You can tell. It’s been obvious for years.
this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2025
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Since "no child left behind".
Teaching became all about the lowest common denominator and no matter what everybody moved to the next level.
Fail kids and you get less funding, because you "left one behind". All it did was make a highschool graduation pointless. And because it didn't mean anything, college became the new highschool, except it came with decades of debt.
This is horrible, but it's not a failure. This is exactly what the wealthy has wanted for generations.
It's why Linda McMahon is talking about dismantling the department of education. They want a bunch of idiots too dumb to realize they're being gifted.
A nation of slaves, irrespective of skin color.
Chattel slavery may have been abolished (in the US), but slavery is arguably still alive and well just in a much more complicated way, with a facade of "freedom".
Most of us generally aren't free. You're "free" to quit the rat race and go live in the forest...? No. If you stop and don't have money or someone else's support, you die.
I mean, that's the case everywhere in the world and always has been. If you go out and live in the woods you're banking on your ability to find food and shelter yourself or you die.
Not defending the current system, but like, saying you're not free until someone pays for your ability to live off-grid seems... silly?
Might as well say, "they say you're free, but if you decide to shoot yourself in the head you just die and there's nothing you can do about it. #WakeUpSheeple"
I just don't see what kind of system you're arguing for I guess.
Fair enough, my wording was too simplistic. But I stand by what I said, and try to explain it better.
Generally in the US, you have no choice but to own a car. It's significantly more difficult if you can't except for a few outliers like NYC (public transport everywhere but much higher cost of living?).
It's very difficult not to have a phone and internet, and be able to function in society, finding and keeping a job among other things.
It's extremely difficult to be homeless or live in your car, not to mention very uncomfortable.
Health insurance premiums whether you need healthcare or not.
Most jobs are tied to a 40hr or more workweek. Some of which don't pay enough necessitating second jobs. Overwork and exhaustion resulting in limited ability to gain skills to escape.
Energy industry: try living without oil, gas, electricity, etc. it's impossible.
- transportation
- housing
- energy related, electricity
- phone, internet
- healthcare
My argument, is that these are every day extreme necessities, and they account for the vast majority of our expenses. We don't have a choice to do without any single one of these (without severe hardship or external support). This is how we're pseudo-enslaved. All of these things represent billions upon trillions of dollars of profit that mostly go to the elite. All of these above, should be completely socialized/nationalized and have the profit motive removed (as necessities).
Free market capitalism is fine for things like PS5s, BMWs, yachts, mansions, breast implants, and gold plated iPhones. People can work to get luxuries. But having basic necessities met (simple smart phone, clean housing, basic transportation, etc.) should be part of a civilized society. It would mean no more billionaires.
This doesn't mean people should be able to sit around, do nothing, and get free stuff. Everyone should contribute. Some of the most important jobs like teaching kids, construction, nurses, etc. get shit pay, while billionaires play stock market games.
Honestly I think the concept is simple. There's money to do all this. It's just currently going to the wrong people.
For the first few hundred years of the western hemisphere, people literally went into the woods with some provisions and tools, and many of them survived and flourished. Sure plenty died but look at the result. The point is that now you can't do that because someone owns all the land. Even the millions of hectares laying unused - and I don't just mean parks and monuments. There are huge, enormous swaths of land laying unused and held by private owners, corporations, and trusts, because at one point hundreds of years ago, someone climbed a hill, looked at landmarks and decreed, "this land is mine" and went to the closest town to stake their claim. Even if there was land, you still need to buy said tools and provisions, and it'll cost you now.
This is exactly what the wealthy has wanted for generations.
It's not the wealthy contingent of the Republican coalition that has the major beef with federal involvement with education. It's the social conservative contingent, which wants religious education, stuff like school vouchers so that they can use public funds to give their kids a religious education.
That's gonna be hard for someone in a conservative state to do at the federal level, because a lot of people in other states aren't gonna go along with it. But if you have a conservative state and the decisions about fund allocation are done at the state level, then you may have a chance of running kids through a religious education on public funds.
EDIT: This long-term shift is what the people who are upset about federal involvement in education are going to be trying to stem:
(Ironically, this article is saying that in the past few years, the decline may, in fact, have been arrested.)
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In traditional US fashion, the policy did the exact opposite of the name.
And in so doing, dig a hole for the entire nation as home grown talent and innovation dies.
But maybe that’s the point. They prefer the indentured servant status of H1B visas.
No cap.
As planned.
This right here. They want us dumb and stupid so we are easier to control. It is Vital to teach your children about resist and what to stand up for.
My states largest district is an online charter school/massive embezzling scheme. Self paced online classes, with a teacher that may/may not ever meet the student. I work with a client who just graduated from there.
They had no idea how to solve a one step algebra equation until today. Today we struggled through such exercises as “2x+4=8.”
I briefly worked for that school and had a high school student who had no idea what Christianity was. Really, the concept of religion in general was entirely new to him.
It feels deliberate. The in person/actual schools also suffer - students passed from class to class without knowing how to read or work with fractions, because it’s not even really necessary to have a bachelors degree to teach anymore. I guess it’s the kind of population that will grow up to vote R, to fall for whatever stupid shit the rich use to stay in power.
My only real hope is that the pendulum will swing back eventually. I at least hope that I will be able to personally take advantage when the need is recognized again, that at some point someone who can teach a high schooler logarithms is considered a valuable member of society worth paying a living wage.
It is deliberate.
As the article pointed out, the top 10% of students aren't seeing major drops, it is mainly in the bottom marginal students who need more institutional help to get a better education.
If we're deporting all these immigrants, the country is going to need a new underclass.
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guess the previous gen is the real winner before braindead phones and AI fucked it all up
It's ok Trump doesn't believe in science anyway.
And it just gets worse. Pardon me while I rant.
Here in central Louisiana, a state historically in the bottom 3 in education, they've now opened an "ag only high school", obstensably to teach trade school and "farming" skills. When I was in high school ag classes were offered where they basically taught welding. At least that's all I ever heard anyone talk about, oh and maybe some husbandry, but not with actual livestock.
The gist of it though, is now all of those kids who were in the non-college ag or business track can now take just ag classes, and it's in a completely separate campus about 7 miles from my old high school. They don't commute from another high school and I can't imagine they have much more than a basic English and Math curriculum, if that. And a not insignificant portion of them will upon graduation go work for their families.
There's also a "magnet" school (pardon the excessive quotes, it's Louisiana and nothing is ever as it seems) in the county seat that seems to only be useful for draining off the non-sports smart kids... which might be good, except I suspect this is being facilitated by Louisianas take on the Republican school-voucher programs. Which if you didn't know is a way to drain funding from "under performing", i.e., poor, usually minority, schools.
So that can't be helping any national reading or math scores.
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I am seeing reading ability go up in middle school. There was a huge drop as the wave of elementry year covid wave of students go through. My current students were in 1st grade when they were sent home and are far better at reading and writing than the group I had 2 years ago who missed 3rd grade. The group that missed 5th grade had more behavior issues. I believe data will get better as the disturbance gets farther away.
BREAKING NEWS : AMERICANS STUPID AND IN RUINS
wow
The school system is becoming dumber and dumber. They are blaming kids for the failures of the system. They are making decisions to teach what’s on the tests instead of the material. School is suppose to give kids options. Not teach everyone the same slop
That's the point.
Once a stock price is involved, you're just another line item on a spreadsheet; something to be minimized and managed as much as possible for the sake of maximizing profit.
You're not a human being. You're part of a collective metric called labour. And as such, they only need you to be as smart as you need to be to use the tools required for your job. Any smarter than that and they run the risk of losing control.
Ultimately, it's why there has always been a conservartive demonization of the Liberal Arts (Ars Liberalis) and a large push to be the "party of the average joe" who likely goes to a trade school.
Let's be super real though. The multiple choice questions on those exams are fucking horse shit. Nobody gives a fuck about the content of those passages. I skimmed them and circled all c so I could leave.
And as a physics professor, the math is fucking horse shit. Cave dwellers like me will use things that are proximally related as viewed through a telescope. Everyone else learns it for these exams and nothing else
The only thing these exams test is the color of people who can afford after school test prep to learn how to best and most brainlessly eliminate the wrong answers and guess. (It's the white people)
I say dropping scores are progress. Let's bottom out and hopefully we take the shit basket we call education more seriously.
Everyone else learns it for these exams and nothing else
A big part of learning is to learn how to learn. Without learning just for exams it's hard to learn useful things later in life.
I’m not sure if I am misinterpreting or misunderstanding your answer, but this is my response to everything.
There’s a difference between learning for tests and learning critical literacy and inquiry-based learning. Unfortunately, schools are forced to teach to the test and many students don’t connect with it and/or they are multilingual or English language learners and are struggling because the tests go over things that are exclusive to American culture or students, in general, aren’t provided support.
Yes, even math suffers. Word problems are a problem. Schools have to pull in social studies to other disciplines and science is often neglected for reading and math. There are a ton of behavior issues as well that teachers deal with that take away from time.
There’s just SO much wrong with education. I’m in the middle of a master’s program for elementary education and I’m substitute teaching as well (career switch late in life). I’m learning a lot about this stuff when I didn’t really pay attention before.
Yes, all those issues are real. I was only talking about "learning for the sake of learning" criticism. I was force to memorize stupid poems in school that I soon forgot but even this lets you practice memory. Big part of education is just showing you how to decide which information is relevant, where to find it and how to memorize stuff. It doesn't work when everything else is broken but just forcing people to memorize things is not an issue in itself.
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Just heard a piece today about AI that tangentially mentioned historic lows for "student engagement" -- where kids are interested in learning rather than just sitting through their classes and waiting to leave. The main point was that using AI is not as simple as using calculators because students don't learn to think when AI does all the work. AI removes the necessary pain of learning to put things together before a deadline.
Oh, and they were talking about some plan to replace teachers with AI instructors where adults would still be present, but not in charge of the learning. I guess the adults will just be there to mete out discipline?
We've been on a nation wide teacher shortage for 40 years now. The poorest school districts are lucky to have 50% trained teachers. The rest are people off the street that could pass a background check. (no degree needed) Not saying those individuals aren't needed but being an effective teacher takes years of experience and schooling to teach effectively. We have more OF models in America than teachers.
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Lol explains all the anti vaxers and anti science maga idiots
No this is different.
This is sad, well beyond the educational aspects.
Imagine not being in a mental position to enjoy books. The Hobbit. Asimov’s Foundation or Robot books. The Expanse. D H Lawrence. Jane Austen. Vonnegut. Stephen King. Lewis Carroll.
Even worse, not having the capacity for the full nuance of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams.
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Republicans: this trend is comforting.
No, they're gonna weaponize this by saying "look at what DEI is doing to our schools!" or somehow funnel money to private schools and away from public schools.
I think I've been reading this headline for 30 years.
Yes. That's how we got Trump and today's Republican party.
A dumb America keeps the billionaires fed
skibidi generation is going to have it rough
One doesn't need an education to work in the fields.
If they could read this, they'd be devastated!
About the fourth or fifth report like this I’ve seen. Always picking a grade level that suffered lack of school during covid. 4th graders are a recent pick. Seniors are a good pick too, losing out on 7th/8th grade.
I wanna see a comparison with european countries. To get a reference.
How much of this can be attributed to conservative families finally getting the chance to enroll their kids into private religious schools via voucher programs?
Actually, how much can be attributed to voucher programs in general?
The lesser thinking and reasoning capabilites of the masses the more thriving times for the most powerful ones, you are basically eliminating crucial defensive capacities of the population allowing a critical advantage in perpetuate the power monopoly of the few...
Uneducated people are easier to manipulate.
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