I have a maid with a daughter. Her daughter is in fourth grade, but she does not even know how to read, so she is practicing recently, but I am unsure as to how she is in fourth grade when she cannot even read.
I just want to know why in the Philippine context.
I am asking this in this sub reddit because I have low karma, but I appreciate all of your answers!!
Well, as we end the school year, we sometimes hear about low standardized test scores like PSAT or STAR for math and English, depending on the state.
In my opinion, its because we don't put it more on the students to do well. I mean, I find that if a student does poorly, they are not held back a grade, and still allowed to graduate even after years of performing poorly.
Why do they put this on the schools or teachers if students don't care? Which is some ways I understand why, because there is no repercussion for scoring poorly.
I mean I have been teaching HS math for over 15 years. Earlier on, I had to take the PRAXIS. I had to do well because it opened up the doors for me to teach math. If it meant nothing, why would I try?
Why would a lawyer, doctor, accountant, or any major that requires specialized exams try if it didn't determine whether or not they could practice in their career?
I'm angry about it. Maybe this isn't all states, but in the state I'm at, we CANNOT incentivize standardized test scores for grades. Even giving the kids "a free day" or a "free prom ticket" is sketchy.
I've talked about importance, I've made sure my standards align with subject matter, but I just don't think students take them seriously.
This is making me want this to be my last year teaching math because of this.
I'm tired of feeling like these are "my test scores" rather than "the student's test scores".
[edit - Sorry if this is the wrong forum. I wasn't sure.]
Hello. I am a potential teacher trying to find a teaching job for next school year.
I am just wondering, if I see there are multiple unrelated teaching positions posted, and I am interested in all of them, and they are all at the same school, then should I apply for all of them or should I just apply for one of them? (For example, elementary school teacher, middle school or high school math teacher, computer teacher, etc.)
On the one hand, it almost seems like if I apply for three jobs then I'll have three times the chance of getting hired.
On the other hand, I'm afraid that if I apply for three jobs then maybe I'll actually have zero chance of getting hired (because the principal or hiring manager will see my applications and may think my career goals are too unfocused or that I'm just spamming my resume indiscriminately hoping to get lucky, and then they'll conclude "This guy can't be serious").
[edit - It almost might be worth noting that I am looking only at charter schools and private schools. I don't have credentials to teach in public school, and I really don't wish to teach in public school anyway.]
Asking out of pure curiosity.
Personally, I sometimes feel like both students and teachers take the “easy” way out. It can feel as if all parties involved are, in a sense, a bit “lazy,” and that there is a general lack of enthusiasm compared to before. At least, that is how I interpret it.
I’m wondering whether this is just a coincidence, whether I’m misinterpreting the situation, and/or whether this is a relatively new thing. Were things actually better before, or does it just seem that way?
Being educated is becoming more important every year. Let me paint the picture...
We are entering a world flooded with algorithm optimized content, AI generated information, fake expertise, rage bait, and endless short-form stimulation. Every day it becomes harder to tell what is deeply researched and what was generated in 12 seconds for engagement.
Most people are no longer learning. They are consuming fragments.
A 30 second clip about psychology. A tweet about economics. A viral infographic about history. A podcast clip about philosophy. Thousands of disconnected pieces of information with no structure behind them. And when knowledge becomes fragmented, people become easier to manipulate.
Without deep understanding of history, media systems, psychology, science, economics, and human nature, people slowly lose the ability to think independently. They inherit opinions from algorithms instead of building understanding themselves. I genuinely think attention span and deep learning are becoming forms of self defense now.
Read books. Go deep into subjects. Organize your own thoughts. Build your own worldview carefully instead of outsourcing it to recommendation systems.
Books like Sapiens, The Psychology of Money, biographies, philosophy, history, and sociology honestly changed how I see the world more than years of social media ever did.
One thing that helped me a lot was using Obsidian to organize ideas, notes, quotes, concepts, and connections between topics. Once you start connecting ideas across books and fields, learning becomes much deeper and more personal instead of just “consume information to forget information.”
I also realized learning became much easier once I switched from endless visual content to more audio first learning. For this I use BeFreed and It’s an audio first micro learning app that turns books, psychology, biographies, history, productivity, basically anything into really fun podcast style episodes. You can personalize learning plans based on your goals/interests/level and even customize the podcast host’s voice/style. Some episodes honestly feel more like entertaining conversations than studying, which made learning much easier to stay consistent with.
The internet wants you distracted because distracted people scroll more. But people who can focus deeply, think critically, organize knowledge, and continue educating themselves will become increasingly valuable in the future.
Get educated. Protect your attention span. Organize your knowledge. Pass good ideas on to other people.
Humanity genuinely needs thoughtful people right now.
I’m not an educator but have been reading horror stories of how poorly students are faring now. Slower learners taking time from those who learn faster etc. It made me think me about a program we were enrolled in back in the 70’s, IPI. We learned at our own speed, I think we used microfilm or something. It seemed to work, my siblings and I tore through the learning, they ran out of lessons for my 6th grade sister, she was reading at the 12th grade level. I looked online and see some programs with that title but it doesn’t seem wide spread. It seems it could help the more advanced students to learn on their own instead of waiting their turn. Thoughts? Why was this not more accepted? What was the problem with it? Learning was never the same after we moved away. I’ll mention this was Newport Beach, Ca, a fairly wealthy community with more resources than most I’d imagine.
Hi all, I'm running for mayor in Louisville this year. I've written a set of Op-Eds, including this article below. Just posting here so that those interested might know that the discourse is happening. Thanks for reading 😄
---
Every few months, we get news about JCPS. "Louisville's schools are failing." While the numbers we see are real, the repeated conclusion is just not supported by the facts.
Here is what the test scores leave out: Nearly one in four children in this city attends a private school, more than twice the state average. The Catholic Archdiocese alone enrolls roughly 19,000 students across Louisville. Add the other private schools, the evangelical academies, the classical programs, the Montessori and Waldorf schools, and homeschool families, and you are looking at roughly 27,000 children who live here, whose families pay taxes here, who will work and vote and raise their own children here, and who do not appear anywhere in the data used to declare our schools a failure. That is about 23% of all students, compared with 8% in Oldham and Shelby counties, and barely 3% in Bullitt.
Private school (of any stripe) attendance tends to suggest higher-income households, which research consistently shows to be among the strongest predictors of standardized test performance. When we exclude those students from the city's educational accounting, we have not measured Louisville's children as a whole. We have measured the effects of concentrated poverty and called it a school problem. If we assessed Louisville's children as a city, rather than only as a district, the picture would look materially different. The only viable conclusion from standardized testing is this: many Louisville students are living in conditions that standardized tests are very good at measuring and very bad at solving.
This matters because diagnoses drive prescriptions. If you believe JCPS is failing because teachers are failing, because the district is mismanaged, or because public schools are structurally incapable, then you reach for a familiar set of tools: vouchers, privatization, state takeover, and the slow withdrawal of public investment. I'm from Floyd Co KY, possibly the first district to have ever been placed in receivership by the state, and oddly enough they didn't change anything other than remove parents' rights and oversight. It didn't make things better. The state ended its takeover after a few years with no progress on its stated goals.
An honest diagnosis of our city's education problems is harder and less convenient, because it centers on address history. What zip code a child is born into, and what wealth that zip code has been allowed to accumulate, or has been systematically prevented from accumulating, over generations. The redlining maps of 1937 and the test score maps of today are basically identical. Urban health outcomes. Urban burn sites. Urban Renewal locations. They're all the same map.
The key insight here, first laid out I think by Grawermeyer Award in Education winner Diane Ravitch in The Death and Life of the Great American School System, is that many of the strongest educational tools aren't even school board decisions. They're municipal priorities.
Affordable housing near strong schools expands access to ed.
Reliable transit expands opportunity.
Well-funded libraries support literacy, adult education, and workforce development.
Safe neighborhoods improve attendance.
Stable families improve learning.
We can even expand the Blessing in a Backpack program to send a mealkit for 4 home with every child, so that the question of "where's the next meal coming from" isn't an issue.
None of this excuses real problems inside JCPS. But these problems are downstream of concentrated poverty and decades of disinvestment, which the city must address.
