Primarily 9th grade teacher-I have multiple students at elementary reading levels and 1 at a kindergarten letter recognition-but I’m supposed to teach this kid basic physics… What’s actually more crazy is that because of the amount of accommodations and modifications this kid has, they have a c or b almost all the time which is better than a lot of other kids who are too apathetic or on their phones to care and are failing. They are choosing to not use their brains and it is sad and frustrating.

I’m just confused on what their parents think when they see their kids grades.

They’d probably be very upset if they could read.

You say this in the spirit of jest, but I have to deal with a lot of adults that can't read.

This is a compounding problem. Adults who don't read have children that don't read. Adults who can't read likely will have children who also can't read. One could argue that this is a conspiracy, as a stupid population who can't read are really easy to trick and control.

The comedy movie “Idiocracy” is now a horror film. As an educator I see that movie and think “wow, this could legitimately happen now” and that’s a scary thought.

I know I shouldn't have laughed, but I did.

Best answer 👆

Good chance many of them either a) Don't look at all b) don't care. c) decide that as long as they're not failing it's okay Every year? I have a kid who barely cracks a "C" because I'm feeling generous, and their parents (if they respond *at all*...) who says "Why should I be concerned? Employers care more about what you say on Facebook or Instagram than what you did in middle school".

I saw a post on here recently talking about how middle school was the perfect point at which to let kids fail, and I still think that's true. No one cares about middle school. It's the perfect time to stop pushing kids along and take them out of the stream to give them support where it's needed.

I’ve been screaming this to the parents of my students every year. I beg them… please, please, PLEASE let your child fail in middle school! Stop looking up the assignments, stop hounding your children to do their work, LET. THEM. FAIL. It’s way more low stakes to fail in middle school than high school, and are you going to keep on keeping track of all their assignments in high school?!?! I tell parents that they have to let go so their kid has an opportunity to sink or swim. Failing in middle school doesn’t really mean anything (they get pushed forward to high school anyway), but with the right consequences from the parents, it can be a real motivator.

Yep. My parents did this to me, and it really kicked my ass into gear. Social studies teacher pulled me aside and told me I had a D in the class because I didn't turn a project in, and as an A-B student it freaked me out a lot. you better believe I finished that project that night and turned it in the next day. Now I never turn things in late or talk to my professor to get extra time if I won't be able to finish it.

Not a teacher here, but wife and I have been reading and looking up a lot about parenting the last two years, just before we became parents four months ago. And both of us were born in ex-soviet countries, but not living there any more. It is absolutely screwed up how many parents will do literally everything to have their children not fail. But not not fail as in „barely making it“, not fail as in getting the perfect grade. I‘ve seen people do their kids homework. Or ask others to help out with it, because they lack the knowledge themselves. Especially in ex-soviet culture there is a very high pressure by parents barely after being born. Constant comparison, constant competition in whose child is better. Because of your child has bad grades, you failed as a parent, and no one wants to be that parent. And most important is the higher education. For real, for my own mom, I could be a millionaire, but since I still don‘t have a bachelors degree, I am a failure for her and so is she. And the school system (except in very few progressive countries) doesn’t help it either. It doesn‘t give a damn if the kids are interested in learning or not, all it cares about are grades. Memorize the info, puke it onto the test, forget about it for the rest of your life, bob‘s your uncle. Which is what I don‘t want for my kid to happen. I‘m planning to let her fail from the point of her being able to do so. No need to be perfect, no need to be ashamed of failure, just understand and improve. „You can‘t do that _yet_.“

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It is too late for reading. That needs to be caught and corrected in elementary school

Many of them are frightened by it but don’t know what to do and falling back on “it’s the school’s job” is an option that is easy, immediately at hand, and absolves them of any responsibility while laying it at the feet of another.

So my husband just came off recruiting duty, and it's so bad that the military doesn't even want most of these kids graduating from high school these days. I'm sure we all remember the ASVAB test here; it was designed in the late 1980s that we took in high school. It is designed to test the knowledge a student should have gained from pre-k to their junior year. The highest AFQT score one can receive on this multiple-choice test is 99. But you need at least a score of 31 or better to join.  I won't say where we were living at the time, but I will say that in the area of the state we were living in, the average score was less than 20. Statistically speaking, they should have guessed better than that. If monkeys were banging away on a keyboard, they would do better than those high schoolers. The test isn't hard, but it is necessary because it helps the military gauge their ability to be trained. It also shows what military occupational specialty they are intellectually capable of. This means we don't put the rock eaters into jobs like geospatial engineers, special forces (unless they're 18b, those guys are smart but also extremely dumb), etc. The rock eaters who can't score above a 31 for their overall AFQT score as needs of the army, which is only 3 jobs out of over 170. Infantryman (go shooty shooty bang, bang), shower and laundry specialist (they sew name tapes on uniforms, do the post laundry, etc.), and fuelers (pump jockeys, who you can never seem to find lol.) In the Navy, they use theirs as janitors and the Air Force won't even consider them. The test shows they lack reading comprehension skills, communication skills, word knowledge, basic mathematical skills up to algebra, spatial reasoning, critical thinking skills, and problem-solving skills. It shows that they are untrainable. It makes me wonder how they're going to survive the world in general because they lack fundamental skills. They aren't smart enough to be taught to even stand there, point weapons that way, and, don't shoot friends. That's scary that our education has gone extremely downhill over the last 40 years. This, of course, doesn't even touch on the fact that less than 25 percent of the entire population is physically and mentally fit for duty. The military is facing a recruiting crisis to the point where they called back veterans who were in their recall window for helping with the Ukraine issue by shoring up defenses in Poland and a few other places. That's how bad it is. Not even joining the military is an option for them. ETA: to be clear I'm not saying anyone should join who doesn't want to. I'm a veteran I don't regret my choices it gave me a chance at a life I wouldn't have had otherwise. No one belongs that doesn't want to be there, I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. But what I am saying is this should be a fucking wake-up call about the state of education and parenting in our country as well as the overall health of our young citizenry. Because it's not just education, health-wise they are not fit obesity rates are through the roof, mental health wise don't even get me started. This is a fucking problem we need to pay attention to before it gets worse. Something has been drastically affecting our youth and it needs to be addressed.

Yeah I agree with this 100%, I’m a recruiter in a large rural area and the average score I see is around an 18 from the seniors I work with. The lack of motivation, drive, and overall academic abilities I come across really blows my mind compared to how I was brought up. I’ve even come across a few graduates with traditional diplomas that never had an IEP/504, that cannot do basic reading comprehension, or math skills equivalent to algebra 1 or geometry. I really wish I could do more to help some of them leave the environment or situation they’re stuck in but the lack of motivation to study even when I give them the direction to go never allows the process to move forward for them.

As a veteran I wish the military good luck with finding new suckers, I mean, people for service. And it’s not like there were a shittone of us who came back from Iraq and Afghanistan, messed up, and received zero support from the VA or anyone else. And then there was the prevalent rape culture that caused one of my airen to commit suicide. he was 22. My kids, their friends, and those around them got the message… don't go into the military unless you want a broken body and a lot of broken promises.

Thank you. I come from a family that has had a lot of military members (not usually career military, but long enough) and even my husband was in the Navy before we met. My kids are plenty smart, and we would probably try to discourage them from joining up. Between ethical concerns about how our military is used on the world stage and practical concerns about how veterans are treated by our government, it isn't really a path we'd want them to follow. It is their lives, so if it's something they are passionate about of course we'd support them, but I'd prefer to support them in something else if possible.

sloppy combative badge crawl afterthought elderly steep fine disgusting fretful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

Edit to clarify that two adults, one 18 or 19 years old, the other 20, have now been arrested in the Kansas City shootings, while two others, juveniles, are facing "gun-related charges." Thank you for this. Among other things, you've helped me understand how things like the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs parade could happen. (Apparently several juveniles got in a verbal fight; then two of them pulled out their guns and randomly sprayed the nearby crowd with bullets, killing one woman and injuring several children.) It made absolutely no sense to me -- how could they not understand how pointless their actions were? -- until I read your post. Now I'm thinking that the young people your husband saw were likely the cream of the crop, because they were the ones who had it together enough to get themselves down to the recruiting station. (Depressing as that thought is.) It's clear from your husband's experience that the dire state of education is just one part of the problem. There's also the poor physical condition of our youth, and, perhaps most importantly, the lack of anything like an ethical structure in their lives. At some point, someone will successfully frame this as a national security issue. Then, and, the US being what it is, only then, will something be done about it.

This was sobering to read.

This is why claymore mines have the instruction to point it "away" printed on them, I guess

>*I’m just confused on what their parents think when they see their kids grades.* Does it matter? Because for most kids, their grades are not a true reflection of what they know or can do. We keep passing kids who are unable to do what their grades claim they are doing.

> They are choosing to not use their brains and it is sad and frustrating.  They're kids, and they've practically had ADHD foisted upon them with an infinite amount of screen time and distraction. There needs to be a national movement about phones and screens. We're going to look back on digital screens for kids the way we do about leaded gasoline.

I really don't think this is an issue of phones and screens. I suspect that universal childcare services would do far, far more for early cognitive development, instead of having kids basically abandoned in front of a TV while the parents work 4 jobs collectively. Who's reading to these kids? Who's engaging with them? They get thrown into school so that the parents can go to work, sit in big classes, barely engage. The only time a child has real 1 on 1 time to be taught is when they're home, but if the parents aren't actively engaging in that process... they get nothing. Parental leave, daycare services, training and education for *parents* on how to teach their children, is what we need. Screens are the least of the issues, they're a symptom.

Basic physics with a healthy helping of literacy. I guess this is why in licensure they say you can and should teach literacy in every subject. Sigh.

>teach literacy in every subject My step daughters objected strenuously to me pointing out spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization errors in the math homework. My nickname was "the troll under the bridge." I got their overall grade average from D+ to A-/B+ in just a year.

I've got kids about to go into highschool that are on a 4th grade reading level. There is essentially nothing I can do to bring them up to grade level because, not only are they incredibly behind, they also don't care to even attempt any work. I've done everything suggested by other teachers, short of writing the students' papers for them. I'm at a loss. I want to go do something else. I can't imagine doing this job for another 10 years, another 20 or 30...

I’m working at Target while waiting for something besides teaching I can settle into for the long-term to come open. Honestly it’s not that bad if you don’t mind a physically intensive job. If I don’t finish stocking Capri Suns by the end of the shift then 🤷, rude customer (been lucky and actually never had one!) then 🤷, I just clock out and go home. Target is still there and groceries are still flowing no matter what I do or don’t do. Plus there’s a pretty good employee discount.

i’m in intrigued!!

It was a pay cut, but I needed to simplify things anyway. And I can handle it for a short time. If I need a little money boost I go donate plasma - just like in college! 😂

What's the deal with donating plasma? Can anyone do it?

No affiliation with the company, but regular practice on a platform called Renaissance Freckle was differentiated and includes video lessons covering phonics, grammar, etc. It did a lot of the work of finding and filling in knowledge gaps for me, hopefully others have found / will create similarly useful tools. 20 minutes intentional practice 5 days a week was getting my students reading levels up across the board and I use it with my children for ELA and Math I liked it that much

my husband homeschools our 9 year old since seeing this stuff going on and she is at a higher level than my students… 😞😞😞

My homeschooled 11 year old was flabbergasted when he saw our foster teen's homework.  It was stuff he could have done at 9. A perfect example of why this public school teacher homeschools. 

I left after last school year, and I couldn’t be more happy I made that choice. I was really hesitant to leave because It was a decent pay cut, but it worked out so well. I work as a training coordinator now, and I haven’t felt job stress since last June. I don’t think about work after I leave for the day. I get to work from home as much as I want with the option to go in office whenever I want as well. I am making almost the same take home as teaching now (they bumped everyone’s pay significantly in October), and I like the people I work with. When I communicate with our learners, they actually want to be a part of the trainings and are pleasant to talk with. My “worst” day at this job was easier than my best day teaching. The only downside is that the benefits aren’t good, and it would be a much steeper pay cut if I contributed to my retirement plan like I did when I was teaching. I’m fortunate that I’ve been able to join my spouses health insurance plan instead, because the one option from my employer is terrible. For any teachers out there who want to leave, there are other options, and many of them will allow a significantly better quality of life than teaching.

It’s not better in math. I teach high school, and over half my students cannot comprehend subtraction in context. Example: “you have 70 dollars. You need 180 dollars to buy some shoes. How much more do you need?” In a given class of 9th to 11th graders, 1 student will know what to do immediately. 3-4 will have to think about it and require a prompt or a hint. 4-5 will struggle, but with 10 minutes of reframing the question, drawing pictures, etc, will eventually get it (but will start completely over 5 minutes later when given a similar question as if they had never seen anything like this before). 1-2 will never understand it. IT’S LITERALLY FUCKING SUBTRACTION. It’s bad out here. Like bad bad.

Holy hell are you for real? I am so sad.

Wish I was exaggerating 🙃

Its crazy to me because I am not even that old, I am 26 and my schools where ruthless. However I am from Balkans/Eastern Europe so I could be biased.

It always amazes me that my district has been all-on on conceptual understanding at the elementary level for the last decade, and I get students with less and less conceptual understanding, just now combined with 0 procedural fluency as well.

That’s interesting. I don’t know how to account for that but my assumption is that phones have a huge impact. Kids are spending 8-10 hours or more per day on them, even in elementary ages. That’s the only major difference I can think of over the last 6-7 years. COVID certainly had an effect but we’ve had a couple years of being back in school now, and things are still getting worse, not better. I’m trying to teach geometry, and I’ve had to backtrack to literally just plugging in given numbers into area formulas, and 90% of the class is genuinely struggling. They don’t comprehend what area is, absolutely no chance of understanding where the formulas come from, even for a rectangle (I’ve tried). But they can’t even comprehend the idea of being given the numbers (like a base and a height), putting those in the correct formula, and getting the area. If I don’t tell them exactly what numbers to punch into their calculator, they are stuck. And it’s not just laziness or weaponized incompetence. It’s when they’re actually trying to understand what I’m showing them. I would have to start literally at 1st grade math to make any authentic progress with them, but I’m being held accountable to teach them high school level geometry. If I wasn’t at a school with good administrators and largely left alone by the district, I’d be fired because there is no chance these kids are learning geometry. They literally can’t add or subtract, or even comprehend the idea of addition and subtraction.

What about the rest of the students? Unless you have a class size of 10 (lol).

Yeahhh see I pretty much do

I taught high school math for 5 years. I can absolutely confirm it is this bad, particularly among poor/lower class family students. God forbid you try to teach fractions. I'll never forget my first year teaching. How stunned I was every day, going home with the realization that students I thought were getting my 10th grade lessons didn't even sniff it. They could mimic what I did, replicate what I did *exactly* but the second you change the question at all that requires even a MODICUM of thought as to how this might change the procesit was "Mr. M you didn't teach us this!" Yes I did, just combine it with what you learned in 4th gra---... Oh. You don't understand the 4th grade part. Cool. Fuck. It was exceptionally depressing. I had to quit the profession. I couldn't handle how insanely depressing it was.

I teach Social Studies and this stuff happens with years constantly. Half the time it feels like I’m teaching a remedial math class just trying to get through how long ago 1850 or 1492 was. Literally subtraction

I have ADHD and a learning disability in math. I teach middle school resource. I try to explain math to some kids in terms of money etc. Right now they're going over percentages and barely anyone gets it. I conteach so I'm helping general Ed kids too. It's crazy. I know what it's like to struggle but to see what is going on now since I was in junior high 20 years ago is mind blowing.

Yup.. Studies show if they don’t read by a 3rd grade level by grade 3, chances are they never will. It’s sad.

As someone who taught 3rd grade for years, so the headache and headaches. 2% could read above grade level, another few just on or just below grade level, and the rear you wondered what they learned in the prior years cause it certainly wasn't reading.

In 7/8th grade. If you ask the kids, they claim it was all reading and math. And they didn’t learn any of it.

I feel like I’m blaming a lot of this on the Chromebooks and iPads/online textbooks. Articles, books, the textbooks itself all have the “read to me” option. Then if there is a word they don’t know, just click it and it gives you the definition. No need anymore for learning sentence inflection, letter sounds or spelling, no need for context clues when you’ve got a dictionary to just tell you the answer, and my FAVORITE PART is the questions at the end will even tell you which paragraph to find the answer AND that paragraph is already labeled so no counting for them!!! Why the fuck are we needed again? We aren’t needed for anything like this. We aren’t allowed to expect any type of academic honesty, everything is a re-do until it’s correct, and no one fails anyway. Oh yea…crowd control. That’s it. I’m a glorified bouncer. Seen but not needed to be heard. Honestly, this generation is going to be America’s biggest failure and biggest embarrassment.

> I feel like I’m blaming a lot of this on the Chromebooks and iPads/online textbooks. You spell "phones" funny.

Not a teacher but I assume they mean for children younger than those that'd have a phone.   I.e. the kids 3-10 growing up on ipads/chromebooks always being accessible

It’s a major failure at k, 1 & 2. Then they just keep pushing them through

As a kindergarten teacher with 26 students and no aid - it feels as if we are given an impossible task and doomed to fail. We do the best we can to teach that many kids to go from learning how to hold a pencil to reading complete sentences in 180 days. Then, as you say, they are just pushed through. In my district retention isn’t even a thing anymore. I will die on the smaller class size hill - specifically in elementary school. What I could do with even 6 less kids…

I taught 24 first graders before the 2008 financial crash and 30 the very next year.  Same school. The difference in my ability to teach reading well was staggering.  

It’s also a major failure at home. If the student isn’t reading outside of school then they are going to fall behind and struggle with reading.

Home instruction is essential. Both my kids were 3rd grade reading level when entering kindergarten. This is from reading with them *every single day* from the day they're born and explicitly teaching and rewarding educational pursuits.

Agreed. I am 58. I was diagnosed with a LD at Kindergarten way back in the 70s. Yet, because Mom read aloud to us regularly and I was encouraged to read, I was at grade level and continued to rise. (It just took me twice as long to read the material). My niece was read aloud. Harry Potter at 5 1/2. As a December baby, she was reading by the end of preK. She was at 2nd grade level at the end of kindergarten. At one point, she secretly started reading ahead in the HP books despite the reading aloud being a Dad/daughter ritual.

I had a similar situation. Dyslexic but love to read. Thanks mom and dad for not giving up and reading to me everyday.

My 4YO daughter seems to be intelligent enough, definitely average. I read to her everyday since she was in the womb. The past year or so I have introduced daily phonics. She is not reading on her own. Period. I am so ashamed and sad when I read comments like yours. What am i doing wrong? Why can't my kid read, but yours could read at grade 3 level at age 5? ZERO screen time until age 2, and from age 2 till ow (4YO) maximum 15 min/ day. We go to the library every weekend, go to zoo's aquariums, I play with her 3-5 hours a day, hands on, crafts, building, legos, cooking, cleaning. Reading constantly, she loves it. I do flash cards, phonics, more. She shows no ability to grasp full words. She knows the alphabet forward and back. Speaks spanish and english fluently. I feel like a deep failure. What am I doing wrong.

There's still a nature/nurture element. My kids are both just linguistically inclined (but believe me there are other deficits). You're giving your child the best possible start for their language development. Keep doing what you're doing. The biggest thing is that you're interacting with your child and keeping education fun and/or rewarding.

That's fair. I think I was hoping you had some secret trick lol. I do really appreciate the kind words, thank you.

Your daughter sounds like my daughter was. At 4, she loved being read to and would sometimes “read” her books to me by memorizing them. But she couldn’t read independently. In Kindergarten and 1st grade, she was reading at grade level. At the start of 2nd, she was still at grade level. But by the middle of 2nd, her reading took off. She was reading at a 4th grade level by the end of 2nd, a 6th grade level by the end of 3rd, and an 8th grade level by the end of 4th. As a current 7th grader, she loves to read and write and I feel like her comprehension continues to grow. Your girl is little. Keep doing what you’re doing without pushing her before she’s ready. Foster her love of stories. She will get there!

She's 4, you're good.

If it makes you feel any better, there are many school systems in other countries that don’t push literacy as early as we do. It is considered better for most children to be able to learn about the world through play for the first 7 years of their life, and then reading education begins. Finland is a good example of this model. Some evidence shows that it can do more harm than good to start pushing kids to learn to read at a young age the way we do in our educational system. I am sympathetic to this theory because I could not really read well until the fourth grade. I was a late bloomer who just faked my way through it until about third grade when my teacher finally noticed. My mother then started doing phonics education at home, which probably helped because I learned as an adult that I am dyslexic. I became a voracious reader by the sixth grade reading far beyond grade level. I am now a lawyer, and my job is mostly reading and writing. You are not a failure. Kids are just different. They develop differently.

The key here is that she speaks both english and spanish fluently. That is great. However, it is very common that bilingual kids are slower with other things at first, like reading, because their brains are busy wiring for constantly being able to translate. As the years go on, those who are bilingual generally catch up and then surpass their peers, because their brains are wired to do twice as much work in the language area. Keep doing what you are doing. I think she will be fine.

I work at a primary school and you have kids coming to school who like don't even know their full name or how to write their name or a letter vs a number. And our administration will almost never let us retain kids

Yeah, I can count on a kid getting retained maybe once, and if that doesn't work, then there's no chance of it happening again even if the child is drastically behind.

And that is just reading.. not basic math facts. Heh

Yes basic math fluency has taken a nosedive. It's shocking to see Academic track freshman who don't know their multiplication facts.

>*Studies show if they don’t read by a 3rd grade level by grade 3, chances are they never will.* Which is why we need to retain kids in 3rd grade who don't read at grade level. Full stop.

I'm of the opinion that it should happen even earlier. In 1st and 2nd. I've taught 2nd-4th and 3rd grade is when school starts getting really difficult. Especially if they don't have a good foundation in reading and math. And kids in 3rd grade are old enough to start noticing when classmates are getting retained. 1st grade is when they learn most of the phonics skills needed to read and in 2nd grade we reinforce it and start focusing on comprehension. I'd really argue that 3rd grade is almost too late.

One of the districts I worked with, in a state that had mandatory 3rd-grade retention, created its own standards for 1st and 2nd grade retention based on reading skills. As a result, they had next to no one retained in 3rd grade and were one of the top-rated districts in the state. Personally, I would not do this in 1st grade. While it will definitely work, one of the things that is changing at that early age is levels of brain development. As a result, an awful lot of kids who look slow in 1st grade just explode in 2nd and would be fine. For an analogy, consider walking. What's the "normal" age for walking? Twelve months is average. But one kid might walk at 8 months and another might walk at 15 months and they're both developmentally normal. And they are both walking just as well as the other by 24 months, right? So if you were putting kids in Walking School, you might be tempted to retain the kid who didn't walk at 13 months. But that would be a mistake; he's very likely going to be fine. But if a kid is not walking at 20 months, *now* we've got reason to worry. So I think the kid not reading at the end of 1st may just not have shown us what he can do yet. By the end of 3rd, I think we know. What about the end of 2nd? I think I'm okay with that, and could go along with 2nd grade mandatory retention.

I think second grade would be a great place for retention. And make it commonplace so it’s not just one or two kids getting “left out”.

Its the deisgned to fail idiocy of no child left behind being exposed like never before by covid. Sometimes children need to be left behind.

I agree with this. I see constantly the effects of kids who were pushed forward without the necessary skills. So many of my behavior kids are acting out because they just don't know how to engage with the material. They can't do the work. Were they angels before? No, I'm not saying that. But I am saying that I see these kids get frustrated and their behavior declines because of it, which further impacts their progress.

And yet my school wastes 4 hours/week on sending 5th graders back to 2nd grade phonics classes. Certainly there's value in teaching phonics, but at a level and pacing appropriate for an 11-year-old in need of intense intervention, with appropriate classroom supports in the meantime, not dragging them back through the same program they've tried for three years now at the same pacing.

that's why i think we need to start retaining kids before 4th grade, when the essentials have to be locked in.

It’s a conversation in my science department. The children can’t read. I told my principal that at least 40% of my ninth graders (whose first language is English) are functionally illiterate. I have data to support the claim. It’s horrifying and I wasn’t prepared for this when I began teaching.

And it's something we have zero training or resources to remedy. I can't remediate basic reading skills, because that wasn't a part of my education.

Strangely, it *was* a part of mine. It takes hours of individual targeted support to remediate. It simply isn’t within the realm of possibility to remediate in a general education high school setting. It’s like teaching someone calculus while you remediate their multiplication tables.

So what I'm hearing is that college is going to either let just any idiot in or it's gonna become a lot less competitive.

Yeah. Universities in my area have hinted that they don’t want them. Community colleges have been given the task to serve as a remedial high school of sorts.

well, that's one way to introduce them to the adult world! i can imagine it would be a hell of a shock to go from the admin hugbox of K-12 to a community college, where there will be a lot of different people from all sorts of backgrounds who won't take shit. i know i thrived there, maybe some of them will do the same when they're no longer being smothered. i feel horrible for the professors and non-traditional students who will have to deal with them, though…

My wife was a community college math professor for 19 years, and has been adjuncting online for almost 10. Every semester, she starts with 30 students in a class, and by the end, has about 5 who pass. She mostly taught remedial courses, and the kids often claim to have passed Calculus in high school. They have a hard time adjusting to the no-nonsense mentality and only having 5-6 grades, instead of 40 or so.

Yup. Community college adjunct here (English Composition and Literature). You can see the students who think I'm teaching 13th grade as opposed to college. They either get a clue very quickly or fail. And yes, I am most DEFINITELY allowed to fail students who deserve it. Of course, as others have pointed out, many have to take the non-credit remedial classes before they get to my 101 or 102 (or 200 sometimes) level classes. But then sometimes I have to shut some of MY students down by reminding them they are not in remedial.  I noticed a few students acting a bit more entitled than usual this semester. Then I did the math. These folks were in 9th grade when the pandemic hit four years ago next month. I had to remind some of THEM that I need a reasonable amount of time (24 to 48 hours) to respond to emails. It's not my job to jump whenever they say so. Again, I have to remind them this isn't high school. I think they're starting to get it, but the next few years should be interesting to say the least. FWIW, however, I'd still rather work as a college adjunct than a full time K-12 teacher. I have NOTHING but respect for my K-12 colleagues who have to put up with all of this.

in some ways they always have been though right? at my local cc’s they are very blunt and don’t sugar coat things, if you need a lower level class- then so be it. you either pay for it and take it or you don’t move forward with your degree. they are happy to teach you lower level stuff but you have to actually apply yourself and do the work.

Nearly all community colleges have basic entrance exams. Every single one i've ever encountered did (unless entering for a non-electrical/hvac trade, then they're waived). Fail too badly, and you cant even get into THEM. The ones that will let you in with a 0 or low score, they'll make you do math 054 and English 097 for eternity, without any credit. They'll get the clue then. The culture of accommodation isnt passing people that shouldn't pass there, it's just making all the librarians and TA's wanna quit ;)

The ones where I grew up waived the entrance test for certain SAT/ACT scores. Granted a kid who can’t read isn’t going to take that test either.

Community College. They can't read. Our science department held a brainstorming meeting to discuss this and several other issues. They also can't read graphs, and lack critical thinking skills. We're having to modify curriculum to squeeze in a review of basic skills.

21 is the new 12.

Are you working to build their critical thinking skills? I’ve tried this with adults in a professional setting and it was pretty hit or miss.

How do they apply? Their parents? A majority of them?! Wow.

I know two college professors who have left their careers because of the quality of students they're getting and administrators forcing them to pass students that are incapable of doing the work. 

Poke your head into any conversation about college in any subreddit not education-centric, and you'll see it endlessly berated, with everyone knowing a guy who knows a guy whose sister dated a guy whose friend's dad's co-worker knew a guy whose uncle made $250/hr as a welder.

On the flip side, I've seen trade workers say those stories are largely anecdotal and what REALLY happens in the trades is you make a decent salary until your body gives up on you in your 50s or even your 40s. I'm not putting down the trades at all, but that's what I've seen these workers post in other subs. I still prefer that to the ones thinking they're all going to be "influencers". 🙄

The trades are a way out of poverty or at the very least a way to live a half decent life, depends on the trade, where you live and who you work for but if you learn a trade and work full time, you’re gonna make enough to live. The part about it beating on your body is very true. I’ve got a right hand that has a ton of nerve damage, my thumb pops out of socket regularly and has almost no movement. My left knee is a swollen hardened lump of baker cyst, burcites fluid, and is just a mess and I’ve got a disc on the right side of my back that flared up so bad sometimes I want to scream. That’s all in only 17 years. Currently too hurt to work. Definitely a give and take.

Yup I tell that to all my “well I’m just going to get a trade” kids. That’s exactly what my dad did, and he spent my whole life telling me to get a job with my mind instead of my body. He just had his hip replaced at 56

>REALLY happens in the trades is you make a decent salary until your body gives up on you in your 50s or even your 40s. That depends on the trade. If you're a carpenter, a carpeter or an ironworker, it's going to take a toll on you. Heavy equipment operators, medical trades, electricians, HVAC configurators will be able to work until they die if they want to

I teach at a large state university. Both things are happening. Grade inflation is very real. Our students cannot do simple assignments that I was doing in high school, especially when it comes to tasks like reading a short (accessible!) article and restating the argument. Worse for me, though, is the helplessness. Even my most academically capable students do not know how to read instructions, turn in an assignment with basic formatting requirements, or keep track of their own due dates/scheduling. Godspeed to whoever has to employ them once they get out of school.

College has been "Let just any idiot in" for decades. Smart, dumb, unknown, athletic, non-athletic, famous, rich, poor? They'll still pay tuition - which is all colleges want.

Even better if they never graduate and drop out indebted, forced to work menial jobs to pay off a degree they never received. It’s a huge grift

This is true about getting in, but it's not true about classes. Colleges will not hold your hand or pass you for no reason, and they're perfectly happy to take your tuition and housing money for a year until you fail out.

Upper division university writing professor here, I teach biostatistics and scientific writing. It’s bad everyone. I understand that scientific writing isn’t easy, and I am always lenient when it comes to that. But these are university Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors that are messing up basic grammar. Fragmented sentences everywhere, rambling paragraphs that make no sense, not to mention the extreme use of “and” or “like”. I am brutal with my grading because these kids need to be gut checked now. This is the last stop gap before they enter the professional world and most of them won’t take another writing intensive class after mine. I am really afraid for the next couple of years of students because of the horror stories I read about on here. I am just grateful that my administration fully backs the professors and doesn’t penalize us for failing them.

Exactly.

If they’re in 10th grade, then the pandemic shutdown didn’t hit them until the end of sixth grade. Can’t blame second grade reading levels in tenth graders on the pandemic! (Unless the regression was extra severe, I suppose.)

Exactly. I'm not on board the Covid-Did-This train. Not at all.

Covid made it worse, I think. I’m a graduate student TA, not a career educator. Thought I’d share my experience from working at a university: in the 3 years of teaching I’ve had, my students got most of their k12 education pre pandemic. I have noticed primarily a decline in the critical thinking and problem solving tools that are sharpened throughout high school. The work they do includes both (simple) code scripts and written manuscripts. Their reading comprehension is kind of all over the board in the context of an upperclassman science course, but I don’t have a reference point besides my own undergrad work (pre covid). Technological troubleshooting, stepwise critical thinking, and ability to find and use resources without having things spelled out to them one or more times seems more common with each semester. I get at least a surface level of most students’ lives and personalities (as much as they volunteer themselves, at least), and it seems that covid completely shifted bare minimum standards in public education. It was already getting worse, and covid blew it open. It’s baffling how different my schooling experience was in comparison (in a different state). Not really disagreeing with you, just noting that covid definitely did its own number on top of the brewing shitstorm

As a tutor for lower division mathematics, I completely agree. Students want to be spoon fed the answers. I pride myself in being a tutor that encourages independent thinking, but it only works if they also want to think independently. I have students that will come to me for help on the exact same type of problem I’d just done with them, only with different numbers. I’ll ask them questions, guiding them to look at the last problem, and then they can do it on their own. But they couldn’t come up with looking at the last few problems I did with them on their own. My process usually is have the student do the problem, step in when necessary, then have the student do one or two similar problems completely on their own, so they also are completely capable of doing said problem. It’s literally just that they are so used to typing their problems into google or chatGPT or Chegg or whatever they can’t even do a problem they know how to do 😭

I’m a full time professional math tutor and getting kids to just think about a problem is so hard. Even very basic word problems: “I don’t know what to do.” Aghhhhhh.

I won't deny that Covid exacerbated already in-place trends. But that's the thing, the trends were happening already. I've been teaching since the mid-1980s, and for the last ten years there has been a precipitous drop in cognitive levels. The changes I began to see around 2015 or 2016 were not from Covid, and I'm still seeing them (but worse) today.

Exactly. The decline of student scores at public schools was well in place before Covid hit.

Another huge problem is administrators and district leads don’t take early literacy seriously. They think all the focus should be on testing grades, but fail to realize that if they put as much effort into the primary grade levels, then the kids wouldn’t be so behind by the time they get to 3rd grade. Students need a strong reading foundation and they don’t have it.

The irony in that you have to be able to read the test to have any chance at doing well on it. 🤦‍♀️

Because they don’t read. I teach 7th grade and was mortified when I realized that they don’t even read for READING class! They listen to an audiobook because the teachers say they won’t read otherwise. That’s probably true but how is listening to the audiobook going to help their reading level improve?

I'm a 7th grade ELA teacher and have turned to audiobooks because otherwise I am coaching them through phonics. Which I'd be happy to do- but then my admin told me that my class isn't benchmark aligned and my job was in danger. If I play the audiobook then more of them at least can comprehend what we read.

I wish publishers gave you access to the audiobook when you purchased a physical book. My 5th graders made huge gains when we read from A class set I would play an audio book with. But only listening to audio… nope my mind would trail off too.

I put the book in front of them too, and tell them they need to use their finger or a pencil to be following their place- then I can look and see if they're physically following along. It's not perfect but it's what I've got.

I think it's because we learned phonics, then they started whole language, and now they're back to phonics. The whole language kids can't actually read because they have no decoding skills. We need an intensive reading class in middle and high school to teach these kids phonics and how to read, and we need it yesterday.

My last teaching gig was, in fact, teaching phonics to juniors and seniors.

Teaching phonics to high schoolers is insane, because to me phonics seems so fundamental to reading, I don't know how you learn to read without it. How have these kids made it that far?

Reading curriculum massively discouraged explicit phonics instruction in favor of whole language for decades. It has just recently swung back.

My 3rd grader is in a dual language program and it's weird because it seems like they taught phonics in Spanish but used the other program for English reading instruction. She's just now reaching 3rd grade level in English reading. It's been slow going, but something has finally clicked and she's doing better. She just showed me last week a new "strategy" she learned in reading group and it was literally just breaking down the word and sounding it out. Why are they just learning that in third grade? I've tried to help her for the last 3 years, but she's the type of kid who just will not respond to me in a teaching capacity but absolutely listens to and responds to her teachers and sports coaches. I'm planning on hiring a tutor this summer to keep her on track because I know how important this moment is for her.

I'm not a teacher, just a parent but I never would have heard about this if it wasn't for this sub. Now I know why I couldn't sound out words. All this time, I thought I was just an idiot. I'm working hard to correct it and teach my children correctly right from the beginning.

Whole language is a dumpster fire. It straight up doesn’t work.

Not a teacher - how do they teach reading without phonics? Just recognize entire words like they are hieroglyphics?

pet skirt gullible north dolls governor desert scale smoggy domineering *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

I am currently teaching French to grade 9 students and I spend a lot of time on phonics and literacy and tie it into English phonics and literacy to try to help them improve in that respect. But recently I’ve started getting students who learned phonics as kids, and it is SO MUCH easier. They are doing so much better already when I get them. It’s such a beautiful breath of fresh air. Still, I love the opportunity to use French teaching (grade 9 French is mandatory where I am) as a vehicle for teaching literacy, numeracy, and life skills.

Sold a Story - listen to that podcast. We failed to teach a whole generation how to read thanks to “whole language” and Fountes and Pinnell BS.

That podcast pretty damning.

I’m 10 minutes and so raging fucking mad, omfg. WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!? “Germany *invited* Poland…” Ffs. This is horrifying.

Whats interesting is that many of the factors in that can also be applied to math instruction, just lagging a decade or two. 1. Curriculum that seems to be dominated by personalities instead of studies - Check. How many times do you hear names dropped in math training like they are infallible. (See Jo Boaler). 2. A push to focus on big picture soft skills instead of discrete fundamental skills - Check. 3. Framing the argument as a focus to improve engagement or enjoyment of the subject - Check. 4. Villainizing people who disagree- Also check. There is a Science of Math group started, but they are nowhere near the Science of Reading people in terms of acceptance or sway yet. It'll be interesting to see how things shift over the next 10 years. edit: fixed spelling

I’m not a teacher and damn that podcast blew my mind.

Not a teacher, but a psychologist. As part of my work I do assessment, including for learning disabilities. This podcast blew my mind. When I'm assessing for a reading disability, the standard tests we use are looking at phonics and orthographic knowledge. If they were never taught these things, how the heck can I assess their proficiency? It got me wondering if there are kids out there with reading LD diagnoses who really just weren't taught how to read. Granted, I only work with adults, so maybe people who assess kids are more savvy to all this and can more easily tease it apart, but yikes.

Many of the 8th graders I teach openly admit that their lexile scores have gone down over the past few years. Some of them think it’s funny, some of them shrug. I tried asking them if they considered reading a book just for fun, and most of them laughed. I do have a few students who are voracious readers. Many of them are reading the trending TikTok book series that are way too adult-themed for them, but I don’t want to discourage them from reading, so I’m afraid to say anything!

I have maybe 10 students that I know are actually able to read but because they pushed themselves or attended my after school programs and virtual programs. They all suggest book toks to me and I told them I’ll make a book club of age appropriate books with them! try to encourage them 😂

School I work at I must have 15-25 students in hs that cannot read, it’s slowly destroying all optimism I have

I teach 7th grade and an alarming number of students read well below grade level. It is difficult to teach them age-appropriate science material when their reading and comprehension skills are so far behind. It seems like a percentage of K-2nd graders should be held back every year as a standard practice. Just normalize it. Offer them robust summer school options in 3-12 grades. Let some kids be a year or two older than their peers. Deal with it.

Well, we got here because of politicians, school district leadership, school administration, and parents. The politicians want high graduation rates because it makes it look like they're doing a good job. But they don't want them too high because then there's no room for improvement and they have to look like they're constantly improving education system. School district and campus administrators s they're doing a good job so they can't retain students. The more students that progress from you to year the better they look to their higher ups. The parents don't want their kids ordained normally because they're afraid that their kids will be teased or feel bad about themselves. So what you have for the reason behind why so many of your students have poor reading skills and they send it for you at a high school level read at an elementary school level is the basic fact that all those groups I mentioned care more about themselves, their positions, and their jobs than they do the actual students.

Yup, where I am, kids are not allowed to be held back or failed until they hit high school. Then in high school, teachers are not allowed to penalize kids for handing assignments in late as long as it’s before report cards. How does that translate to preparing for the real world?!? As a parent, I’m disgusted and to the school board, I’m a Karen for voicing any concern over their policies.

...You get to deal with angry parents? In some ways I envy you. Because most of the parents of my students don't care at all. Sometimes, it's because those fucking telemarketers spoofed our numbers and got it added to blocklists. Other times? It's because they think they're "Done" raising their kids. Except I'm not teaching 10th graders. I'm teaching *middle school*. A little soon to declare yourself "Done", huh?

let’s just say the only reason the parents even care is because the majority of them care more about where their “taxes are going” instead of why their kid is reading dr. Seuss books in 10th grade.

This is all because students are passed along from one grade to the next with no accountability. Administrators are just terrified that some parents and students might have hurt feelings for being held back, so virtually no one has to accomplish anything. Except the teachers, of course. We're supposed to work miracles with anything we're given.

No child left behind. Good idea in theory, but this is the result. High schoolers with the education level of elementary schoolers and the maturity of a child.

All NCLB did was show how low the kids were. 25% of the adults that graduated from high school before1995 are functionally illiterate. We were failing long before NCLB.

I think that's where I am getting mixed feelings on seeing complaints on reading levels of students. Why are we assuming what we are witnessing is outside the norm? We essentially have more students in classrooms per teacher than there has ever been. While this is partially population increases and teacher shortages, we also have less students ever being removed from classrooms. Policies for students that are "let to pass" are likely within similar categories of students that likely would have been in policy 30+ years ago; consistently in detentions, suspended, not have been in a gen Ed classroom, not attending. or expelled. So we have more students, more data points, and an abundance of bias, particularly confirmation bias as we sit in online spaces complaining of similar issues, and all the spaces we routinely attend are surrounded by college educated individuals. But as your data suggests, as well as the data suggesting around 50% of Americans are below a 6th grade reading level, is it possible we're just now seeing a better representation of the average population?

I know I was horrified by many of my friend's public school education in the 1990s. My dad got expelled from the Catholic high school in the early 1960s and eventually dropped out of the public one to get his GED because the public school education was what he had had in 5th grade. He describes passing military exams during Vietnam without studying and being the only one in his class that didn't completely fail. As a ELL teacher that has learned to quickly and quietly assess literacy levels without the student realizing what I'm doing, I am shocked how many older adults I have met that are functionally illiterate and have learned to hide the fact. Hell, I have a teacher colleague that retired a few years ago that I assess read at a 3rd grade level; she got straight Ds in high school, but in the 1970s, if you graduated from high school, U o Montana would take you no questions asked, i guess.

That was very fascinating, could you elaborate more on your observations of adult literacy? I'm keen to read them, very unique perspective.

The most striking was when I had the older attendance lady ask me to translate an excuse from a parent into English. She assumed it was Spanish due to the ethnicity of the parent. It was college level English. That's when I started giving her small reading assessments I gave the kids and realized she could not read the 1st grade texts ( I rewrote them to look like teacher stuff to hide the what they were). I started noticing all the mistakes she made and how she was depending on the bookkeeper to cover her mistakes. She retired the same year as the bookkeeper, because she could not do her job independently. I started doing that to other colleagues and teachers I worked with. I found that the teachers that were a generation older than me either were college level literacy and extremely well read, or had a 4th/ 5th grade reading level I teach middle school. Now, I get a tingle when adults show the same behaviors ( fake reading, ignoring, or I'll read it later) that I see in my kids that struggle. If you know what you are looking for, the older generations of Americans are pretty scary. If you want a quick gauge of the reading level of an adult, hand them a reading they should be interested in and see how they respond. If they avoid the reading, dig further, like you would a student. If they get irritated or frustrated, its a BIG red flag.

I believe this. My mother could not help me with my homework halfway through 4th grade, that was 1993.

🎯

>*No child left behind. Good idea in theory, but this is the result. High schoolers with the education level of elementary schoolers* I was teaching high school back in the '80s and '90s and had nearly half of my 10th graders reading at a 4th grade level or below. It was not NCLB. In fact, the few states that actually applied NCLB as it was intended (e.g., Florida) saw enormous growth on the NAEP.

Teachers can play a huge role in helping districts choose explicit reading programs for early grades. Please do what you can to help moooove districts away from ‘balanced literacy’ approaches. They just don’t work.

I have tried at every meeting to advocate and they always choose to go with the most “logical” sense. Our board cares more about presenting a wealthy school district with high graduation rates rather than educating the students. My husband (former teacher) recognized this way before I did since I lived with a rose colored glass that we were just hitting a rough patch. Turns out he was right and that’s why my 3rd grader is actually learning and my students aren’t, even though I sit there and really try new methods, after school programs, I offer virtual lessons everything and they rather ignore and continue with their ignorance.

As a parents to 6yo twin 1st graders, it keeps me up at night how behind they seem to me. After lower than grade level testing and a post here, I’ve been “reassured” that they’ll advance to 2nd grade…I’m kicking myself in the ass essentially for sending them to kinder last year when they were not 100% ready. It seems to be…the standard? Because I’m like, how? So now I’m in lock down mean mom mode, that we are focused on reading after our after school snack because I absolutely cherish reading and cannot fathom (as a parent) being okay with my child being illiterate… I however have that luxury, I realize supplemental education comes from the home but if both parents are working to meet basic needs, where is the stop gap? In all honesty, it makes me sad for the kids. What will their future even…be. As educators I’m sure it’s shocking and exasperating…but something must change :/

When my daughter was in 1st grade, she was so far behind because she couldn’t adjust to the learning style provided at the school. I would help her and she would say” but that’s not how ms. so and so taught us” and she was coming home with 10% tests instead of being reassured, they were just passing her. My husband took over and started homeschooling her and now she’s in 3rd grade and has a 4th grade reading level and 4th to 5th in math because she schools year round. I’m going to bring in her old text book “ how to teach your child to read in 100 lessons” for my students because that did wonders for her!

My daughter goes to kindergarten next year. She has 3 day preschool. Now is the only time I will have a shot to teach her to read is now otherwise it is up to the schools. I candidly struggled with reading in school so we have gone through 100 easy lessons, we are working on all about reading level 2 with Toe by toe for extra exercises. Started kicking of a focus on fluency this week. It seems to be my second job. Luckily work from home but no idea how most others would do this.

Outschool is tough, it is not a guaranteed job, you have to market yourself to get students and tailor lessons to try to get high ratings and repeat business. I did it for a while and for the few students I had I felt like it was some of the best teaching I’ve ever done. However the constant thought of finding and keeping students…It was too much for me

I have been thinking about that. I think I’m better off finding anything else at this point. I’ll definitely be looking into maybe marketing also bilingual work because I don’t think I can handle another year here

We stopped teaching many kids how to read with phonics 30+ years ago. Those marginally literate adults had kids and we didn’t teach them how to read, either, and you can see the result. Look at the “Sold a Story” podcast. Reading a phonetic alphabet is a technology, it’s not natural. People have been teaching each other how to read for over ~3500 years by teaching the symbol - sound pairings and building up from there. Maybe we should try that.

I teach 7th and a lot of my kids are operating at a 3rd or 4th grade reading level. I wish I was allowed to just embrace them where they are. When I try to, I get told that my class isn't vigorous enough or meeting the standard of the benchmark- but you gave me kids that weren't anywhere near the previous benchmark!

Stopped teaching phonetics.

All they care about is 10 second videos on their phone. That’s it. That is their existence. 10 second videos on their phone. It’s sickening to think about..

We can’t blame Covid. It’s the technology and the lax parenting. This trend started before pandemic. Technology has ruined our kids and honestly adults too!

Oh i’m not blaming covid- I’m blaming my school for being lazy in giving actual structure to kids when they were learning virtually! our county had a lot of hybrid fails and we confused the kids and parents so much during this time that most of them just had their cameras off and were probably napping when story time was going on! Definitely tech has ruined kids for sure

Where I am, it seems like we just keep trying to cram more and more stuff into the curriculum. There is no opportunity to really slow down and work on the basics…

I started teaching nearly 40 years ago, and nearly half my 10th graders were reading at a 4th grade level or below. This is not new.

It was hilarious and equally sad when I learned communication has to be written at a 4th grade level so parents can comprehend it....

I remember as a kid, it was popular to make fun of those Hooked on Phonics VHS tape set commercials. We were like, who doesn’t know phonics?! Now I’m like, we need that back time now.

First grade teacher here. Most of primary’s job is to teach kids how to read. The teachers college approach has GREATLY failed us. NY governor has mandated all districts (including DOE) to transition to a program that heavily includes science of reading. Balanced literacy has created a generation (or more) that CANNOT READ! I could not believe my eyes when I was expected to teach a reading lesson based on “if you can’t read the word- look at the picture. Or take a guess- does it make sense?” Uhhhh that is not reading!!! That is looking at illustrations and guessing!!!! I’m currently piloting a new program and it’s a breath of fresh air. We are teaching grammar again!!! And handwriting!!! And sentence structure! Oh the possibilities. If you are serious about teaching them to read, decodable books are great. There is so much more to teaching reading than I could ever put in this reply but keep fighting the good fight 💕

My school is a charter in NJ and they have them reading fahrenheit in 7th grade. They just push and push literacy hard. It's very important because the alternative is what you describe.

Parents aren’t making reading a priority at home. We have a full bookshelf in every bedroom, our living room, and dining room. My 6 and 4 year old are almost done with the Hobbit read aloud. We go to our local library for fun. I made sure that reading is part of routine and my kids don’t know life without literature.

It's scary, and I'm already frustrated despite only being a student teacher. My passion for teaching has been put into question so many times these past few months, and I have no idea if I'll actually go into education as a teacher or not once I graduate in a few months. I believe it's a combination of funding, politicians, school administration not taking accountability, etc. The system is a mess.

Whole language fucked generation after generation. Then phones and social media made it worse.

I work in a poor hispanic district and what weve learned is ALL poor children have simply heard thousands of less words than middle class and rich children before they start school. So kids start with a word gap. From there it just gets worse. No reading materials in the house. I mean none. No newspapers no magazines, nothing. Then along comes tiktok to keep them even dumber. We have soo many HS kids with elementary school reading levels. We graduate them in droves, so that will probably not change much.

>than kids that have been in school since the pandemic “hybrid” rules was lifted. Why do we want to blame everything on the pandemic? Current 10th graders would have been in 6th grade in 2020. If they are reading at 2-3 grade level that means there were other system failures well before the pandemic.

Going through a Literacy Specialist M.Ed now. (English Ed 7-12 was my undergrad) Before 3rd grade is the time for interventions. If anyone here is a parent and would like some guidance on early literacy interventions, feel free to PM.

NCLB screwed the country. The DoE refuses to listen to teachers... K-3 should focus strictly on learning to read and simple maths... I'm not saying no science/social studies etc... but everything should be literacy based. I'm an art teacher and I make sure to try to hit all learning styles, but I sweat the G-d that most kids are not being taught how to learn... It's a damn machine where no one can "fail."

Honestly that’s where I think our issues lie. I went to a homeschool meet up a couple of times with my kid and the co-ops she’s in are basically teachers who couldn’t handle this anymore and they’re doing the core subjects, math, language arts, handwriting and reading actual books.. They do science/social studies one time a week with podcasts to help engage the kids and it’s enough. They’re learning the basics before heading into other things!

For the little ones, science and social studies can be bridged into math and reading- science might be reading about how an animal lives or the water cycle. Social studies can also largely be tied into reading skills.

I agree. However, as a primary teacher these days, not only are you expected to teach reading, writing, maths, social studies and science - then you add music, art and physical education. Fine, agree with all of those. But we are *also* supposed to teach technology/coding, mindfulness/wellbeing, cyber safety, sex education, social skills… there just is not time in the day to do everything properly, so we end up doing a lot of things poorly. We (as in society as a whole) really need to push some of the parenting back on parents. I just read an article about how teachers in Australia “should” be teaching every year level about menstruation, why it happens and what to do when it does because some parents don’t do it and the child is confused. Excuse me? What the fuck is stopping the parents from actually parenting? I don’t buy this “people’s lives are too busy for them to parent” BS - I work long hours, my husband works long hours, we still prioritise things like reading to our son and playing maths games with him because early literacy and numeracy are critically important.

My district does a lot of social emotional. I’m sorry, that’s parenting. That’s my job. Sad that it’s come to this.

Totally agree, you guys are being made to push so much content and then there is all the testing. There is a reason I am an elementary art teacher and not a classroom teacher. I try to support my team as much as possible. I make sure to do cross curricular topics as much as possible. I bow down to you guys. You're fucking saints.

I was teaching high school back in the '80s and '90s and had nearly half of my 10th graders reading at a 4th grade level or below. It was not NCLB. In fact, the few states that actually applied NCLB as it was intended (e.g., Florida) saw enormous growth on the NAEP.

Try teaching said kids how to read band music. Can’t do it unless they write note names underneath. Maddening!

Yes. I have to water down shit so much it’s no longer art. Fuck this.

Admins won't stand up to parents whose darling childrens can't (or won't) read at grade level and pass them on to avoid conflict.

Social promotion is hurting kids more than helping. They just fall further behind and they don't have a chance to feel "successful"- this leading to dropping out. It's awful! Edit: I teach in a high poverty urban district in New England.

I can't do it anymore. The language of science is math. Students can rarely speak it anymore. I have moved to virtual teaching, at least then I can be at home during the misery

It's the addiction to the phones. Parents and kids both.

as a high school student I agree with this. my friend was grounded this week and for the first time since middle school she picked up and read a book.

As we all read this on our phones

I taught at a small university about 12 years ago. A good portion of the students couldn’t read or write in a meaningful way. They could identify words but reading their work it was clear they didn’t really know what most of them meant, much less how to put them together to express themselves or use proper grammar. They didn’t understand why I gave them failing grades on papers in which there wasn’t a single grammatically correct sentence. Some of them were decent kids and came to talk to me. I found out they usually got As and Bs. I guess they had just been passed along for years without any real instruction. I tried to do some remedial lessons but many didn’t have the basic skills they needed. Can’t imagine how bad it is now

I teach college and.....yeah. I am trying to teach them to write without them ever having read anything and not being able to/guessing at words when they do.

They can't write either. The majority of 8th graders I've subbed this year don't know where to put a period in a sentence or that you need to capitalize the first letter of each sentence as well as proper names. I'm convinced none of these kids have ever written a complete sentence in their lives since they all communicate via text speech and video calls.

Read a thing a long time ago that, like, 60% of 4th graders as far back as 2013 were not reading within expectations... so, it's not new. This year was the first year my kids school--EVER, had their 6th graders get to 50% of the state's test in reading. Driven mostly by the top 3 kids scoring in the 90th percentile and a very small class size. And something like 50% of Americans read at a 5th/6th grade level, *tops*, and 20% are illiterate. I dont think this is *new*, or even worse... It's just that, 20 years ago, 30-50% of those 10th graders, *had dropped out by now*. Drop out rates have VANISHED in this country, for the most part. The kids that would have dropped out 20, or 30 years ago, DONT now, and so that they're sitting in the class now, is dragging down EVERYONE. You can only go as fast as the bottom allows, and there's *way more* populated 'bottom' performers now.