Grade inflation seems to be the main long-term culprit. Lowered standards mean that any student that isn't incentivized for some other reason to learn math simply won't learn. I'm less enamored with the other explanations, such as technology distractions or relying on AI, but they probably play a small part too. You and GP seem very sure that, if the pandemic didn't happen, the decline in math skills wouldn't be happening to a significant degree, but the pandemic was a fast-forward.
What I’m saying is that the decline in math skills isn’t as obvious as you’re making out. The post COVID cohorts currently in high school are doing a lot better than the ones who are currently sophomores in college did. Anecdotally anyway, sample size one high school.
> U.S. students remained relatively steady in science and reading in 2015 compared with 2012, when the exam was last administered, but dropped below the global average in math.
> Of the 35 OECD member countries, the U.S. was among the lowest-performing in math—finishing 31st—continuing a downward trend that started in 2009.
> Outspending all but two countries on education, the U.S. joins countries like Norway and Switzerland that provide significant funding to their school systems yet aren’t seeing the same high performance from their students as other countries that spend less.
It is even more an indictment of the education system if, this long after COVID, so many students are doing so poorly.
> Grade inflation seems to be the main long-term culprit
Is it though, or is that just what your ideological sense tells you? Like I'm trying to point out, if you take the pandemic shock out of the data set, there really isn't much to argue about here. US aggregate education results have never been great internationally, but haven't ever been moving particularly fast either and seem not to have been before the pandemic either.
There really is a woke-derangement-syndrome at work among the reactionary geek set these days. Teachers have always had funny ideas, and haven't broken kids yet. People need to relax.
I can't honestly call myself "anti-woke", nor can I honestly call myself "woke". What a pain. Harping on about either one makes for a dull comment. If anything, I'd probably be considered "woke" by ideological proximity.
> Is it though, or is that just what your ideological sense tells you?
What aside from grade inflation explains why those students in the UCSD report had high grades but had to take remedial math class? The schools I went to had some grade inflation, though perhaps it's not that bad. Heck, Harvard loves grade inflation.
Also, what even is the ideological angle here? I'm the only one talking about grade inflation here (well, one other person mentioned it, but surely not to be "anti-woke").
> but haven't ever been moving particularly fast either
Would it be false that education quality is declining even if it is doing so slowly?
> Teachers have always had funny ideas, and haven't broken kids yet
That "yet" is doing a lot of work, and ignoring the present article. A slow-moving train wreck is still a train wreck.
> A slow-moving train wreck is still a train wreck.
It's. Not. A. Train. Wreck.
There is a high signal NOW, due (very obviously) to a well-understood and well-characterized effect visible up and down social metrics in all societies where they have been measured.
What I'm saying is that pretending to ignore this very obvious hypothesis in order to push a personal theory about "grade inflation" or whatever and demanding the rest of us freak out about the implied "train wreck" is just bad logic.
Usually that kind of argument is the result of ideological bent, not considered thought.
When I brought up grade inflation, I meant it as a factor of a different kind than { COVID, phones, generative AI, ... }. Grade inflation is the reason why the decline is deceptive.
> > What aside from grade inflation explains why those students in the UCSD report had high grades but had to take remedial math class?
> > Also, what even is the ideological angle here? I'm the only one talking about grade inflation here (well, one other person mentioned it, but surely not to be "anti-woke").
