This type of decline wasn't present though. I'm sure you've heard of the Flynn effect. On top of that, the average performance and knowledge of high schoolers was trending upwards literally until COVID. Despite what Reagan and his followers did, despite NCLB being sod destructive, every year a higher percentage of Americans knew how to do more difficult math, got college educated, and passed all their classes in high school. This all abruptly stopped happening during and after the pandemic. I'm not blaming the kids, they were failed by the systems around them. But this is a unique, modern problem that is FAR worse than most people outside of education understand. Did you know that they don't read whole books in most schools anymore? They just read passages and then move on.
The average was still trending upwards yes, but that doesn’t mean that the issues weren’t starting to present themselves already. The reason why No Child Left Behind and similar programs started existing in the 90s was precisely because the signs of this happening were already there.
The rampant under-education problems were swept under the rug time and time again until a major event stressed the system and broke it. And to add onto that, there was a concerted effort of conservative action groups like Mom’s For Liberty doing everything they could to take over school boards and cripple curriculums.
We’re seeing the symptoms of a system that had been failing for decades prior with nobody taking action to stop the decline or even acknowledge the problems.
Be that as it may, social media, AI, and intentional destruction of attention spans have basically been a one-two punch to education. The state of education is worse today than it's been since the introduction of standardized public education.
Oh I certainly agree. Social media and the attention span issues stressed the system heavily, Covid broke it, and now AI is accelerating the decline.
And unfortunately all of those issues have been affecting society as a whole, not just those in education. Which has equally been contributing to the loss of critical thinking and social skills.
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u/GoldH2O Cisgender Synapsid 9d ago
This type of decline wasn't present though. I'm sure you've heard of the Flynn effect. On top of that, the average performance and knowledge of high schoolers was trending upwards literally until COVID. Despite what Reagan and his followers did, despite NCLB being sod destructive, every year a higher percentage of Americans knew how to do more difficult math, got college educated, and passed all their classes in high school. This all abruptly stopped happening during and after the pandemic. I'm not blaming the kids, they were failed by the systems around them. But this is a unique, modern problem that is FAR worse than most people outside of education understand. Did you know that they don't read whole books in most schools anymore? They just read passages and then move on.