Are public schools everywhere in the US getting bad post-pandemic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm glad you started this thread. My oldest just finished first grade and I'm a bit shell shocked and overwhelmed. DH and I just can't imagine 11 more years of this. Our teachers have been good, it's just the problems they deal with daily are wild. The classroom spread is huge; one kid was basically a genius and another just came to America a few months ago, didn't know letters and couldn't speak english. The discipline problems are big too.

I remember schools being a magical place filled with bright students who liked to learn, but I was in Gifted. Every school had a regular, honors and then gifted classes, plus ESL for two years until kids learned English. They now have only one class for everyone, so the rich kids have fled to private or sold their homes and moved.

Don’t worry your kid can go to a magnet school by middle school and then never see those esl/ average kids again! In elementary at least he will have some exposure to kids that are different ….kids with special needs, immigrant kids, etc. and you can easily supplement his education outside of school! It’s a win win

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Time to man up and educate your kids at home.

OP here. I suppose that is actually an option. I do have a job but quitting and doing homeschool or a virtual learning option might be cheaper and easier than moving!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm glad you started this thread. My oldest just finished first grade and I'm a bit shell shocked and overwhelmed. DH and I just can't imagine 11 more years of this. Our teachers have been good, it's just the problems they deal with daily are wild. The classroom spread is huge; one kid was basically a genius and another just came to America a few months ago, didn't know letters and couldn't speak english. The discipline problems are big too.

I remember schools being a magical place filled with bright students who liked to learn, but I was in Gifted. Every school had a regular, honors and then gifted classes, plus ESL for two years until kids learned English. They now have only one class for everyone, so the rich kids have fled to private or sold their homes and moved.

Don’t worry your kid can go to a magnet school by middle school and then never see those esl/ average kids again! In elementary at least he will have some exposure to kids that are different ….kids with special needs, immigrant kids, etc. and you can easily supplement his education outside of school! It’s a win win

Except I'm a minority and nearly every kid in gifted also was a minority, immigrant or first gen. Maybe 15% white. A lot of the kids in gifted were ADHD or autistic as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm glad you started this thread. My oldest just finished first grade and I'm a bit shell shocked and overwhelmed. DH and I just can't imagine 11 more years of this. Our teachers have been good, it's just the problems they deal with daily are wild. The classroom spread is huge; one kid was basically a genius and another just came to America a few months ago, didn't know letters and couldn't speak english. The discipline problems are big too.

I remember schools being a magical place filled with bright students who liked to learn, but I was in Gifted. Every school had a regular, honors and then gifted classes, plus ESL for two years until kids learned English. They now have only one class for everyone, so the rich kids have fled to private or sold their homes and moved.

Don’t worry your kid can go to a magnet school by middle school and then never see those esl/ average kids again! In elementary at least he will have some exposure to kids that are different ….kids with special needs, immigrant kids, etc. and you can easily supplement his education outside of school! It’s a win win

OP here. I see what you're saying but this is not a matter of parents not wanting their kids to be around kids who are different. I had that growing up and I want that for my children. This is a matter of getting a decent (not even a good, just decent) education in a safe environment. That's all I want and I am not seeing it happen in APS, and yes it is in part because of having only one class for everyone, even kids who have done things like cause lockdowns because of writing threats on the bathroom walls. You cannot expect a teacher to provide a decent education in a safe environment if she has to be a security enforcer, special ed teacher, English teacher, teacher for the remedial students, and teacher for the advanced students. It's ridiculous and not fair to anyone, perhaps especially the kids with special needs or who don't speak English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers leaving in droves is a national issue. Kids acting out post pandemic is a national issue. The lack of rigor and closing the achievement gap is a national issue.

yes, some place deal with it better than others. You need to move to a smaller and wealthier school district where the disparities are smaller.

Teachers are not 'leaving in droves'. Back this up by a statistic because it's the classic union line which has not been the case in the DMV.

[Anonymous]

Schools have been set up to teach to the middle. Keep kids moving ahead and customize plans for any academic or behavioral challenges to keep all kids in a mainstream classroom.

It didn't work for our children. My child needed a non-public with educators trained in special education. We fought long and hard to get him there which cost a ton of money for lawyers and advocates. The average salaried family or below just doesn't have that privilege. Their kids are pushed along with IEPs that make it appear that their child is learning while they become more and more of a behavioral issue. Because, kids who aren't doing well in school don't act well in the classroom.

You end up with parents who are so beaten down by being gaslit and rejected for support by the school system that they drop their kids off at the door and wash their hands of what happens there during the day because if it were their choice, their child would be somewhere more appropriate anyway.

Add the pandemic and lack of staff in general. Half the employees who worked from home for a year didn't want to return to the office and saw no point in it. Why do we believe it would be different for students who were able to learn at home with easy 'A's and an everybody passes mentality?

It will take years for this to be sorted out and even longer to improve it. We chose private schools during the pandemic when they remained open because there were no unions keeping them closed. The kids are just now getting back to what I would consider 'normal'. I can't imagine how long it will take for schools that were closed for 2 years.

[Anonymous]

I’m curious as well. My DD goes to a typical affluent “high-performing” suburban high school…but many kids sleep during class, cheat, bald face lie to teachers…i do feel sorry for our teachers…they have no tools to handle the misbehavior. I live in a big democratic state (and grateful for it, btw), but I do wonder if other states have this much misbehavior and rudeness among students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools have been set up to teach to the middle. Keep kids moving ahead and customize plans for any academic or behavioral challenges to keep all kids in a mainstream classroom.

It didn't work for our children. My child needed a non-public with educators trained in special education. We fought long and hard to get him there which cost a ton of money for lawyers and advocates. The average salaried family or below just doesn't have that privilege. Their kids are pushed along with IEPs that make it appear that their child is learning while they become more and more of a behavioral issue. Because, kids who aren't doing well in school don't act well in the classroom.

You end up with parents who are so beaten down by being gaslit and rejected for support by the school system that they drop their kids off at the door and wash their hands of what happens there during the day because if it were their choice, their child would be somewhere more appropriate anyway.

Add the pandemic and lack of staff in general. Half the employees who worked from home for a year didn't want to return to the office and saw no point in it. Why do we believe it would be different for students who were able to learn at home with easy 'A's and an everybody passes mentality?

It will take years for this to be sorted out and even longer to improve it. We chose private schools during the pandemic when they remained open because there were no unions keeping them closed. The kids are just now getting back to what I would consider 'normal'. I can't imagine how long it will take for schools that were closed for 2 years.

This is well said, and these sentiments apply beyond students in need of IEPs. If there's one thing I have learned from reading DCUM, it's how much extra privilege and support are required for children to truly thrive in public school today. People use tutors, hired nannies and drivers, counselors, and specialized consultants, plus outsource childcare and household functions to manage work and family life, and still have little left to be present for their kids. I've spent so much time beating myself up and feeling like a failure as a parent, but the pandemic finally made me realize how broken the system is and how it is failing kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers leaving in droves is a national issue. Kids acting out post pandemic is a national issue. The lack of rigor and closing the achievement gap is a national issue.

yes, some place deal with it better than others. You need to move to a smaller and wealthier school district where the disparities are smaller.

Teachers are not 'leaving in droves'. Back this up by a statistic because it's the classic union line which has not been the case in the DMV.

NP. Are you saying that teacher retention isn't a problem or just taking issue with the "in droves" language? Because if you don't think teacher retention is a problem, why not? Are all these articles and more just BSing their numbers?

https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/11/07/virginia-report-shows-more-teachers-leaving-the-workforce-than-entering-it/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/15/teacher-resignations-rise-dc-area/

https://www.doe.virginia.gov/teaching-learning-assessment/teaching-in-virginia/turning-the-tide

What have you seen that makes you think that there is no issue with teacher retention?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious as well. My DD goes to a typical affluent “high-performing” suburban high school…but many kids sleep during class, cheat, bald face lie to teachers…i do feel sorry for our teachers…they have no tools to handle the misbehavior. I live in a big democratic state (and grateful for it, btw), but I do wonder if other states have this much misbehavior and rudeness among students?

I wonder that too. I just did a google news search for "student behavior" and various red states and there are articles about a drastic rise in behavioral issues in those states as well, but obviously that's not a reliable measure.

[Anonymous]

A lot of families who could afford private pulled their kids out of public during the pandemic. (our neighborhood elementary in MCPS has lost several hundred kids since the pandemic.) That left a higher concentration of lower income kids with more learning and behavioral challenges in the public schools. So that substantially changed the school environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious as well. My DD goes to a typical affluent “high-performing” suburban high school…but many kids sleep during class, cheat, bald face lie to teachers…i do feel sorry for our teachers…they have no tools to handle the misbehavior. I live in a big democratic state (and grateful for it, btw), but I do wonder if other states have this much misbehavior and rudeness among students?

Yes. It's all over every single teacher forum, message board, and sub-Reddit. I think the pandemic had a lot to do with it but teachers were sounding alarms before that. Pressure to reduce discipline referrals, the widespread use of smart phones, and the move away from separate classrooms and schools for kids who chronically misbehave were already happening before Covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious as well. My DD goes to a typical affluent “high-performing” suburban high school…but many kids sleep during class, cheat, bald face lie to teachers…i do feel sorry for our teachers…they have no tools to handle the misbehavior. I live in a big democratic state (and grateful for it, btw), but I do wonder if other states have this much misbehavior and rudeness among students?

Yes. It's all over every single teacher forum, message board, and sub-Reddit. I think the pandemic had a lot to do with it but teachers were sounding alarms before that. Pressure to reduce discipline referrals, the widespread use of smart phones, and the move away from separate classrooms and schools for kids who chronically misbehave were already happening before Covid.

This.

The pandemic just accelerated trends that were already happening. As a society, we are losing the ability to connect with other people due to smartphones, changing media consumption (no common references across everyone), polarization, isolation, etc. Then for the kids, they had disruption to socialization for a couple years, combined with permissive/non-existent parenting. Send them back to school and a significant number are 1-2 years less mature than peers, phone addicted, unable to work with peers, and generally uninterested in the idea of learning anything if it takes any effort on their part. Public education wasn’t designed for the social challenges we have right now with kids. So now teachers are being asked to solve problems that they weren’t trained for and were never part of the job, which adds stress and is part of the resignation trend. Fewer teachers = more stress = more resignations.

There may be schools or regions less affected than others, but all schools are affected to some extent. It’s going to take years before society as a whole realizes that something needs to drastically change, but by then I think the system will have collapsed.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my sister and my BIL are both teachers in the suburbs of another city in a sort of purple state/purple area. It’s been bad for awhile and trending worse. She teaches HS in a fairly affluent area but nothing like the rich areas here and he teaches MS in a more working class suburb. It comes down to the schools really have their hands tied in terms of discipline and grades. It’s extremely difficult to fail a kid in a class even if they never turn in any assignments and fail all their tests. Kids get pushed from one grade to the next without learning the material. They can’t take away phones, and even if they did the kids just look at stuff on the Chromebooks anyway. There’s a lot of bullying that goes on with social media. They can still give detentions but anything more than that is very difficult if not impossible. There are very few alternative placements for kids who are really struggling, and then if the parents are supportive the school wants to fight because it costs $$$, and half the time the parents aren’t supportive anyway. When I was a kid you could get expelled for particularly serious violations but they can’t do that anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm in NOVA and the school situation is depressing. The biggest problem I see is that teachers can't control the behavioral problems of kids (not blaming teachers btw) so not a lot of learning is happening and the whole school environment is just really stressful for kids. I was honestly thinking about moving but I hear complaints about this from people in many different places. Are there any places in the US where this isn't the trend?

Ban cell phones in school (not just in class) and behavior will improve considerably.