Thank you for this great article! I think that another core issue is the gap in spending between higher education and early childhood. The latter gets much less attention and resources whereas it is the most critical time in a child's development, largely shaping the rest of their educational journey.
Regardless of educational policies, reading certainly isn't "cool" amongst my middle school students. I have a feeling this isn't so isolated either. Policy can't always fight culture--or touchscreen dopamine machines effectively raising children.
Great discussion Tim. Looking forward to your next post. According to the Anxious Generation, the iPhone is wrecking our children's mental health, I would argue their education as well.
A well written, data-based, and timely post. It left me wondering a lot about the ultimate impact of Race to the Top, which could be said to have hit its peak around 2013 as well. RttT was then followed by an absence (in my view) of any concerted federal education reform agenda at the K-12 level. This interplay between federal reform agenda and state performance is not something I'd considered this way. But will be in the coming days. Thanks again.
Really interesting - great post, Tim. One noticing is the decline you describe coincides with Haidt’s research on social media / wide spread phone use since the same time (around 2012)…While I know this is an oversimplification, we can’t quite measure how far kids’ attention has turned from school in the last 12+ years.
And why should testing occur yearly? And benchmarks every three months? It takes time away from instruction. As a teacher in an urban district, I can tell you that at least a month- 6 wks is taken away from instruction to testing every year and the kids are burnt out. Also there is less engagement in computer based assessments. I am not against assessment of learning, because it does inform my instruction but I do have criticisms of the tools we use and the amount of instructional time that is lost.
Why aren’t we looking at common core standards? There has been no examination ( revision) of these standards since implemented across the nation around 2010 but scores continue to decline.
For it to be so broad and extending now for a decade, one begins to think about systemic and cultural impacts - smartphones/social media, family structure, per "Bad Therapy" the growth in psychotherapy for students?
Thank you for this great article! I think that another core issue is the gap in spending between higher education and early childhood. The latter gets much less attention and resources whereas it is the most critical time in a child's development, largely shaping the rest of their educational journey.
Regardless of educational policies, reading certainly isn't "cool" amongst my middle school students. I have a feeling this isn't so isolated either. Policy can't always fight culture--or touchscreen dopamine machines effectively raising children.
Great discussion Tim. Looking forward to your next post. According to the Anxious Generation, the iPhone is wrecking our children's mental health, I would argue their education as well.
A well written, data-based, and timely post. It left me wondering a lot about the ultimate impact of Race to the Top, which could be said to have hit its peak around 2013 as well. RttT was then followed by an absence (in my view) of any concerted federal education reform agenda at the K-12 level. This interplay between federal reform agenda and state performance is not something I'd considered this way. But will be in the coming days. Thanks again.
Really interesting - great post, Tim. One noticing is the decline you describe coincides with Haidt’s research on social media / wide spread phone use since the same time (around 2012)…While I know this is an oversimplification, we can’t quite measure how far kids’ attention has turned from school in the last 12+ years.
And why should testing occur yearly? And benchmarks every three months? It takes time away from instruction. As a teacher in an urban district, I can tell you that at least a month- 6 wks is taken away from instruction to testing every year and the kids are burnt out. Also there is less engagement in computer based assessments. I am not against assessment of learning, because it does inform my instruction but I do have criticisms of the tools we use and the amount of instructional time that is lost.
Why aren’t we looking at common core standards? There has been no examination ( revision) of these standards since implemented across the nation around 2010 but scores continue to decline.
For it to be so broad and extending now for a decade, one begins to think about systemic and cultural impacts - smartphones/social media, family structure, per "Bad Therapy" the growth in psychotherapy for students?