“NEW: UC San Diego has released a new report documenting a “steep decline in the academic preparedness” of its freshmen.
The number of entering students needing remedial math has exploded from 1/100 to 1/8.
They’ve had to create a second remedial class covering elementary and middle school math skills in addition to the one covering gaps from high school.”
“This deterioration coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on education, the elimination of standardized testing, grade inflation, and the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools.””
“As mentioned, they had to create a second remedial class.
They explain:
“While Math 2 was designed in 2016 to remediate missing high school math knowledge, now most students had knowledge gaps that went back much further, to middle and even elementary school. To address the large number of underprepared students, the Mathematics Department redesigned Math 2 for Fall 2024 to focus entirely on elementary and middle school Common Core math subjects (grades 1-8), and introduced a new course, Math 3B, so as to cover missing high-school common core math subjects (Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II or Math I, II, III; grades 9-11).”
It’s not indoctrination vs education. Ask the vast majority of teachers, if we could brainwash kids, we would brainwash them to come to class with a pencil, etc.
The issue is grade inflation, parental pressure and broader economic realities. To not be admitted into higher education is often a sentence to lifelong poverty. Parents therefore are hyper-vigilant about grades; often physically and verbally threatening teachers and admin. In higher economic neighbourhoods, lawyers will sit in on IEPs and parent teacher meetings. Thus a student who really shouldn’t be admitted to a university will actually succeed. Away from home with no self-discipline and no parental rescue they will often fail. Elementary admin will often pass academic problems to secondary who just do the same. ( I used to be told to “adjust” a grade or place gr 8 students in the academic stream for high school who really didn’t belong there)
In Canada, admission to undergrad is strictly grade/percent based — no reference letters, no tests, no volunteer resume padding – and admission or scholarships will often come down to decimal points. One university decided to track students first year performance and their high school origin. They then assigned positive points for over performance and negative for under performance and used these points to subtract percentages from new applicants. To no-one’s surprise, kids from inner city high school over performed in university (you have to be smart and self-discipled to succeed in the inner city), students in wealthy suburbs under performed — the wealthier the neighbourhood the higher the grade inflation. The worst in terms of under performance was a local parent run private Christian high school. Second worse was an elite private prep school.
Parents are incredibly influential in their children’s lives including education yet they don’t want to take responsibility. I understand the motivation — a cashier is paid $18 /hr and a living wage is $23/hr. As a parent, I want my kid to go to higher education and escape the poverty trap. Hence, the pushy parents and grade inflation. The real solution is to increase wages for the working class so they are a living wage.
The so-called “Covid cohort” refers to the K-4/5 students in 2020. A poor start in primary will often stay with an individual for years. The Covid kids are now in gr 8 – 11. Anecdotally, I can tell you there is an issue with this cohort – academics, work habits, organisational skills, etc. To blame everything on Covid is of course too simplistic but it is a serious issue for that group of students.
Redacting the name of a sexual assault victim is standard procedure and was probably done prior to the House Oversight Cmttee obtaining these emails. For the White House to quickly release the name of the victim is a breach of privacy. If it is indeed Virginia Giuffre then breach is not too serious as she has passed away and has written a memoir. However, normally releasing names should only be done with permission of both the victim and the courts. The White House has now demonstrated they don’t respect the rules in place to protect victims.
The emails issued do demonstrate Trump was aware of Epstein’s activities and he continued to associate with Epstein even into his first presidency. Both things he has previously denied. This is the important thing to emerge from email release.
I’ve always considered Trump a sexual predator and thought the vast majority of people were of the same opinion. Hopefully these emails and perhaps if the files get released will help inform people and perhaps the women will get some justice.
From what I understand the request to release the files is now up to a House vote, a Senate vote and then Trump’s signature. A Trump veto would be an interesting development and then it will have to be overruled by the Senate. Of course it could be a dead issue if it doesn’t get past the House floor. The fact Bondi, Patel, and Trump were trying to strong arm Mace and Broebert until the last minutes of yesterday raises more suspicion and will make the House vote interesting.
Besides Covid, the rise in the number of children who have cell phones/social media and are using them constantly must be considered as adding to the failures.
Cell phones were/are a major issue. Initially my province/school board took the cheap way out and saw no problem with cell phones; one less chrome book or ipad to buy for students to do their work. But adding the chore of policing cell phone usage became just one more responsibility of the classroom teacher. One which is far harder than their traditional responsibilities given its possible addictive nature. In addition parents often insisted that their children be near a cell phone for safety reasons — despite the 30 year low in crime.
Recently, our province banned cell phones except for school use with express teacher permission — most schools designed some sort of lock up (“phone jail”). Once parents got the message that phones were away most of the day, it became less of an issue.
Social media is also an issue. In the pre-digital error, once students made it home, school responsibility usually ended. With social media, issues continued 24/7 and admin often became overwhelmed trying to sort out online threats, gossip, videos, etc. Frequently they would try to bump this down to the classroom teacher, overwhelming them with even more work. And some parents were no help in this issue complaining the school was creating issues about things that really shouldn’t count — online death threats were treated by parents as kids being kids.
And so the modern has provided increase work for school staff and yet some still think teachers spend all their trying to brainwash kids. Students won’t even remember to bring a pencil to class and yet people think one health lesson will turn them gay or trans. If people want a culprit, it’s social media. Every trans or non-binary kid I taught cited social media for making them aware of the possibility. It certainly wasn’t me — why complicate their lives, middle school is difficult enough.
Wandering Views 
This will happen when time is spent indoctrinating kids instead of educating them.
And when you promote kids to the next level without making them work for it.
https://x.com/sfmcguire79/status/1988246741766861034?t=DV2F7S-UvnmyFrmn4L4zGw&s=19
“NEW: UC San Diego has released a new report documenting a “steep decline in the academic preparedness” of its freshmen.
The number of entering students needing remedial math has exploded from 1/100 to 1/8.
They’ve had to create a second remedial class covering elementary and middle school math skills in addition to the one covering gaps from high school.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
Covid was years ago, but they continue to use it to explain their failures at educating kids.
Newsflash, sub par educators are the problem, not Covid.
https://x.com/sfmcguire79/status/1988246747051622541?t=DGF2-32itLH-L8uUmgjhmQ&s=19
“The report also shows that nearly 1/5 students fail to meeting entry level writing requirements.”
—
https://x.com/sfmcguire79/status/1988246751652782087?t=OyBkpZQPS_zBMEMYsYMzlg&s=19
“This deterioration coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on education, the elimination of standardized testing, grade inflation, and the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools.””
LikeLiked by 2 people
And yet they want to blame Covid….🤔
While it played a role, for sure, it doesn’t explain failures that go back decades.
https://x.com/sfmcguire79/status/1988246763891781726?t=4ZpWb4y4JhVTUy0AbThBPg&s=19
“As mentioned, they had to create a second remedial class.
They explain:
“While Math 2 was designed in 2016 to remediate missing high school math knowledge, now most students had knowledge gaps that went back much further, to middle and even elementary school. To address the large number of underprepared students, the Mathematics Department redesigned Math 2 for Fall 2024 to focus entirely on elementary and middle school Common Core math subjects (grades 1-8), and introduced a new course, Math 3B, so as to cover missing high-school common core math subjects (Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II or Math I, II, III; grades 9-11).”
—–
Click the link and read the rest of the thread.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s not indoctrination vs education. Ask the vast majority of teachers, if we could brainwash kids, we would brainwash them to come to class with a pencil, etc.
The issue is grade inflation, parental pressure and broader economic realities. To not be admitted into higher education is often a sentence to lifelong poverty. Parents therefore are hyper-vigilant about grades; often physically and verbally threatening teachers and admin. In higher economic neighbourhoods, lawyers will sit in on IEPs and parent teacher meetings. Thus a student who really shouldn’t be admitted to a university will actually succeed. Away from home with no self-discipline and no parental rescue they will often fail. Elementary admin will often pass academic problems to secondary who just do the same. ( I used to be told to “adjust” a grade or place gr 8 students in the academic stream for high school who really didn’t belong there)
In Canada, admission to undergrad is strictly grade/percent based — no reference letters, no tests, no volunteer resume padding – and admission or scholarships will often come down to decimal points. One university decided to track students first year performance and their high school origin. They then assigned positive points for over performance and negative for under performance and used these points to subtract percentages from new applicants. To no-one’s surprise, kids from inner city high school over performed in university (you have to be smart and self-discipled to succeed in the inner city), students in wealthy suburbs under performed — the wealthier the neighbourhood the higher the grade inflation. The worst in terms of under performance was a local parent run private Christian high school. Second worse was an elite private prep school.
Parents are incredibly influential in their children’s lives including education yet they don’t want to take responsibility. I understand the motivation — a cashier is paid $18 /hr and a living wage is $23/hr. As a parent, I want my kid to go to higher education and escape the poverty trap. Hence, the pushy parents and grade inflation. The real solution is to increase wages for the working class so they are a living wage.
hrw
LikeLike
The so-called “Covid cohort” refers to the K-4/5 students in 2020. A poor start in primary will often stay with an individual for years. The Covid kids are now in gr 8 – 11. Anecdotally, I can tell you there is an issue with this cohort – academics, work habits, organisational skills, etc. To blame everything on Covid is of course too simplistic but it is a serious issue for that group of students.
hrw
LikeLike
NJ – from yesterday
Redacting the name of a sexual assault victim is standard procedure and was probably done prior to the House Oversight Cmttee obtaining these emails. For the White House to quickly release the name of the victim is a breach of privacy. If it is indeed Virginia Giuffre then breach is not too serious as she has passed away and has written a memoir. However, normally releasing names should only be done with permission of both the victim and the courts. The White House has now demonstrated they don’t respect the rules in place to protect victims.
The emails issued do demonstrate Trump was aware of Epstein’s activities and he continued to associate with Epstein even into his first presidency. Both things he has previously denied. This is the important thing to emerge from email release.
I’ve always considered Trump a sexual predator and thought the vast majority of people were of the same opinion. Hopefully these emails and perhaps if the files get released will help inform people and perhaps the women will get some justice.
From what I understand the request to release the files is now up to a House vote, a Senate vote and then Trump’s signature. A Trump veto would be an interesting development and then it will have to be overruled by the Senate. Of course it could be a dead issue if it doesn’t get past the House floor. The fact Bondi, Patel, and Trump were trying to strong arm Mace and Broebert until the last minutes of yesterday raises more suspicion and will make the House vote interesting.
hrw
LikeLike
Besides Covid, the rise in the number of children who have cell phones/social media and are using them constantly must be considered as adding to the failures.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Agreed Janice
Cell phones were/are a major issue. Initially my province/school board took the cheap way out and saw no problem with cell phones; one less chrome book or ipad to buy for students to do their work. But adding the chore of policing cell phone usage became just one more responsibility of the classroom teacher. One which is far harder than their traditional responsibilities given its possible addictive nature. In addition parents often insisted that their children be near a cell phone for safety reasons — despite the 30 year low in crime.
Recently, our province banned cell phones except for school use with express teacher permission — most schools designed some sort of lock up (“phone jail”). Once parents got the message that phones were away most of the day, it became less of an issue.
Social media is also an issue. In the pre-digital error, once students made it home, school responsibility usually ended. With social media, issues continued 24/7 and admin often became overwhelmed trying to sort out online threats, gossip, videos, etc. Frequently they would try to bump this down to the classroom teacher, overwhelming them with even more work. And some parents were no help in this issue complaining the school was creating issues about things that really shouldn’t count — online death threats were treated by parents as kids being kids.
And so the modern has provided increase work for school staff and yet some still think teachers spend all their trying to brainwash kids. Students won’t even remember to bring a pencil to class and yet people think one health lesson will turn them gay or trans. If people want a culprit, it’s social media. Every trans or non-binary kid I taught cited social media for making them aware of the possibility. It certainly wasn’t me — why complicate their lives, middle school is difficult enough.
hrw
LikeLiked by 1 person