Literacy Rates of High School Graduates

[joshuabgood]

Are you saying the achievement tests our students do in school are not accurate? Our children normally test several grade levels above their current grade. Not in everything, and not all of them, but most of it is above current grade level.

I am not sure who you are asking, that said, not all achievement tests are the same. At EMS when we used Terra-Nova and Iowa assessments our students routinely were well over grade norms. However, when I reviewed the assessments, the quality/robustness seemed pretty weak. We switched then to College Board assessments, the PSAT/SAT suite, and my instincts were verified. In fact, our students were not blowing up national norms. The College/Career readiness metrics on College Boards suite of assessments are "no joke" metrics. If you doubt me maybe I'll post a sample practice test and we can see how folks do on the Math and ELA side of things .

As for HS grad rates, they were abysmal in the 40s and 50s. And in urban areas even lower. Reams of kids for whom learning didn't come easily just dropped out. That phenomena is also present in CA schools.

Having fairly extensive experience in the public school world and the private school (and the home school) world I have a lot of thoughts/experiences I could share but I lack time...

[mike]

You’re being facetious, Thomas Sowell expands on your point.
His views are not more costly. He cites DISCIPLINE as an important factor. Imagine that.

Discipline is one of the factors that was mentioned in the article I quoted above:

Disruptive children are stealing teaching time in 80,000 U.S. schools. Our discipline collapse is a national tragedy. These results are derived from a 2004 study titled “Teaching Interrupted” published by the Brooklyn think tank, Public Agenda.

In my experience, the most disruptive children are often those with various learning disabilities so it isn't so much a discipline issue as a special education issue. I expect that is some of what the Public Agenda report is referring to. I have had disturbed kids (severely autistic etc.) act out so violently in class that I have had to clear the entire classroom and wait for school psychologists, special ed counselors, and/or school security to arrive and talk them down, escort them out. Normal discipline problem kids you just kick out and send to the office or call security and they are quickly dealt with.

Of course elementary is a completely different environment than high school. I've never taught elementary but you hear stories of classes being completely disrupted by learning disabled kids of various sorts acting out in disruptive ways.

There aren't good answers. There is a constant tension between "institutionalizing" disruptive kids away from regular classrooms and mainstreaming them. Often they hire teachers aids to specifically accompany these children in the regular classrooms to deal with them or escort them out if necessary but that is very expensive. Those jobs are also low paid/high turnover and pretty thankless with high burnout so you often don't have them in your classroom even when you are supposed to.

I suspect that if the author had meant the chief cause of disruption is learning disabled students, he would have said so. The study itself is about discipline policy, not learning disabilities.

[Ken]

Are you saying the achievement tests our students do in school are not accurate? Our children normally test several grade levels above their current grade. Not in everything, and not all of them, but most of it is above current grade level.

I would ABSOLUTELY say that they are not accurate. There is a huge difference between functional illiteracy and failing a boring no-stakes standardized test you were forced to take in school.

As a teacher I have administered hundreds of these standardized tests over the years. The kids quickly figure out which ones are high-stakes (required for graduation) and which are no-stakes (used for school/district/state data reporting but the results have no effect on the individual child).

I have seen plenty of kids randomly pencil in patterns on the answer sheets, doodle on them rather than taking the test, pencil in obscene or other inappropriate designs on the bubble sheets like swastikas, and so forth. And even for high-stakes tests required to graduate there is a portion of kids who just don't care and blow them off anyway. Maybe they are already failing or planning to drop out or just don't care. You can't MAKE a kid take one of these tests and put out their best effort if they simply don't want to. And many of them just don't want to. That doesn't mean the kid is illiterate. They are just choosing to blow off an annoying test.

There are also plenty of parents these days who are anti-testing and there is a whole parent movement of resisting and undermining standardized testing. For example, here is a whole national parent organization designed around opting-out or undermining standardized testing: https://www.fairtest.org/get-involved/opting-out

So there are probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of kids every year who are perfectly literate but for whatever reason do not pass standardized tests.

That is probably why some of these standardized school tests can have low passing or high failure rates while the functional literacy rate in the US is still very high.

[temporal1]

You’re being facetious, Thomas Sowell expands on your point.
His views are not more costly. He cites DISCIPLINE as an important factor. Imagine that.

Discipline is one of the factors that was mentioned in the article I quoted above:

Disruptive children are stealing teaching time in 80,000 U.S. schools. Our discipline collapse is a national tragedy. These results are derived from a 2004 study titled “Teaching Interrupted” published by the Brooklyn think tank, Public Agenda.

Careful. You’ll be accused of being racist, or at least uninformed and uncaring, i.e., racist.

My dear MIL began teaching at age 16 in a 1-room schoolhouse in rural Illinois, it must have been around 1932.
She was living on her family farm, and her income went to help support the family. She told us about her challenges, esp about some students older and bigger than she! i’m sure she did her level best.

She continued her education over the years, continuing teaching, earning a BS, continuing teaching in contemporary public schools.
Lots of teachers in my family. One science teacher became a high school counselor for years. He married the school nurse.

One thing he remarked on was how difficult it could be to distinguish some of the brightest students from the least able!
It was fascinating to imagine. He convinced me.

But, in my lifetime, all teachers i’ve met comment on the problem of disruptive students (no matter cause) requiring inordinate attention, thus leaving other students lacking deserved attention. i saw it in my classes as a child student.

As parents, our children did well in all settings. We loved the local Christian school, but could not afford to be there.
That particular school has grown+grown over the years! Locally very popular.

We knew some parents home schooled, for different reasons. One couple, both medical doctors, told us home school is just so much more efficient, so much time in public schools is spent waiting in lines .. well. True. We did not try home school, but interested, and supportive of the choice.

Some private schools encourage and help support home school families. My grdaughter’s former Catholic school offers some classes for home schoolers to join, Latin is one. Also, sports and church activities are available. One nearby Illinois home school family recently requested their children be allowed to participate in public school athletics - this was allowed, citing they pay school taxes, just like everyone else. (i read in local news reports.)

There is a lot to consider. Regardless of choice, PARENTS deserve to be empowered in their very important God-designed roles.
Many are able. Many are willing to sacrifice. It is a sacrifice, of time, money, and heart. “Labor of love.”
Not just for the wealthy.

[joshuabgood]

A return to 1950s style discipline isn't the answer. Further, like I mentioned earlier, when you really look at the numbers of the drop-outs and all the marginalized people groups (often but not always Bipoc) the statistics change substantially.

Effective teachers can manage children in any school in the country, including those in NYC.

Having taught everybody from old order Menno's to inner city NYC "failing" middle schools the underlying issues are the same.

[temporal1]

A return to 1950s style discipline isn't the answer. Further, like I mentioned earlier, when you really look at the numbers of the drop-outs the statistics change substantially.

Effective teachers can manage children in any school in the country, including those in NYC.

Having taught everybody from old order Menno's to inner city NYC "failing" middle schools the underlying issues are the same.

i’m not sure what “style” discipline Thomas Sowell ascribes to.
but he is describing successful present-day NYC charter schools. i recommend listening to him.

[Josh]

You’re being facetious, Thomas Sowell expands on your point.
His views are not more costly. He cites DISCIPLINE as an important factor. Imagine that.

Discipline is one of the factors that was mentioned in the article I quoted above:

Disruptive children are stealing teaching time in 80,000 U.S. schools. Our discipline collapse is a national tragedy. These results are derived from a 2004 study titled “Teaching Interrupted” published by the Brooklyn think tank, Public Agenda.

This is mostly because of academics and ideologues who have promoted no-discipline classrooms.

Literacy is now higher in some third world countries. For example, Kenya has, arguably, a better educational system than many public school districts in America. They also have a more traditional model of discipline.

[Josh]

A return to 1950s style discipline isn't the answer. Further, like I mentioned earlier, when you really look at the numbers of the drop-outs and all the marginalized people groups (often but not always Bipoc) the statistics change substantially.

Effective teachers can manage children in any school in the country, including those in NYC.

Having taught everybody from old order Menno's to inner city NYC "failing" middle schools the underlying issues are the same.

Could you explain, then, why NYC schools produce such phenomenally bad results compared to OO Menno schools?

[Ken]

A return to 1950s style discipline isn't the answer. Further, like I mentioned earlier, when you really look at the numbers of the drop-outs and all the marginalized people groups (often but not always Bipoc) the statistics change substantially.

Effective teachers can manage children in any school in the country, including those in NYC.

Having taught everybody from old order Menno's to inner city NYC "failing" middle schools the underlying issues are the same.

Could you explain, then, why NYC schools produce such phenomenally bad results compared to OO Menno schools?

On what basis are OO Menno schools producing better results? Number of doctors produced? Number of Nobel Prize winners produced? Number of patents issued? Admission rates to colleges and universities?

For that matter, what measurement metric do OO Menno schools and NYC schools use that are even comparable? Do OO Menno schools collect any standardized data at all? If so, what kind?

[temporal1]

You’re being facetious, Thomas Sowell expands on your point.
His views are not more costly. He cites DISCIPLINE as an important factor. Imagine that.

Discipline is one of the factors that was mentioned in the article I quoted above:

Disruptive children are stealing teaching time in 80,000 U.S. schools. Our discipline collapse is a national tragedy. These results are derived from a 2004 study titled “Teaching Interrupted” published by the Brooklyn think tank, Public Agenda.

This is mostly because of academics and ideologues who have promoted no-discipline classrooms.

Literacy is now higher in some third world countries.
For example, Kenya has, arguably, a better educational system than many public school districts in America. They also have a more traditional model of discipline.

i’m glad you mentioned the universal importance of discipline in education. a key factor.
my daughter mentions how “extremely” demanding and competitive many Asian parents are in her area. beyond debate.
they seem extreme to us.

no matter approach, gentle or extreme, discipline is an important factor in results.
altho it’s become a dirty word in U.S. lib politics, academia, and fashion. “you’ll be sorry” ..