AP courses and STEM programs and were in the SAME STATE as you.
So? Go back and look for why, or rather to which students, AP courses are marketed. The better school systems always had them.
The rationale for all the school reform programs is clearly stated, they all are stated pretty clearly. And in Maryland whatever County you're in didn't get a waiver to opt out.
Last edited by North Beach Person; 10-26-2018 at 06:21 AM..
So? Go back and look for why, or rather to which students, AP courses are marketed. The better school systems always had them.
The rationale for all the school reform programs is clearly stated, they all are stated pretty clearly. And in Maryland whatever County you're in didn't get a waiver to opt out.
I went to a school in the ghetto in the 1990s and we had AP classes....
Nearly every school system has AP or some other form of honors program today (like IB or they do a college credit program). This is not unusual even for districts that are typically thought to perform poorly.
Having AP classes doesn't make a district "good" it just makes them typical.
Interesting - only 43% of students in IL took the test according to this link
I know in MI that 100% of students were required to take ACT a few years ago in their junior year. Not sure if that is the case today as I read that they were switching to SAT.
Here in Ohio, at my son's school all the kids take the PSAT and SAT, not sure if this is statewide but it is district wide for us in my area.
I went to a school in the ghetto in the 1990s and we had AP classes....
Nearly every school system has AP or some other form of honors program today (like IB or they do a college credit program). This is not unusual even for districts that are typically thought to perform poorly.
Having AP classes doesn't make a district "good" it just makes them typical.
I know. That was my somewhat garbled point. AP, thanks to Jay Matthews, is now a marker for school success. Not the scores, just how many kids take them. The CollegeBoard has had a massive push for over a decade to have more kids take the tests.
This all still means that school reform was never, and has never been, aimed at raising the average to high performing students higher but bringing up the lowest cohort.
That's one reason for the emphasis on graduation rates.
Everyone really needs to research who exactly has been pushing a lot of this. I'll give a hint: tests developed by a company that also owns the major textbook companies that are taken on another company's computers using software developed by a third company.
I went to a school in the ghetto in the 1990s and we had AP classes....
Nearly every school system has AP or some other form of honors program today (like IB or they do a college credit program). This is not unusual even for districts that are typically thought to perform poorly.
Having AP classes doesn't make a district "good" it just makes them typical.
The amt. of classes and the quality of the classes does vary.
I went to a school in the ghetto in the 1990s and we had AP classes....
Nearly every school system has AP or some other form of honors program today (like IB or they do a college credit program). This is not unusual even for districts that are typically thought to perform poorly.
Having AP classes doesn't make a district "good" it just makes them typical.
Not quite. Half of rural schools do not offer AP courses. In poorer neighborhoods of even the largest cities, IB programs and AP courses have been cut.
Do a search online you'll find plenty of information about this.
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