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Saturday, December 17, 2016

U.S. Kids Keep Getting Dumber; Ranked 31st Of 35 Developed Nations In Math, New Study Reveals

The U.S. Department of Education has just released it's latest ranking of international education systems (Program for International Student Assessment - "PISA") and performance of U.S. students just continues to deteriorate on both absolute and relative terms.

Perhaps it's time to have a real conversation about the complete failure of "Common Core" and the idiocy of allowing teachers' unions to hold our children hostage while hiding behind ridiculous contracts that grant tenure after 6 months and make it impossible to fire underperformers. Just a thought for the incoming Trump administration.

The Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss summed up the problems nicely:

There are many reasons children aren’t learning anything during the long hours they spend in government schools.Sometimes, their teachers don’t show up to work because they’re out on the teachers union picket line demanding taxpayers pick up the tab for their plastic surgery. Other times, students are forced to sit in classes led by totallyunqualified teachers who will never leave because they’re protected by tenure.

For every disgraceful teacher, though, there are tons of good ones who are doing their best. The problem often isn’t teachers’ incompetence, it’s that they’re forced to instruct kids using rubbish. Look at the Common Core State Standards, which were adopted initially by 46 states because their federal education funding depended on it. The math is backwards, confusing, and, as the National Review so suitably dubbed it, “dumb.” The reading standards fill students’ minds with filth in the form of raunchy books and with yawn-inducing “informational texts.”

Our schools no longer teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. Rather than be taught how to think and problem-solve,children are thought what to think and how to feel. All these money-making and money-spending schemes tend to sound nice, of course, but they inevitably fall flat.

Now the results....in math, the U.S. ranked 40th in the world and 31st out of the 35 developed countries that provide data to the study...somewhat less than ideal.

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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dumbing down because of minorities.

Anonymous said...

Dumbing down is the left wing plan.

Anonymous said...

Liberals pushing their agendas and not teaching basic reading, writing and math. Also lowering standards because of minorities, instead of helping them to achieve.

Anonymous said...

8:37 Yep rednecks definitely a minority now.

Anonymous said...

There are many reason children aren't learning and not one of them suggests the lack of parenting. Its all the teachers fault, lol!!!

Anonymous said...

Common core has taken our STEM skills to the lowest level in decades!

Anonymous said...

These kids score very high on the Global Warming, Socialism, Safe Space, and coloring tests.

Anonymous said...

Common Core for Dummies!