40% of 4th graders cannot read in 2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 4th and all of their classmates can read. I chaperone their field trips and have seen them all read signs, activity sheets, etc.

That’s a nice anecdote about your privileged little circle.

This forum’s acronym begins with “D.C.,” as in District of Columbia. Were you aware that as recently as 2009, among D.C. residents:

- 36% of adults were functionally illiterate?

Gentrification has “cured” that problem somewhat; or at least relocated the problem outside D.C.’s boundaries.

If the reality of our failing public educational system in the USA is too much for you to handle, maybe you should retreat to your privileged little bubble instead of spouting statistically meaningless (and contrary) anecdotes on DCUM?

DC is not unique. There are hundreds of cities, small and large, around the country that have the poorest of the poor as their majority. Kids living in shitty shacks down South or broken down concrete buildings in the North. Kids with drug addicted mothers and absentee fathers. And the kids who have the best parents who work hard are still surrounded by gangs and violence.

It’s not the schools. It’s not the teachers. It the bleak unsafe neighborhoods they live in where walking to school can be dangerous.

[Anonymous]

Let’s make sure ALL public school kids are stupid. Another victory for the Democrats & their passion for equity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 4th and all of their classmates can read. I chaperone their field trips and have seen them all read signs, activity sheets, etc.

That’s a nice anecdote about your privileged little circle.

This forum’s acronym begins with “D.C.,” as in District of Columbia. Were you aware that as recently as 2009, among D.C. residents:

- 36% of adults were functionally illiterate?

Gentrification has “cured” that problem somewhat; or at least relocated the problem outside D.C.’s boundaries.

If the reality of our failing public educational system in the USA is too much for you to handle, maybe you should retreat to your privileged little bubble instead of spouting statistically meaningless (and contrary) anecdotes on DCUM?

DC is not unique. There are hundreds of cities, small and large, around the country that have the poorest of the poor as their majority. Kids living in shitty shacks down South or broken down concrete buildings in the North. Kids with drug addicted mothers and absentee fathers. And the kids who have the best parents who work hard are still surrounded by gangs and violence.

It’s not the schools. It’s not the teachers. It the bleak unsafe neighborhoods they live in where walking to school can be dangerous.

Disagree. It is the schools and the teachers. Even kids from stable homes need their parents to supplement at home in order to rise above grade level expectations. Public school alone isn’t enough to learn the basic proficiency anymore. It used to be…but not anymore

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 4th and all of their classmates can read. I chaperone their field trips and have seen them all read signs, activity sheets, etc.

That’s a nice anecdote about your privileged little circle.

This forum’s acronym begins with “D.C.,” as in District of Columbia. Were you aware that as recently as 2009, among D.C. residents:

- 36% of adults were functionally illiterate?

Gentrification has “cured” that problem somewhat; or at least relocated the problem outside D.C.’s boundaries.

If the reality of our failing public educational system in the USA is too much for you to handle, maybe you should retreat to your privileged little bubble instead of spouting statistically meaningless (and contrary) anecdotes on DCUM?

DC is not unique. There are hundreds of cities, small and large, around the country that have the poorest of the poor as their majority. Kids living in shitty shacks down South or broken down concrete buildings in the North. Kids with drug addicted mothers and absentee fathers. And the kids who have the best parents who work hard are still surrounded by gangs and violence.

It’s not the schools. It’s not the teachers. It the bleak unsafe neighborhoods they live in where walking to school can be dangerous.

Disagree. It is the schools and the teachers. Even kids from stable homes need their parents to supplement at home in order to rise above grade level expectations. Public school alone isn’t enough to learn the basic proficiency anymore. It used to be…but not anymore

I guess you’d be surprised at the number of states that value education and put the money into it. There are many many school systems doing their jobs without students needing supplemental help. You can’t say the teachers who are in schools with the majority of kids living in projects have it easy or it’s their fault that so many kids fail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 4th and all of their classmates can read. I chaperone their field trips and have seen them all read signs, activity sheets, etc.

That’s a nice anecdote about your privileged little circle.

This forum’s acronym begins with “D.C.,” as in District of Columbia. Were you aware that as recently as 2009, among D.C. residents:

- 36% of adults were functionally illiterate?

Gentrification has “cured” that problem somewhat; or at least relocated the problem outside D.C.’s boundaries.

If the reality of our failing public educational system in the USA is too much for you to handle, maybe you should retreat to your privileged little bubble instead of spouting statistically meaningless (and contrary) anecdotes on DCUM?

DC is not unique. There are hundreds of cities, small and large, around the country that have the poorest of the poor as their majority. Kids living in shitty shacks down South or broken down concrete buildings in the North. Kids with drug addicted mothers and absentee fathers. And the kids who have the best parents who work hard are still surrounded by gangs and violence.

It’s not the schools. It’s not the teachers. It the bleak unsafe neighborhoods they live in where walking to school can be dangerous.

Disagree. It is the schools and the teachers. Even kids from stable homes need their parents to supplement at home in order to rise above grade level expectations. Public school alone isn’t enough to learn the basic proficiency anymore. It used to be…but not anymore

Not true. My kid just graduated from DCPS. We didn't supplement anything. Never even read a book to him. He did well on all his Parcc tests. College is a breeze. Hid father skipped a grade or two in 80s and I went to magnet school.
DC was born ahead of many kids. Reading to him would have been an overkill.
It's not hard to be above grade level in public school in US.

[Anonymous]

Look at the thread where the OP says her 4th grade child is getting like 30 hours of unsupervised screen time at home every week and then come back here and say the problem is that schools and teachers aren't doing their job.

The decline in US test scores can all be traced back to the explosion of smart phones and tablet computers, and parents giving their kids access to this technology.

Shorter attention spans, poor emotional regulation due to being placated by screens instead of forced to manage their own boredom, parents are also on screens all the time and have the same issues. And there are STILL people who don't get how this is impacting kids, who are kindergarteners iPads and letting 2nd graders have unlimited access to TikTok.

There are things public schools could do to improve, obviously. I have lots of notes. But when we're looking at these broad trends, we need to be looking bigger. The kids are not alright, and it's starting at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to get off their phones and get their kids to the libraries and read to their kids. Like, every week. Takes out books and bring them home, and read every single night. Boom, kids will start reading.

And schools need to reduce the amount of time on screens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 4th and all of their classmates can read. I chaperone their field trips and have seen them all read signs, activity sheets, etc.

So therefore, the population data must be wrong? Hello?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think we can blame parents. It’s not fair to expect parents to spend an hour a day tutoring what should be taught in the 7 hours they’re in school daily.

I blame edtech. Get rid of the laptops and force reading from paper books and textbooks. It’s not the same to read on a screen.

Parents who rely totally on the school to teach everything are definitely to blame. But yes, there should be a return to books and textbooks.

I’m sorry but this is a horrible attitude. The schools should be responsible for teaching! That’s not a controversial opinion! It worked well for many decades. Kids learned to read, write, do math, they learned facts, and did science experiments, etc. We need only look at the education statistics in past censuses here: https://educationdata.org/education-attainment-statistics

1950 census: children in school were silent generation. Only 34% of adults had a HS diploma.
1960 census: children in school were baby boomers. 41% of adults had a HS diploma.
1970 census: children in school were the youngest baby boomers and oldest Gen X. 55% of adults had a HS diploma. (Baby boomers were driving a lot of the increase in HS graduation rates and they generally did not have school age children by 1970).
1980 census: children in school were Gen X. 68% of adults had a HS diploma.

The point is we don’t get to relatively high levels of educational attainment in the US until 1980! Do you really think non-HS graduate mom and dad were extensively working with their kids in 1950 to teach them to read? No, because that was the school’s job. The best you were going to get was parents reading simple picture books to their young kids and not every household even had that.

This is to say nothing of the pre-1950s years in educational attainment. Kids in public school often had illiterate parents or parents who could read at a basic level, or immigrant parents still learning English. But they still learned to read in school because the schools actually taught it.

All of those parents in previous generations who did not get advanced education darn well expected their kids to sit down and do homework, to bring home decent grades, to behave well in class and to use the library, even if they themselves did not provide tutoring to their kids.

Maybe immigrant parents. But the American middle class parents of to 70s-90s were not involved much. I was maybe read picture books as a preschooler. But no one was checking on my homework, helping me study for tests, or teaching me anything at all academic at home, ever. I came home to an empty house, let myself in, prepped dinner on occasion, and watched TV until parents got home. That was pretty much what everyone I knew did as well. We never went to the public library either. The only books I had were the ones I checked out from our school library- which was frequently, I feel like we went twice per week, whole class, and could ask to go in between with a pass. Most public schools don’t even have functional libraries where kids can check out books at least weekly. There was no Kumon and RSM centers. We all went on to college, some of us very good colleges.

First, the posts above were not talking about the 70s-90s, although if you were a latchkey kid, we were the first to suffer what you described. Neglectful parents. School libraries were libraries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think we can blame parents. It’s not fair to expect parents to spend an hour a day tutoring what should be taught in the 7 hours they’re in school daily.

I blame edtech. Get rid of the laptops and force reading from paper books and textbooks. It’s not the same to read on a screen.

Parents who rely totally on the school to teach everything are definitely to blame. But yes, there should be a return to books and textbooks.

I’m sorry but this is a horrible attitude. The schools should be responsible for teaching! That’s not a controversial opinion! It worked well for many decades. Kids learned to read, write, do math, they learned facts, and did science experiments, etc. We need only look at the education statistics in past censuses here: https://educationdata.org/education-attainment-statistics

1950 census: children in school were silent generation. Only 34% of adults had a HS diploma.
1960 census: children in school were baby boomers. 41% of adults had a HS diploma.
1970 census: children in school were the youngest baby boomers and oldest Gen X. 55% of adults had a HS diploma. (Baby boomers were driving a lot of the increase in HS graduation rates and they generally did not have school age children by 1970).
1980 census: children in school were Gen X. 68% of adults had a HS diploma.

The point is we don’t get to relatively high levels of educational attainment in the US until 1980! Do you really think non-HS graduate mom and dad were extensively working with their kids in 1950 to teach them to read? No, because that was the school’s job. The best you were going to get was parents reading simple picture books to their young kids and not every household even had that.

This is to say nothing of the pre-1950s years in educational attainment. Kids in public school often had illiterate parents or parents who could read at a basic level, or immigrant parents still learning English. But they still learned to read in school because the schools actually taught it.

Such a massive chunk of words to excuse yourself from being a garbage parent. Should’ve used precaution instead of impregnation. What a failure.

DP. Nope. Kids are at school 7 hrs every day. Even if the parents do zero supplementing, that is more than ample time to make majority of kids meet grade level proficiency for math and reading- and that is far from happening.

Come in and work with the kids I work with. Kids who don't speak English (and probably don't speak Spanish anywhere near their age), kids with low IQs, kids who miss 30, 40, 50+ days of school every year, kids who have never seen a book until they start school (they often hold them upside down at first), kids who are screen addicts because that's all they do in the cheap daycare they go to for years and years. Kids whose teeth are rotting out of their mouths, kids whose parents see them for an hour or two a day, kids who move around a lot because they are evicted, kids whose parents are deported and they are sent to live with relatives they might not even know. I could go on.

If you really worked with kids you would need to find a new job. You claimed that you teach just so you could go on a hate filled maga spiel. Stay away from kids.

First MAGA doesn't equal hate, but there is nothing in this teacher's post that is either MAGA or hateful. She is describing her students. Why do you read the Education forum if you are so rigid about understanding issues in education?