What were we doing right, education-wise, in the 80s and 90s?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids are in DCPS. One of the good things about distance learning is that as a parent, I am getting to see exactly what is supposed to be covered in the class through the packets. I was really surprised to see very detailed lessons in social studies, science, and literacy. I am making my child do all of the packet work, checking his work and his spelling, really making him think through his writing the way the packet suggests he should do.

The point being, at least in DCPS, the curriculum is there. I think the issue is that teachers have to deal with so many behavioral problems in the class that they can't really teach. So a kid like mine, very bright but willing to get away with doing the bare minimum, is not being pushed to do the critical thinking he really should be doing. He is doing is now that I am teaching him one on one, but obviously that won't go on forever.

My thought is to teach him how to think through all of these different writing assignments now, with the hope that when he returns to class, he'll remember the approaches I have given him.

I think you make an excellent point. My kids in MCPS also get English assignments that have fewer, but more thoughtful questions than when I was in school. But, these worksheets are all graded for completion only and they receive very little feedback from the teacher (correcting spelling, grammar, etc.).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Lower % of children were poor

Yeah right

[Anonymous]

We didn't have video games, cell phones, Youtube, or cable TV. There were 2 channels and one required a hanger. There was nothing to do BUT read.

[Anonymous]

Schools were the most integrated in those years. Then, court-ordered desegregation came to a halt, and the achievement gap accelerated. When you have a range of ability in a group, how great your top performers are matters less than how low your bottom performers are. Once schools started resegregating, the bottom started falling behind, pulling overall performance measures down.

[Anonymous]

Here's one other thought: In the 60s and 70s, schools were very rigid with overly much memorization. Parents were very hands off. In the 2000s, the focus is too much on conceptual understanding, without the memorization and fundamentals needed. Parents are huge helicopters. The 80s and 90s were the time when the pendulum was swinging from one extreme to the other, so the kids had a much more balanced education. and a more balanced amount of parental involvement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, schools don't teach children grammar or how to spell anymore. Those things are FUNDAMENTAL and I don't know how they don't realize it. My husband teaches college students and says they are the worst writers he's ever encountered, and the laziest students (don't want to read their assignments). The young people that I work with are also very poor writers with poor research skills. It's an entire generation lost.

I agree with this + the point about standardized testing. Is it a result of No Child Left Behind? Now they’re all left behind...