Very hard to keep politics out of some of the discussions going on in here.
Around the literacy discussion , there was a post on reddit last night about the US having the worst reading levels in the past 26 years. There is a lot to unpack with it, but I posted my thoughts on it from the perspective of a teacher's husband for the past decade. The one thing I will suggest to Parents of kids here - please please please prioritize their education via learning at home. Just talking with your kid each night about what they are learning and the application of that learning in the real world is such an important component of their growth.
"There are a lot of fundamental issues with our education. Our society doesn't support the culture needed to learn and address issues with kids. The bulk of teachers are frankly not to the standard they need to be - and when I say the bulk I mean the bulk. Parents do not prioritize their children's learning. Schools hide issues out of ease. Good teachers leave because they aren't paid for their success and are sick of dealing with everything else. Funding is used on new curriculums every year instead of more important items.
A HUGE issue is a lack of parental involvement in fundamental reading comprehension. Parents do not reinforce their children's learning. My wife has been a K-2 teacher for a decade who recently departmentalized to reading and writing. She has second grade students who do not understand their letters, and have such bad speech patterns that they are unable to sound out effectively. Parents (and I'm not being anecdotal, I'm talking 15+ sets of parents in the past 3 years) challenge the idea of their child not being able to read, because they give them the same book every few days and the child has memorized the words.
It's a hard reality when a parent's child struggles at something. Unfortunately, society now simply does not handle hardship effectively. We see it in so many social situations. Instead of working harder with the child - they complain that the "system" is broken.
Where teachers are to blame is their lack of spine in keeping kids back when they have not fully learned required material. Teachers dont document, they do not collect data, they do not address issues with children real time.... they hide issues until it passes to the next year so someone else can deal with it. Again, I point to our society not being able to handle hardship. In addition, school leadership wants strong passing rates, so they push kids through instead of holding them back.
It's a mess."
Do we really need to go down this path - there were things that happened from 2016-2020 that impacted our lives, 2020-2024 that impact our lives, and there will be things from 2024 on that will do so. Neither side is perfect, we dont need to dive down the hole this really isn't the place for this
