5 ms·

I completely reject these policy statements based on the data laid out. Standardized education is failing and doesn't fit the modern world. We need radically i

by casey2 9mo ago

I completely reject these policy statements based on the data laid out. Standardized education is failing and doesn't fit the modern world. We need radically individualized education. By 2050 no student in the school system should speak the same language. There is no "correct" way to learn. We need, now more than ever, diversity of thought.

alex43578 9mo ago
The workforce and country in your proposed system will be pretty dysfunctional if “nobody speaks the same language”. The reality is there’s no single way to learn, but there’s plenty of good-enough ways.
- daymanstep 9mo ago
  Pretty sure he was being ironic. There's no way someone would seriously suggest that every student should speak a completely different language.
  - alex43578 9mo ago
    Even if that’s a metaphor for hyper-personalized education, my point still stands. Society and the labor market benefits from everyone meeting a baseline level of education across certain areas. Ideally, everyone that graduates high school can read and write English at a HS level, perform basic algebra, understand percentages and interest rates, etc. For the purposes of school, there’s no need for “diversity of thought” in the school system - we aren’t even delivering on the basics these days.
helterskelter 9mo ago
I agree with you in principle to an extent, but many would argue that standardized cookie-cutter education produced what gains we had and education policies which tried to accommodate diversity of thought are responsible for the declines due to lack of rigor and any real standards. "Reading by vibes" [1] directly led to declines in literacy, and there are attempts in math to accommodate different styles of thinking which may be undermining rigor there as well. I suspect teachers are caught in a catch-22 of only being able to teach what's on the curriculum and nothing else, so they have no room for flexibility to engage students, while also being under pressure to produce high grades; but when the curriculum is garbage and the students aren't interested...grading standards tend to be what's compromised. The schools and parents are happy their kid has A's, teachers get to keep their jobs, and students may graduate highschool without having ever read a book cover to cover. [2] 1: https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-rise-and-fall-of-vibes-based-literacy https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-rise-... 2: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-eli...
anarticle 9mo ago
Isn't it the opposite? I don't know if you've seen curriculums recently but they are totally about individualized education. Between IEPs and 504s, accommodations are made for nearly anything now. Students are put all into one large class, no more AP, Advanced, Standard because this caused hurt feelings for kids that could not make the advanced class. Students are pooled and the rationale is the more advanced students will help the less advanced students (!). What this means in the classroom is teachers can not go as fast, advanced students get bored, every person has their own INDIVIDUALIZED test (3 instead of 4 questions, no write in questions, landscape instead of portrait, etc). This drives teachers absolutely insane and they cannot teach at any efficient level. Grading is so bad, teachers structure their course to have less exams because grading ten different quizzes and exams cannot be optimized. A lot of this is parents disbelief that their little Johnny is not the next einstein so they torment teachers via policy hacks to give their children advantages. Admin doesn't care because they'll just fire "low performers" lol. There is the above problem, and then there are the revisionist math ideas that common core and friends produce better outcomes instead of "rote" math. Well, math has been taught via rote for decades, possibly centuries, and people under that scheme learned math in a way that they became draughtsman and scientists, so maybe there is some proof in the pudding. My friends who did common core are barely math literate, can't calculate a tip even if you give them the hack: move decimal left by one place and times by two. Before you come at me for being ableist, remember that this means even with these accommodations people are doing worse. Also, no phonics?! Wtf? People <25 in normal jobs (retail) cannot do simple fractions of 1/2 and 1/4. Something is wrong. I'm not saying these guys are right but don't blame standardized education which was systematized in the 70s-90s just yet. I would posit that hostile admins/policy, dumb revisionist ideas that have no basis in history, and NO NATIONAL CURRICULUM. Why we do not have a national curriculum seems crazy to me, but there must be some reason. Surely we can agree on that at least. I agree with you that right now is the best time for individual augmentation for education, and we should wield that power for good. But I do think it can be in service of a system. EDIT: just realized this is a blog post length, sorry. It is one of my pet issues, n=3, mom works with people at deli that cannot do fractions (they get fired, up to 20 so far), teacher friend 15y in history has to make custom exams, and publisher friend who sees young writers (<25, n=??) can't sound out words.
- 9mo ago
Edman274 9mo ago
If old teaching styles / standardized testing / standardized schooling represent this moribund, stagnant thing that haven't changed at all and haven't kept pace over the past century, why wouldn't you expect measured learning performance to hold steady as well instead of declining? The students basically have the same brains that they've always had. There isn't as much lead in the water as there used to be, in the atmosphere as there used to be, and parents take prenatal vitamins. They're starting from the same raw stuff that they've always been starting from, if not better. So why would they be getting worse? Children one generation ago didn't need individualized curricula and testing to achieve the performance that they got. Why does the current generation need that, and by what mechanism would that improve their performance?
- phil21 9mo ago
  The way of teaching and testing has changed so much in just the 25 years since I’ve been in school it’s almost not recognizable for some subjects. At least for the public schools my friends and family’s kids attend. The standards have also plummeted overall, along with expectations. This also seems to translate into parenting and home life as well for many. A neglectful parent likely is far more impactful on performance these days since the kid isn’t out roaming the neighborhood getting into trouble and learning how to get out of it - they are sitting in front of a screen of some sort simply consuming. It certainly is not an unbiased opinion but I am totally unsurprised at the reduction in academic performance. The writing has been on the wall for an extremely long time. You can only reduce standards and game the numbers for so long before the real world impact is impossible to hide.
lm28469 9mo ago
> By 2050 no student in the school system should speak the same language. That's a hard cap a ~7000 students world wide unless we start inventing new languages. I can't tell if this comment is sarcasm
- daymanstep 9mo ago
  It is obviously sarcasm.
bitwize 9mo ago
The Mississippi Miracle seems to have happened by a reversion to proven standards and actually holding kids to them before letting them pass to the next grade. And before you raise the standard objection, racial minorities showed even greater improvement than whute kids.
- bsder 9mo ago
  I'll believe it when I see them export it. We have seen the "YYY Miracle" before. Invariably it winds up that someone is cooking the books (getting low performing kids to quit school, giving out the tests, etc.) and a bunch of people wind up going to jail.
  - bitwize 9mo ago
    Export it how far? Arkansas, Florida, and Louisiana are also seeing improvements by imitating Mississippi's approach. Turns out shitcanning social promotion, vibes-based learning, and all the experimental stuff in favor of pedagogical approaches that worked for decades, and providing support for teachers in implementing these approaches, actually kinda helps.
AuthAuth 9mo ago
When you make these different education type groups people wont fall into where they learn best they will fall into the style they enjoy most.

by casey2 9mo ago

alex43578 9mo ago

The workforce and country in your proposed system will be pretty dysfunctional if “nobody speaks the same language”. The reality is there’s no single way to learn, but there’s plenty of good-enough ways.

daymanstep 9mo ago
Pretty sure he was being ironic. There's no way someone would seriously suggest that every student should speak a completely different language.
- alex43578 9mo ago
  Even if that’s a metaphor for hyper-personalized education, my point still stands. Society and the labor market benefits from everyone meeting a baseline level of education across certain areas. Ideally, everyone that graduates high school can read and write English at a HS level, perform basic algebra, understand percentages and interest rates, etc. For the purposes of school, there’s no need for “diversity of thought” in the school system - we aren’t even delivering on the basics these days.

helterskelter 9mo ago

I agree with you in principle to an extent, but many would argue that standardized cookie-cutter education produced what gains we had and education policies which tried to accommodate diversity of thought are responsible for the declines due to lack of rigor and any real standards. "Reading by vibes" [1] directly led to declines in literacy, and there are attempts in math to accommodate different styles of thinking which may be undermining rigor there as well. I suspect teachers are caught in a catch-22 of only being able to teach what's on the curriculum and nothing else, so they have no room for flexibility to engage students, while also being under pressure to produce high grades; but when the curriculum is garbage and the students aren't interested...grading standards tend to be what's compromised. The schools and parents are happy their kid has A's, teachers get to keep their jobs, and students may graduate highschool without having ever read a book cover to cover. [2] 1: https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-rise-and-fall-of-vibes-based-literacy https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/the-rise-... 2: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-eli...

anarticle 9mo ago

Isn't it the opposite? I don't know if you've seen curriculums recently but they are totally about individualized education. Between IEPs and 504s, accommodations are made for nearly anything now. Students are put all into one large class, no more AP, Advanced, Standard because this caused hurt feelings for kids that could not make the advanced class. Students are pooled and the rationale is the more advanced students will help the less advanced students (!). What this means in the classroom is teachers can not go as fast, advanced students get bored, every person has their own INDIVIDUALIZED test (3 instead of 4 questions, no write in questions, landscape instead of portrait, etc). This drives teachers absolutely insane and they cannot teach at any efficient level. Grading is so bad, teachers structure their course to have less exams because grading ten different quizzes and exams cannot be optimized. A lot of this is parents disbelief that their little Johnny is not the next einstein so they torment teachers via policy hacks to give their children advantages. Admin doesn't care because they'll just fire "low performers" lol. There is the above problem, and then there are the revisionist math ideas that common core and friends produce better outcomes instead of "rote" math. Well, math has been taught via rote for decades, possibly centuries, and people under that scheme learned math in a way that they became draughtsman and scientists, so maybe there is some proof in the pudding. My friends who did common core are barely math literate, can't calculate a tip even if you give them the hack: move decimal left by one place and times by two. Before you come at me for being ableist, remember that this means even with these accommodations people are doing worse. Also, no phonics?! Wtf? People <25 in normal jobs (retail) cannot do simple fractions of 1/2 and 1/4. Something is wrong. I'm not saying these guys are right but don't blame standardized education which was systematized in the 70s-90s just yet. I would posit that hostile admins/policy, dumb revisionist ideas that have no basis in history, and NO NATIONAL CURRICULUM. Why we do not have a national curriculum seems crazy to me, but there must be some reason. Surely we can agree on that at least. I agree with you that right now is the best time for individual augmentation for education, and we should wield that power for good. But I do think it can be in service of a system. EDIT: just realized this is a blog post length, sorry. It is one of my pet issues, n=3, mom works with people at deli that cannot do fractions (they get fired, up to 20 so far), teacher friend 15y in history has to make custom exams, and publisher friend who sees young writers (<25, n=??) can't sound out words.

9mo ago

Edman274 9mo ago

If old teaching styles / standardized testing / standardized schooling represent this moribund, stagnant thing that haven't changed at all and haven't kept pace over the past century, why wouldn't you expect measured learning performance to hold steady as well instead of declining? The students basically have the same brains that they've always had. There isn't as much lead in the water as there used to be, in the atmosphere as there used to be, and parents take prenatal vitamins. They're starting from the same raw stuff that they've always been starting from, if not better. So why would they be getting worse? Children one generation ago didn't need individualized curricula and testing to achieve the performance that they got. Why does the current generation need that, and by what mechanism would that improve their performance?

phil21 9mo ago
The way of teaching and testing has changed so much in just the 25 years since I’ve been in school it’s almost not recognizable for some subjects. At least for the public schools my friends and family’s kids attend. The standards have also plummeted overall, along with expectations. This also seems to translate into parenting and home life as well for many. A neglectful parent likely is far more impactful on performance these days since the kid isn’t out roaming the neighborhood getting into trouble and learning how to get out of it - they are sitting in front of a screen of some sort simply consuming. It certainly is not an unbiased opinion but I am totally unsurprised at the reduction in academic performance. The writing has been on the wall for an extremely long time. You can only reduce standards and game the numbers for so long before the real world impact is impossible to hide.

lm28469 9mo ago

> By 2050 no student in the school system should speak the same language. That's a hard cap a ~7000 students world wide unless we start inventing new languages. I can't tell if this comment is sarcasm

daymanstep 9mo ago
It is obviously sarcasm.

bitwize 9mo ago

The Mississippi Miracle seems to have happened by a reversion to proven standards and actually holding kids to them before letting them pass to the next grade. And before you raise the standard objection, racial minorities showed even greater improvement than whute kids.

bsder 9mo ago
I'll believe it when I see them export it. We have seen the "YYY Miracle" before. Invariably it winds up that someone is cooking the books (getting low performing kids to quit school, giving out the tests, etc.) and a bunch of people wind up going to jail.
- bitwize 9mo ago
  Export it how far? Arkansas, Florida, and Louisiana are also seeing improvements by imitating Mississippi's approach. Turns out shitcanning social promotion, vibes-based learning, and all the experimental stuff in favor of pedagogical approaches that worked for decades, and providing support for teachers in implementing these approaches, actually kinda helps.

AuthAuth 9mo ago

When you make these different education type groups people wont fall into where they learn best they will fall into the style they enjoy most.