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Catch up to what? Everyone always says "catch up" or "they are behind" and I have absolutely no idea what they are talking about (I don't think they do either)

Catch up to what? Everyone always says "catch up" or "they are behind" and I have absolutely no idea what they are talking about (I don't think they do either). You are either getting an education or you are not.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
xwdv 4y ago
Typically they are referring to their best life, but most will never make it, because things like this, or racism, discrimination, trauma, bills, all get in the way and make them fall behind. Pretty soon they add up and you can never catch up to your best life. You either settle for what you have; peacefully or bitterly.
endisneigh 4y ago
Catch up refers to being at or around a historical moving average. Is it that complicated to understand? More ideally it refers to where a child would’ve been without hinderances but that’s harder to articulate.
- maxbond 4y ago
  This just moves the problem around. An average of what? It is worth actually thinking through the question rather than being dismissive.
  - toolz 4y ago
    It's not a binary "either you go into exact details with your entire answer or you're not thinking it through" - it seems intuitive that _many_ people have thought this through and spend their entire careers doing so. This is one reason we have standardized testing in the first place. It seems rather out of nowhere that someone would suggest we aren't measuring and/or don't know what we're measuring. Sure, the measurements probably aren't perfect, but if someone is suggesting we simply have no data on the subject isn't something that seems like a genuine argument.
    - maxbond 4y ago
      Being dismissive is a good indication someone did not think something through. Kinda by definition right? And standardized tests measure, again I ask you, _what_? Isn't it funny how deep we are in this thread and no one has put a name to it? So child A does better on a test than child B. What does that mean? And I do mean, what _precisely_ does that mean. I'll give you my opinion in the interests of fairness, there is no way to know what that means. Maybe one child is better at taking tests. Maybe one child resents the test taking process and isn't interested in participating. There are plenty of examples of meaningless tests that people believe in. Lie detectors do nothing, some people still take them seriously. IQ tests measure the biases of the person designing the test, some people still take them seriously. Haven't you ever filled out a job application and had to answer a 20 minute personality quiz? Do you think that works or makes sense? Is it really crazy to suggest that a top-down structure, where the federal government comes up with some arbitrary standards, then makes up a test to measure compliance with that standard, all in the face of intense political interference - did a bad job? And more importantly - are the standards meaningful at all? This gets to the heart of the original question. Is there a singular path one is supposed to take? Is it really meaningful to measure your progress along that path?
      - toolz 4y ago
        I'm arguing no one is being dismissive. You seem to be stating that someone has been dismissive as a matter of fact, rather than opinion, no? I agree it's hard to say what that means, but that is an entirely different argument and has nothing to do with whether or not these averages exist. They do, as a matter of fact, they just might not be measuring things perfectly, as I'm sure we would agree it's hard to know what a perfect measurement even is. I would consider it dismissive to pretend like these measurements that we do focus on today don't exist, though. Do I need to offer up a list of standardized testing methods we utilize today or can we at least agree that we are attempting to measure education levels?
        maxbond 4y ago
        If you're saying "Is it that complicated to understand?" isn't communicating divisiveness, I don't think you're being honest with me. I do understand that _you_ are not being dismissive however. What I am saying is that "education level" is meaningless, and any attempt to measure it will ultimately be meaningless.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    An average of achievement measured by whatever you’d like - grades and/or standardized tests are usually the metric.
- gred 4y ago
  A more specific example: I moved my children from a (remote-only) public school to a (face-to-face) private school during the pandemic. Now they are back in the (face-to-face) public school, but their peers are far behind them scholastically and need to... catch up.
  - spookthesunset 4y ago
    And the worst part is those folks are the ones who were least able to do what you did. Not many people can afford to put their kids through private school. All our government policies for the last two years did was fuck over the poor and enrich the wealthy. …Oh yeah, and create an entire sedimentary layer of discarded masks in our soil. I hope people realize those things are made entirely of unregulated dirt cheap plastic. Consider how much micro plastic you’d be inhaling if you had to wear it 8+ hours a day. But you aren’t allowed to say this out loud because a ton of people will call you all kinds of horrible things. Independent thought has not been allowed at all. Just shut up and listen to “the experts”.
mattmcknight 4y ago
To the standard for the level of learning that students of their age have typically achieved, or the average of how much learning students of their age had achieved pre-pandemic.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Do you expect to "catch up" to where you would be without the pandemic? I'm not getting my parents back, my city isn't bringing public transit back, there is no world where the pandemic didn't happen. These are its effects, the kids are going to have them too.
  - mattmcknight 4y ago
    I don't expect them to catch up in a time sense- to learn faster than normal. I do expect that it may take them until they are a bit older to reach the standard. Unfortunately, in many places there is no standard, and students are simply socially promoted, irrespective of any progress.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

xwdv 4y ago

Typically they are referring to their best life, but most will never make it, because things like this, or racism, discrimination, trauma, bills, all get in the way and make them fall behind. Pretty soon they add up and you can never catch up to your best life. You either settle for what you have; peacefully or bitterly.

endisneigh 4y ago

Catch up refers to being at or around a historical moving average. Is it that complicated to understand? More ideally it refers to where a child would’ve been without hinderances but that’s harder to articulate.

maxbond 4y ago
This just moves the problem around. An average of what? It is worth actually thinking through the question rather than being dismissive.
- toolz 4y ago
  It's not a binary "either you go into exact details with your entire answer or you're not thinking it through" - it seems intuitive that _many_ people have thought this through and spend their entire careers doing so. This is one reason we have standardized testing in the first place. It seems rather out of nowhere that someone would suggest we aren't measuring and/or don't know what we're measuring. Sure, the measurements probably aren't perfect, but if someone is suggesting we simply have no data on the subject isn't something that seems like a genuine argument.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    Being dismissive is a good indication someone did not think something through. Kinda by definition right? And standardized tests measure, again I ask you, _what_? Isn't it funny how deep we are in this thread and no one has put a name to it? So child A does better on a test than child B. What does that mean? And I do mean, what _precisely_ does that mean. I'll give you my opinion in the interests of fairness, there is no way to know what that means. Maybe one child is better at taking tests. Maybe one child resents the test taking process and isn't interested in participating. There are plenty of examples of meaningless tests that people believe in. Lie detectors do nothing, some people still take them seriously. IQ tests measure the biases of the person designing the test, some people still take them seriously. Haven't you ever filled out a job application and had to answer a 20 minute personality quiz? Do you think that works or makes sense? Is it really crazy to suggest that a top-down structure, where the federal government comes up with some arbitrary standards, then makes up a test to measure compliance with that standard, all in the face of intense political interference - did a bad job? And more importantly - are the standards meaningful at all? This gets to the heart of the original question. Is there a singular path one is supposed to take? Is it really meaningful to measure your progress along that path?
    - toolz 4y ago
      I'm arguing no one is being dismissive. You seem to be stating that someone has been dismissive as a matter of fact, rather than opinion, no? I agree it's hard to say what that means, but that is an entirely different argument and has nothing to do with whether or not these averages exist. They do, as a matter of fact, they just might not be measuring things perfectly, as I'm sure we would agree it's hard to know what a perfect measurement even is. I would consider it dismissive to pretend like these measurements that we do focus on today don't exist, though. Do I need to offer up a list of standardized testing methods we utilize today or can we at least agree that we are attempting to measure education levels?
      - maxbond 4y ago
        If you're saying "Is it that complicated to understand?" isn't communicating divisiveness, I don't think you're being honest with me. I do understand that _you_ are not being dismissive however. What I am saying is that "education level" is meaningless, and any attempt to measure it will ultimately be meaningless.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  An average of achievement measured by whatever you’d like - grades and/or standardized tests are usually the metric.
gred 4y ago
A more specific example: I moved my children from a (remote-only) public school to a (face-to-face) private school during the pandemic. Now they are back in the (face-to-face) public school, but their peers are far behind them scholastically and need to... catch up.
- spookthesunset 4y ago
  And the worst part is those folks are the ones who were least able to do what you did. Not many people can afford to put their kids through private school. All our government policies for the last two years did was fuck over the poor and enrich the wealthy. …Oh yeah, and create an entire sedimentary layer of discarded masks in our soil. I hope people realize those things are made entirely of unregulated dirt cheap plastic. Consider how much micro plastic you’d be inhaling if you had to wear it 8+ hours a day. But you aren’t allowed to say this out loud because a ton of people will call you all kinds of horrible things. Independent thought has not been allowed at all. Just shut up and listen to “the experts”.

mattmcknight 4y ago

To the standard for the level of learning that students of their age have typically achieved, or the average of how much learning students of their age had achieved pre-pandemic.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
Do you expect to "catch up" to where you would be without the pandemic? I'm not getting my parents back, my city isn't bringing public transit back, there is no world where the pandemic didn't happen. These are its effects, the kids are going to have them too.
- mattmcknight 4y ago
  I don't expect them to catch up in a time sense- to learn faster than normal. I do expect that it may take them until they are a bit older to reach the standard. Unfortunately, in many places there is no standard, and students are simply socially promoted, irrespective of any progress.