Restoring rigor in high schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know where your kids go to school but my kids work much harder than I ever did. And they know much more than I ever did. There needs to be more chill and less stress

This! I just dont see this “dumbing down of education”. I know I am in a bubble, but in my bubble, kids aren’t walking out with all A’s if they are not academically gifted. Kids who take 12+ APs and have A’s only on their transcript are quite rare at our well rated public school. I mean nobody is taking physics c and finding it easy. I think you could look at rigor and grades from a high performing school and have a pretty good idea of where the student stands. And my kids in STEM classes are learning far far more than I did back in the day. One example - I took Calc AB in high school senior year. My kid finished calc BC junior year (like many of his peers). I ended up eventually getting a math PhD (from a very selective school). And I will tell you my kids know more coming out high school in math than I did.

That may be, but they can't read or write.

DP.

I’m a high school English teacher. I was looking at some old files recently and was shocked at what my 9th grade class was achieving in 2005. My 12th graders couldn’t complete the same assignment now.

I can’t place blame in just one basket. The curriculum has been watered down. Students are focused on their phones more than the world around them. Teacher workloads have skyrocketed, meaning less individualized attention and less feedback. Class size has increased. Student behavior is far worse, leading to more distractions in the classroom. Teacher retention is a problem, as is teacher absenteeism because of burnout. Online gradebooks mean grades are disputed as soon as they go in, and teachers must regularly defend grades to parents/students looking for more points. Ultimately, the emphasis is no longer on learning.

[Anonymous]

College professor here. I wholeheartedly agree with what the English teacher said about the emphasis not being on learning. I would rather have a class full of students who were comfortable taking risks, trying new ideas, and working on critical thinking instead of just memorizing answers. I’ve been at this for a quarter of a century and have seen a decline across the board in terms of study habits, work ethic, preparedness, integrity and intellectual curiosity. It’s going to take a generation or more to fix this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know where your kids go to school but my kids work much harder than I ever did. And they know much more than I ever did. There needs to be more chill and less stress

100% this. I was salutatorian and had all As when I graduated in the early 1990s. What my children are learning in school and the level of effort they have to put in runs circles around my education. And they are more stressed than I ever was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know where your kids go to school but my kids work much harder than I ever did. And they know much more than I ever did. There needs to be more chill and less stress

This! I just dont see this “dumbing down of education”. I know I am in a bubble, but in my bubble, kids aren’t walking out with all A’s if they are not academically gifted. Kids who take 12+ APs and have A’s only on their transcript are quite rare at our well rated public school. I mean nobody is taking physics c and finding it easy. I think you could look at rigor and grades from a high performing school and have a pretty good idea of where the student stands. And my kids in STEM classes are learning far far more than I did back in the day. One example - I took Calc AB in high school senior year. My kid finished calc BC junior year (like many of his peers). I ended up eventually getting a math PhD (from a very selective school). And I will tell you my kids know more coming out high school in math than I did.

That may be, but they can't read or write.

DP.

I’m a high school English teacher. I was looking at some old files recently and was shocked at what my 9th grade class was achieving in 2005. My 12th graders couldn’t complete the same assignment now.

I can’t place blame in just one basket. The curriculum has been watered down. Students are focused on their phones more than the world around them. Teacher workloads have skyrocketed, meaning less individualized attention and less feedback. Class size has increased. Student behavior is far worse, leading to more distractions in the classroom. Teacher retention is a problem, as is teacher absenteeism because of burnout. Online gradebooks mean grades are disputed as soon as they go in, and teachers must regularly defend grades to parents/students looking for more points. Ultimately, the emphasis is no longer on learning.

How do we fix this?

I fear that everyone under 18 is a dumbass these days. Like, these are legitimately stupid children. Not inherently, but because of the way they're being raised - in the home, in school, in society, in social media. You are not the only teacher to observe that these kids are truly lost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know where your kids go to school but my kids work much harder than I ever did. And they know much more than I ever did. There needs to be more chill and less stress

This! I just dont see this “dumbing down of education”. I know I am in a bubble, but in my bubble, kids aren’t walking out with all A’s if they are not academically gifted. Kids who take 12+ APs and have A’s only on their transcript are quite rare at our well rated public school. I mean nobody is taking physics c and finding it easy. I think you could look at rigor and grades from a high performing school and have a pretty good idea of where the student stands. And my kids in STEM classes are learning far far more than I did back in the day. One example - I took Calc AB in high school senior year. My kid finished calc BC junior year (like many of his peers). I ended up eventually getting a math PhD (from a very selective school). And I will tell you my kids know more coming out high school in math than I did.

That may be, but they can't read or write.

DP.

I’m a high school English teacher. I was looking at some old files recently and was shocked at what my 9th grade class was achieving in 2005. My 12th graders couldn’t complete the same assignment now.

I can’t place blame in just one basket. The curriculum has been watered down. Students are focused on their phones more than the world around them. Teacher workloads have skyrocketed, meaning less individualized attention and less feedback. Class size has increased. Student behavior is far worse, leading to more distractions in the classroom. Teacher retention is a problem, as is teacher absenteeism because of burnout. Online gradebooks mean grades are disputed as soon as they go in, and teachers must regularly defend grades to parents/students looking for more points. Ultimately, the emphasis is no longer on learning.

Getting rid of sped and head cases from gen ed is the first thing they need to do. Imagine a classroom where a teacher doesn't have to triage the dumb kids and ignore everyone else for 180 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know where your kids go to school but my kids work much harder than I ever did. And they know much more than I ever did. There needs to be more chill and less stress

This! I just dont see this “dumbing down of education”. I know I am in a bubble, but in my bubble, kids aren’t walking out with all A’s if they are not academically gifted. Kids who take 12+ APs and have A’s only on their transcript are quite rare at our well rated public school. I mean nobody is taking physics c and finding it easy. I think you could look at rigor and grades from a high performing school and have a pretty good idea of where the student stands. And my kids in STEM classes are learning far far more than I did back in the day. One example - I took Calc AB in high school senior year. My kid finished calc BC junior year (like many of his peers). I ended up eventually getting a math PhD (from a very selective school). And I will tell you my kids know more coming out high school in math than I did.

That may be, but they can't read or write.

They can read and write very well. I agree with the HS has gotten more advanced view. Mine have to cover more material and more advanced material then I did. In public HS. There is clearly a wide divergence is HS quality and rigor out here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In order to restore rigor, we need to return to pencil and paper. Laptops make it too easy to cheat, too distracting to focus and too hard to learn.

Too hard to learn? Too distracting??? I know a lot of parents have kids with adhd on this site but because some students can’t focus and are cheating are ridiculous reasons to eliminate laptops.

What the heck is so magical about a pencil and paper?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The “truely gifted”? Sure, whatever, OP.

gifted usually means 95th%ile or above on certain standardized tests. In some test-in high schools that would be 10-20% of the class, it is not a high bar.
regardless, it used to be that only 1-2 kids out of 500 had 4.0UW. It was easier to separate out true top students.

Who determined that? Standardized tests are not that difficult. You can bet there aren’t any really gifted students in the high schools. They graduated at 12 and moved on.

With the most difficult classes you know the students do very well academically. Some will be better than others so there will be a range of grades and there will be quite a few As because these kids are motivated.

The mainstream classes are for the less academically inclined and the slackers. There will be an even wider range of abilities and grades but there will students who have done A level work. You don’t need to be “gifted” to earn As in school.

[Anonymous]

The main reason for grade inflation is parents hectoring the administration and teachers to improve their individual kid's grades. This was happening so much that it became a MOCO wide policy to just cave in ahead of time and make everyone possible, an A student.

Its the parents, who caused it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In order to reform education system, standardized test may be reinstated, but it barely touch the root issue.

High schools should stop GPA inflation, should provide rigorous grading and rigorous courses. Stop giving 20% of the class 4.0 GPAs. It's just insane. Straight As should be reserved for the truely gifted.

ECs should be done out of true passion. No gaming the system. Colleges should not consider high school research in admissions so that only kids with true passion will pursue it, not fake it.

High school counselors should verify a student's ECs before they send out the app.

High schools should encourage kids taking courses of highest rigor available to their schools, be it stem or humanities. Colleges should put a lot more weight on course rigor in admissions.

Be honest.

Have integrity.

But your whole concept of “integrity” here is that it works against the goal of racial equity.

+1.

Just look at SAT scores. The wide disparity between Black SAT scores and those of whites proves the SAT test is still very racist, and should be abolished.

Why is it racist for only some ethnicities and not others? And does a mixed child with only one black parent do 50% better? The racist argument is so dumb. With that line of reasoning, they should only have black teachers.

No it’s not! It’s true.

Just Google it. The SAT is biased towards whites.

Is that why Asians outperform whites before and after every SAT dumbing down revision to allow more white kids to score higher by lowering the ceiling? White DEI.

2025 SAT Suite Annual Report

Page 4
average SAT scores
Asian 1229 (599 V, 630 M)
White 1077 (550 V, 527 M)

Not. Even. Close.
This is why holistic BS exists. Nobody cared about this EC garbage when whites were getting in with 15-20~30% admittance rates to elite schools and they made up 90% of each class.

It was dumbed down to help URMs; the dumbing down makes it more amenable to prep. The demographic that preps the most (Asian) benefits the most from the test being made easier.

This conspiracy theory would make a lot of sense if we didn’t know that all that’s occurred is the gap has widened between black and white/asian scores. If their intention is to dumb down, they’re really failing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In order to reform education system, standardized test may be reinstated, but it barely touch the root issue.

High schools should stop GPA inflation, should provide rigorous grading and rigorous courses. Stop giving 20% of the class 4.0 GPAs. It's just insane. Straight As should be reserved for the truely gifted.

ECs should be done out of true passion. No gaming the system. Colleges should not consider high school research in admissions so that only kids with true passion will pursue it, not fake it.

High school counselors should verify a student's ECs before they send out the app.

High schools should encourage kids taking courses of highest rigor available to their schools, be it stem or humanities. Colleges should put a lot more weight on course rigor in admissions.

Be honest.

Have integrity.

But your whole concept of “integrity” here is that it works against the goal of racial equity.

+1.

Just look at SAT scores. The wide disparity between Black SAT scores and those of whites proves the SAT test is still very racist, and should be abolished.

It's not the test. It's the wealth and resource gap.

Khan academy SAT prep is free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In order to reform education system, standardized test may be reinstated, but it barely touch the root issue.

High schools should stop GPA inflation, should provide rigorous grading and rigorous courses. Stop giving 20% of the class 4.0 GPAs. It's just insane. Straight As should be reserved for the truely gifted.

ECs should be done out of true passion. No gaming the system. Colleges should not consider high school research in admissions so that only kids with true passion will pursue it, not fake it.

High school counselors should verify a student's ECs before they send out the app.

High schools should encourage kids taking courses of highest rigor available to their schools, be it stem or humanities. Colleges should put a lot more weight on course rigor in admissions.

Be honest.

Have integrity.

But your whole concept of “integrity” here is that it works against the goal of racial equity.

+1.

Just look at SAT scores. The wide disparity between Black SAT scores and those of whites proves the SAT test is still very racist, and should be abolished.

It's not the test. It's the wealth and resource gap.

Khan academy SAT prep is free.

And yet there still is a massive association between test score and wealth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know where your kids go to school but my kids work much harder than I ever did. And they know much more than I ever did. There needs to be more chill and less stress

100% this. I was salutatorian and had all As when I graduated in the early 1990s. What my children are learning in school and the level of effort they have to put in runs circles around my education. And they are more stressed than I ever was.

Yes, this is a problem that started in the mid-80s and continues to this day. Graduated in the late 70s, had my kids late in life. Even with APs they didn’t do the level of work I had at a small school system. Calculus (MV) was the capstone math class for kids targeted for college and we did much more in our science classes. School offered robust vo-tech opportunities for students that wanted to pursue work in the trades.

Need to get back to instructional basics, demand and reward rigor and have multiple paths forward. Opportunity for all not equal outcomes for all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know where your kids go to school but my kids work much harder than I ever did. And they know much more than I ever did. There needs to be more chill and less stress

100% this. I was salutatorian and had all As when I graduated in the early 1990s. What my children are learning in school and the level of effort they have to put in runs circles around my education. And they are more stressed than I ever was.

Yes, this is a problem that started in the mid-80s and continues to this day. Graduated in the late 70s, had my kids late in life. Even with APs they didn’t do the level of work I had at a small school system. Calculus (MV) was the capstone math class for kids targeted for college and we did much more in our science classes. School offered robust vo-tech opportunities for students that wanted to pursue work in the trades.

Need to get back to instructional basics, demand and reward rigor and have multiple paths forward. Opportunity for all not equal outcomes for all.

You completely bulldozed their comment. Most kids today are working harder than when we were growing up.

[Anonymous]

To improve the education system you need more money. Nobody wants to pay higher taxes. Reform won’t happen.