- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Surprising absolutely no one, our education system is shit.
The average reading and math scores of American high school seniors fell to their lowest levels in two decades in 2024, according to new national data released last week.
The results, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), found that, on average, reading scores for 12th graders were 10 points lower in 2024 than they were in 1992, when the test was first administered, and that math scores fell to their lowest levels since 2005, when the math assessment began.
The test, administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is part of the US Department of Education, assessed roughly 19,300 12th-graders in math, 24,300 in reading and 23,000 eighth-graders in science between January and March of last year.
The report found that 35% of seniors “performed at or above” the NAEP’s “proficient” level in reading, and 22% were at or above that level in math.
It also stated that 45% of 12th graders scored below the NAEP’s “basic” level in math, marking a five percentage-point increase from 2019. In reading, 32% of students scored below the basic level, which was a two-point increase from 2019.
One-third of seniors met the standard for proficiency in reading and one-fifth in math, give or take a couple of percentage points, bringing me to dust off some cruft and quote George W. Bush:
“Is our children learning?”
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Fun fact; despite this, student’s scores across the nation on standardized tests like the SAT and PSAT were higher than ever last year, with many students achieving perfect scores.
It’s almost like the College Board lowered their testing standards to disguise just how terrible U.S. students are.
More like a great deal of high school students simply don’t bother with sat/psat as the institutionalization of academia has made school so aversive they’re desperate to be done as soon as possible combined with a culture that glorifies anti-intellectualism.
Basically you’re seeing a selection bias. Quick web search shows about 16.8 million us high school students. In 2023 about 3.65 million took psat (lower bar, usually offered in school) and in the class of 2024 about 1.97 million took the sat at least once. So about 25% took psat and 12-13% took sat.
So basically it’s a representation more of a fairly small subset of privileged children who have access to things like supportive families that emphasize the importance of education, paid tutoring, private education in areas where public school are bad, public schools that are simply better funded, more affluent, etc
Within a couple years of my time taking the SAT (there wasn’t even a writing portion yet), the College Board “recentered” scores, leading to inflation. 1600 used to be a unicorn score that was a golden ticket. I only got a 1450, and that was still enough to open doors. If everyone’s getting perfect scores, what the fuck is the point of the test?
Collect fees?
You know, it’s funny. In high school, the College Board felt like some prestigious sort of organization of academics … I mean, College is right in their name!
Ah, to be young, dumb and able to get 59-cent tacos.
Ding ding ding.
It’s a shame that standardized testing got so corrupted for profit. While it’s always had a bias towards wealth, a high score on a well crafted standardized test is something very studious students can achieve regardless of race, gender, or class. When a perfect or near-perfect score was something to seriously strive for, it provided an easy to understand route for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to still attend prestigious schools, oftentimes on academic scholarships. Fast forward to now, and you’re seeing most of the prestigious schools in the U.S. start to refuse SAT scores because they know it’s become such a racket.
I had a free ride to Arizona State on account of my PSAT score. But 18 years is enough of a sentence in Phoenix. Actually seeing clouds seemed like a nice change of pace.
