It really is an unchallengeable truth that in many states the public education system is completely failing in its job to provide children with a meaningful education that prepares them for college or a meaningful job. Led by teachers’ unions that are only interested in electing Dems who will give them high pay and benefits and ensure job security no matter how incompetent teachers are, the primary focus is ideological indoctrination, not learning reading, writing, math and science. And the results are obvious–students are totally unprepared for either college or work. Hence the generation of young people who feel totally lost, can’t form meaningful relationships, can’t find meaningful work, don’t have a house or investments; they are rootless and easy prey for the whackos on the left and the right.
And here directly from the University of California at San Diego, California being ground zero for the decline in American education, is a report, prepared by the University, on just how woefully uneducated entering students are. There is no reason to believe that the situation is otherwise at other universities in other states that have been plagued by teachers’ union curricula. California has very low high school achievement scores on standardized math and reading tests. So many Southern and some Rocky Mountain states are probably doing better. (UCSD Report)
The report focuses on math and reading and writing preparation. A very high percentage of all freshman are unprepared to do college level work in either area. Please note that despite their inability to meet the preparation standards, many of the entering freshman got high grades in high school, reflecting the grotesque grade inflation that hides how poorly teachers are doing the jobs. 20% of students have to take a remedial course to have any hope of being ready for college courses from a reading or writing perspective. These expectations about preparation levels have also typically been lowered over the last few years, so the problem is understated if anything. Around 15% needed remedial math classes, but a far higher percent were not really capable of performing at a college math level.
On the other hand, since California’s universities are largely focused on turning out far-left lunatic social justice warriers, not sure why there is any concern about whether they can read or write or do math. But this is a huge problem for our country. We are competing to some extent with China and India, where there are far better educational systems turning out hundreds of thousands of engineers and scientists. Those engineers and scientists are the source of innovation. Students coming out of US universities are generally unprepared to do any real work, just ask any employer. That is why there are so many hires on H1B and other visas.
Here is what needs to happen to fix this. We have to have rigorous standardized tests that demonstrate student learning. No more grade inflation. Students have to have certain capabilities or they don’t graduate. Teachers who can’t teach students to this level get fired. Those who can get bonuses. At college, there are no government funds of any type for any courses or majors that are not science, math, business, education, agriculture, or something directly related to a job or profession that helps our economy. No more should gender studies, women’s studies, minority studies, liberal arts or similar programs get any government support, whether for students or colleges. Among other things this will save a lot of money.
Math is the foundation of science (or one of the major foundations of science)
The mentality of the education industrial complex is astonishing
Our school district had a bond election $1.4B to improve and expand facilities (in a district that has had and will have stagnant student population for the next 30 years).
A post by a school administrator pushing for the bond package made the comment that computer skills were more important than learning long division. That thought process is pathetically Wrong.
A – As noted above, math is the foundation of science
B – certain skills need to be learned by certain ages in order to build on the next skill level. Math is one those subjects that if the skill is not learned by a certain age, then the child is permanently impaired learning that subject – adding and subtracting by the end of the first grade, multiplication and division by the end of the second grades, etc.
C – the vast majority of computer skills can be learned late in life without any impairment in learning the compute skills.
The point of mentioning the school administrators comment is how poorly the education complex understands how to educate a child.
fwiw – “its for the children” is nothing more than give the administrators more money.
Adding to my comment on the Education industrial complex
One of the major advertising talking points to raising teachers salaries is the high turnover in the first couple of years.
However, there are several factors that contribute to the high early turnover than low compensation (which is no longer a factor).
First , all professions have high turnover in the first couple of years as people naturally gravitate to professions that they have an aptitude for.
Professions such as medicine, engineering, accounting have high levels of rigor at the college level and therefore a lot of engineers get weeded out in college. Education in college has one of lowest levels of rigor in college which results in a low level of students getting weeded out in college.