Lagging School Achievement
Terry H. Schwadron
Sept. 4, 2024
As kids start returning to school, there was sobering news this week that about a third of all K-12 students lag grade level.
Data from the National Center for Education Statistics, a compilation of survey information from 4,000 schools said to be representative, suggest that as of the end of the last term, the lag was nationwide, with slightly lower scores in the West. Though the measurement tool varied from the previous year, the report was statistically in line with a previous 12-month report.
Without doubt, the lag was more severe in minority areas. According to this study, 42% of kids in schools with more than 75% students of color are behind grade level, compared to just 22% at schools with 25% or less students of color. Smaller proportions of students in suburban schools appear to lag than those in cities.
Almost by reflex, schools contributing to the survey say they are still dealing with long-term effects of remote schooling and other pandemic-era learning disruptions. OK, it’s likely true that for some students and families, interruptions in schooling now two or three years ago may contribute.
But it hardly seems as suitable explanation as the various cultural effects we have adopted almost as national distractions — from phone and social media addiction to over-socialization and concern about style to the overgrown distrust for teachers, schools and all institutions. Is it somehow rude to suggest that families have a role in promoting learning along with respect? There must be some reason for schools across the country to be adopting rules for students to turn in phones before class.
There’s no dearth of knowledge among our students about pop culture or the newest social media alternative, complete with an apparent lack of tools or desire to distinguish substance from slogan. But reading, writing and math skills or the attention needed to digest words at more than 200 characters at a time increasingly seem a chore. Is it any wonder that artificial intelligence is emerging as our preferred alternative?
The Culture Wars
We have as least as many years for right-leaning political forces to have worked to undercut our public-school teachers and librarians as we have for Covid to serve as an excuse. With all the attention we have focused on clearing school libraries and classrooms of books and lessons deemed “woke” and unacceptably supportive of gender, identity and mixed ethnicity, for ignoring “uncomfortable” versions of history, we seem to have struck yet deeper at discouraging reading and exploration altogether.
Indeed, when education is mentioned in our ever-present presidential election, it is about the expressed need to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education for forcing too many mandates (Trump) or about the backing of teacher unions (Harris). Neither major candidate seems to focus on the central issue here — our kids’ learning rate is slipping.
With all the talk about international economic competition, about the new skills needed for a changing climate and manufacturing environment, about the role that arts and science need to take in an evolving America, we’re spending much more public time talking about cutting taxes, checking who’s using what school bathroom, and wringing our hands about trans athletes competing in women sports than on whether our kids can read.
Increasingly our schools are re-segregating because in our deluded zeal to ignore racial difference we are shunning affirmative action and diversity inclusion, and we talk about college admission only in a way that emphasizes who is left out rather than on expanding the opportunity to learn.
You know what’s going to happen next: Parents and politicians will declare public schooling problematic, will force teaching that can show test score improvements, will encourage more tuition from public funds for private and parochial schools and non-union charter schools. Where is the commitment to bolstering education, to volunteer tutors and to asking more of students?
Perhaps amid changing demographics, we should be spending more time on language and in understanding cultural arts. Perhaps the needs of clean energy and climate adjustment and our increasing health risks should be stoking more interest in science. Perhaps our constant state of global uncertainty should be met with understanding of what America has been and can be.
Why is the slowdown of educating our young acceptable? For that matter, why are we resistant to adult learning too?
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