> The basic story is that during the aughts, we had a bipartisan education reform consensus that was focused on improving school quality as an attainable and important driver of social and economic progress.
No Child Left Behind? It created tremendous incentives to teach to the test, and in some cases where that wasn't enough, to cheat to the test.
I think the other side is equally likely (if not already happening) in that countries seeking 'excellence' succumb to the manager's fallacy of using metrics to reward and punish, at which point Goodhart's law kicks in like it did for no child left behind. Are chinese students cheating on their exams because its only the score that matters, for example?
The lowest denominator, lowering of standards, and grade inflation I believe are all symptoms of 'education' not being about learning and skill building, but about credentialization. If only the certificate matters anymore, then rest is just theatre.
The cost of almost everything government related is going up because the amount of money going to pensions is reaching its peak (the rate of increase was quite high for the last 15 years, that rate is starting to taper off significantly, and will pretty much flat line in 15 more years).
When a huge portion of your education spending is going to pay people that aren't working - you either need to funnel more money into it or cut.
When the economy isn't great (for the ordinary person), the ordinary person is going to choose cuts - and then they'll align their thinking to justify their choice.
Education is largely funded at the local level through property taxes which are rarely (never?) progressive.
If given the choice, I'm sure a lot more people would vote to make the Bill Gateses of the world pay more for education. It's not an option, so they're choosing cuts instead.
If it was an option, I'm sure you'd see a lot more ordinary people suddenly caring about the education of the poor.
It outwardly manifests as hate, but most people don't think of themselves like that. People generally view themselves as the star of the story. We have subcultures that make people drift towards certain beliefs and outcomes, all the while with those people largely being unaware of their course. You are noticing that there is a dominant subculture that indoctrinates with hateful beliefs.
A consequence of the end of the cold war and a belief among many that a few, exceptional individuals are responsible for the bulk of the ingenuity that powers economic growth.
So why educate poor kids? The exceptional will rise to the top regardless or emigrate to the US as long as we make it attractive to anyway. If all that matters is GDP and relative geopolitical strength of course.
> I don’t want to blame everything bad that’s happened in American education on the little-noted 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
Before that was No Child Left Behind, which due to perverse incentives resulted in us being taught at the speed of the slowest student. Wouldn't surprise me if this is their theory here too but most of the article is behind a paywall.
It's so obviously the phones. How is a child who grew up watching YouTube shorts supposed to sit through an entire novel without getting bored? They're used to quick and easy dopamine hits.
If you want literacy to come back, stop giving children YouTube shorts, TikTok, or Cocomelon.
At a certain age they will make that decision for themselves - you can't micromanage or monitor your kids' activities all the time. It's the same in every generation, it was TV at one point, then games, then youtube, then tiktok, and I'm sure the next generation in 10 years or so will scoff at whatever the younger generation does to get their distraction / dopamine hits.
That said, in the Netherlands there's been a ton of schools that have banned phones on the premises for various reasons. It's IMO ineffective as long as they also get laptops or tablets from the school, but it's a step in the right direction. There was just too much distraction and abuse; in a local example, there were anonymous "gossip" accounts on the various social media that would record and publish loads of random shit happening at school, often leading to cyberbullying and whatnot.
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No Child Left Behind? It created tremendous incentives to teach to the test, and in some cases where that wasn't enough, to cheat to the test.
That's a not just a problem in education. Lowest denominator thinking is endemic throughout America.
Don’t be surprised if countries that seek excellence, like China, eventually have economic growth that outpaces America for this reason alone.
The lowest denominator, lowering of standards, and grade inflation I believe are all symptoms of 'education' not being about learning and skill building, but about credentialization. If only the certificate matters anymore, then rest is just theatre.
The cost of almost everything government related is going up because the amount of money going to pensions is reaching its peak (the rate of increase was quite high for the last 15 years, that rate is starting to taper off significantly, and will pretty much flat line in 15 more years).
When a huge portion of your education spending is going to pay people that aren't working - you either need to funnel more money into it or cut.
When the economy isn't great (for the ordinary person), the ordinary person is going to choose cuts - and then they'll align their thinking to justify their choice.
Education is largely funded at the local level through property taxes which are rarely (never?) progressive.
If given the choice, I'm sure a lot more people would vote to make the Bill Gateses of the world pay more for education. It's not an option, so they're choosing cuts instead.
If it was an option, I'm sure you'd see a lot more ordinary people suddenly caring about the education of the poor.
*NIHS = Not Invented Here Syndrome
And the world is getting older by the second.
motivated by the love of money, the root of all evil.
Dead Comment
Look how much Musk has given to society. PayPal / Tesla / SpaceX / OpenAI / Neuralink.
Before that was No Child Left Behind, which due to perverse incentives resulted in us being taught at the speed of the slowest student. Wouldn't surprise me if this is their theory here too but most of the article is behind a paywall.
If you want literacy to come back, stop giving children YouTube shorts, TikTok, or Cocomelon.
That said, in the Netherlands there's been a ton of schools that have banned phones on the premises for various reasons. It's IMO ineffective as long as they also get laptops or tablets from the school, but it's a step in the right direction. There was just too much distraction and abuse; in a local example, there were anonymous "gossip" accounts on the various social media that would record and publish loads of random shit happening at school, often leading to cyberbullying and whatnot.
Bingo. I and many other adults I know struggle with this. Taking a book with me on the way to work today let's see if it helps