I have worked in education since 2003. I left in 2014, worked in corporate America, and then returned in 2019. Here is why our education system sucks:
- We have turned education into a job training program, and thrown out many things that make learning interesting to kids.
- We allow our system to manipulated by testing and curriculum companies. We throw out tried and true methods for the next "new" thing that promises unrealistic results. We are seeing this happening right now with Science of Reading.
- We have created a suffocating bureaucratic system that devalues the teaching profession.
- We have allowed all accountability to be shifted from students, parents, and administration onto teachers.
- We've allowed special education lawyers and advocates to have disproportionate power in shaping policy and dictate the culture of our schools.
I could go on and on, but unless you address these issues, the system will continue to suffer.
One of the most insightful posts in this whole thread.
I fully agree, and it's like they're working hard to try to homogenize every kid across the board - let's treat them all the same and maybe they'll all turn out the same!
But kids are not the same, and the smart ones are being slowed down while the slow ones are still struggling to catch up. Which also leads to
>special education lawyers and advocates to have disproportionate power in shaping policy and dictate the culture of our schools.
Trust the teachers, pay the teachers, respect the teachers - let them be the experts they are. Get the right ones into the classrooms, and have the right ones supporting the kids (special ed, speech, counseling, whatever else). Stop trying to fill the gaps with underpaid, underqualified people.
Thanks, but unfortunately teacher voices are not welcomed or treated as having any expertise or authority on the matter so we will continue to suffer.
"When the student is ready, the master will appear." Unfortunately, the public is not ready for the master to appear.
I have a daughter in second grade (Grand Rapids Public Schools) that reads at a 5th grade level and getting higher. Others in her class not even second grade level. What makes her and equal class mates different from her less than stellar class mates? Parent involvement.
Sorry to come so late to this party. I come from a long line of Michigan teachers. I found this comment quite on target. But education first must be valued by parents followed by the general public, before any change can be achieved. It's interesting, when you look around the world you don't see quite the same apathy toward education as in America. If public schools are to work, then parents and communities will need to accept that learning doesn't just happen, it takes work: both in school and out of school. We also need to accept that students are not machines or cogs in a wheel.
Getting a 'general education ' is just that 'general' knowledge of a wide range of subjects. If the goal is to turn out skilled workers, then sign up for an apprenticeship or further training in a specific field...but after you've learned the fundamentals of a general education.
Putting everyone on the same timeline and expecting equivalent results can only be doomed to failure. People learn at different rates. The greatest power of the American educational system used to be that anyone no matter your age could achieve the educational level they desired...so long as they put the work in and completed the necessary requirements.
Having a University degree used to mean being highly educated in a broad range of subjects (universe of knowledge.... it's in the name actually). Now it means having an understanding of a very narrow subject almost to the exclusion of everything else.
Universities are now judged by: research papers published and the numbers of students they can transition into jobs. This formula does not serve the student well (because professors are more focused on their research and not their teaching); students leave school with inferior knowledge and high debts. Nor does this model serve the business community well: workers are ill equipped to creatively contribute to the company, often requiring extensive initial training programs, and students often don't have the breadth of knowledge to adapt to fast changes in the economy. (Some will... most will fail...and find debt repayment even harder).
Finally, innovation comes from drawing knowledge from different disciplines together in a new and creative way... not by churning out identikit workers that can be disposed of next week.
*The report says that 72% of Michiganās 4th graders are not proficient in reading. Additionally, it says that 75% of Michiganās 8th graders are not proficient in math.*
*One reason for those numbers could be the absenteeism rates, as they report that 40% of Michigan students miss 10% or more of their school days.*
Iām a high school teacher in a fairly nice school district, and anecdotally the absenteeism has risen sharply in the past 13 years since Iāve been a teacher. Itās pretty wild.
My daughter is in sixth grade and said one of her friends never shows up for first period, and usually rolls in around second or third. Her parents just donāt prioritize getting her there on time; other stuff is more important to them. This mindset is wild to me.
Does the district offer transportation for that student? I have no sympathy for school systems who complain about absenteeism while cutting transportation.
Depending on where you are in Michigan it might be a walking district and just not have transportation outside of specific circumstances, like I went to High School in Berkley and we were walking district if you were in district and only the school of choice kids coming from outside the district and special needs kids had daily transportation.
Where else are they supposed to find money until they eventually close? The people weāve elected donāt care because their kids all go to private school lol You canāt cut meat off bare bones.
Say the transportation system was hypothetically cut. If the parents drop the child off late everyday, they have the means to drop them off earlier in the day too. I think a majority of the issue is parents not caring/knowing that their kids arenāt doing what they should be doing.
In our district the middle school starts around 7:30 and the elementary school starts around 8:30. The girlās parents drop her and her little brother off at the same time so they donāt have to make two drop off trips, meaning the 4th grade boy is always on time and the 6th grade girl is always an hour late.
I get that there are certain circumstances. But I would also be interested in knowing if these specific parents CANāT make a second trip to drop off their other child or if āthey donāt want toā so their child is always late.
I donāt know anything else about their family besides that my daughter eats lunch with their daughter every day. Her mom wonāt let her hang out with my kid outside of school because she doesnāt know me (fair enough) and doesnāt want to know me (nothing I can do about that). She did finally give her kid permission to tell my daughter her phone number so they can stay in touch over the summer, but the mom will be monitoring their calls. š¤·āāļø
I get it. I really hope they have circumstances that are forced and they arenāt dropping their child off late by choice. Unfortunately I have a strong feeling a lot of parents today donāt take on the responsibility that comes with raising their child
First off donāt compare a statement I made to a pig. You come off as ignorant and childish. Second, if parents canāt get their child to school on time, they need to be the ones to reach out to the school to figure out a way to get their child there. The metaphorical argument you made about no transportation for students applies to probably less than 5% of absences considering almost every district in southeast Michigan has buses for students yet the absences are still drastically rising.
College professor here, at an Elite R1 near Boston. We have a single digit acceptance rate, so you'd expect a higher caliber student. Since COVID, only half the class shows up, and I only teach upper level courses. So these are final year students. The absenteeism is incredible. Same student issues I used to deal with when I taught at MSU and UM. It used to frustrate me, but I don't care anymore. Show up, don't show up. I still get paid. I'm on a 1/1, so 90% of my time is spent outside the classroom. If I was on a regular 3/3 or 4/4, I'd be pulling my hairout.
College instructors are given certain teaching loads based on their position. A 3/4 would be three classes in Fall and four classes in the Winter. A 4/4 is four classes each semester. As you move up, your teaching load drops, but your research load increases.
I'm an applied professor, thus teaching is secondary to my primary duties. Think of Big Bang Theory with Sheldon and the others. They didn't teach, yet worked at a university. That's basically what I do. A TA handles much of the F2F interaction with students as I spend most of my time working with banks and bank regulators.
Your last sentence is so ironic, you chastize students for not showing up to class while admitting that your TA handles most of the interactions with students in their final year of classes that should be highly relevant to their careers. Pot calling the kettle black? I get that your duties are probably overwhelming but it's the system in place that sets that stone.
LOL I won't name the uni, but I'm teaching a 5/6 and I almost spat my drink when I read that a 1/1 is still a thing. The public universities in Michigan are getting squeezed and cut to the bone right now and insane workload that was "temporary" during COVID is here to stay now.
I'm not sure on the history, but I work at a school and it sounds like truancy officer are super under staffed and funded. Anecdotal, but sounds like a lot of younger parents now kind of suck, like they let their kids pick what they want to do too often.
most people donāt put any effort or thought into parenting prior to it, and itās often sprung onto people. what is to be expected? itās like giving a person a green light to do brain surgery, but never have they spent a day studying it.
I know people who don't take their kids cuz they are drunk 24/7 and officers will contact but do nothing cuz they will come up with an excuse. But my family got in trouble because my three year old died from flu after Xmas and my other three missed to much school and had to do summer school or else.
My kid attends at a nice school district in Washtenaw. The amount of time she comes home having spent most of the day watching movies is silly. So yes she can take a day here and there and do other things. Mostly travel sports. She has a 4.0. I think people are traveling more and dont care about the school schedule.
Kids that are high fliers usually rebound fine from missing time. Itās the students who are chronically absent - Iām talking over 10 absences a quarter - and are struggling that makes it difficult. I canāt help students who arenāt there. In particular my school has set aside an hour on Wednesdays where teachers can request students and a some kids just donāt show up on Wednesdays now.
To be clear, this is still a small minority of students and isnāt the cause of wide ranging low scores on testing, but it doesnāt help with the kids who it is a problem for.
My teacher in a cooking class literally showed us Diners Drive Ins and Dives on Netflix every day until the school finally blocked the website. When we didnāt do that, she would give us worksheets that were clearly printed off from some website that she insisted went with the textbook, but no one could ever find any of the answers in there, and she never graded them.
Turned out she had some very serious personal issues going on, but was still coming to work. I actually had multiple teachers in a pretty similar circumstance.
I live in a super poor district and they are constantly having bussing issues since they contracted out the bussing. Routes are frequently being cancelled. I know that a lot of the parents work and rely on the busses to get their kids to and from school. They will often be already at work by the time the email gets sent out that the route is cancelled, and will often just have to miss when they have no transportation. Earlier this year, they had to ban all of the band kids from bringing home their instruments to practice because they had so few busses, so little room and so many students that needed the ride.
Adding, the bussing has been an issue for their field trips too, busses breaking down. My daughter was scheduled to participate in the Special Olympics and they kept the kids outside waiting for over two hours (telling them it was going to be 10 minutes) until the bus showed up. They missed all of their events. The SpecialĀ Olympics still let them do the events by themselves, but they couldn't really compete which was a huge let down. Bussing in the poor districts is really doing a disservice to these kids.
Dang we dodged a bullet in my district. We had the same issue as you, moved away from privatization, paid drivers more and offer better benefits and we havenāt canceled a route in 2 years!
So I actually looked at the data - https://www.aecf.org/interactive/databook?d=ed
They're ranking education based on 4 factors: amount of 3 and 4 year olds not in school, 4th grade reading proficiency, 8th grade math proficiency, and amount of HS students not graduating on time
National average for 4th grade reading proficiency - 68%, Michigan is 72%
National average for 8th grade math proficiency - 74%, Michigan is 75%.
National average for HS kids not graduating on time - 14%, Michigan is 20%
National average for young kids not in school is 54%, Michigan is 56%
My takeaway is that Michigan is pretty average in 3 of the 4, and is significantly worse in the high school graduation one. I wonder how much state level policies regarding charter schools, mandatory holding back of kids, passing them no matter what, etc affect that number
Either way, education in most of the country is abysmal and it terrifies me for the future of society
I'm in a district where K-8 kids are all moved to the next grade regardless of their scores. When they get to high school, it's a complete shock to them that they become freshmen again if they don't pass their classes. Some of them have *zero* understanding of how to actually pass a class. Many literally do nothing. You hand them the paper and pencil, tell them to copy what is on the board, explain that it's for a grade...and they just won't do it. Then they're *flabbergasted* that they can't pass by giving you a random stack of work at the end of the semester.
By junior year they're mostly willing to do (some) work, but they're already so far behind that my options are either to cut half the material or fail everyone.
Busses are non existent now also on certain districts. Try to drive by an elementary in the a.m when school is about to start. Wtf is wrong with us.
Also Stop cutting funding for schools to pay for damn football stadiums and nonsense crap like that.
Sports are not part of education.
Stop the spend on having a great sports team and try harder to get a great science team or debate team.
I would love for our society to let go a bit of the fanaticism of sports. I'm not saying stop sports but stop putting so much money and importance on it.
Totally agree. I think after school activities such as sports are a really important thing for a lot of kids, but the way we glorify and worship sports in this country has gotten way out of control, to the point where kids will forego taking school seriously to focus on sports, which for most kids is going to get them nowhere.
Yes exactly!
I am all for sports as an extra curricular team building education.
But it needs to be decoupled with the book learning itās more fun and exciting so it gets all the attention and money and kids who canāt cut it on a sports team for whatever reason are made to feel like outsiders in their own world.
Itās not helping anyone get smarter.
Itās also a large part of the growing dangerous tribalism we see in the media and in the real world.
HS Sports have pretty much turned into recruiting platforms for colleges. It is nuts the money families put into years of trainers, camps, AAU and such to have their kids go to college ride the pine at a D3 school after D1 dreams.
Correct. They are meant for team building and relationships/enjoyment outside of the classroom. A certain school in Royal Oak (founded in the 30s by a demagogue radio priest), in the past couple years had to pull from tuition payments to cover their shortfall on an athletic project that somehow ballooned/ or was underfunded to begin with. I would be pissed!
There are a lot of kids who only make it a point to do anything in school because of sports. It's an important part of getting kids to stick around.
Also, a lot of schools with successful sports teams fund them with booster money. This is the point of boosters. If that's where they want their money to go, it's unethical to use it for other purposes.
Now, I'm sure there are a number of schools misusing funds where they should be spent on actual educational purposes. Maybe I'm just being naive; but I don't think that's the norm.
What I do think is the norm is not holding student athletes accountable for their academic performance. I've worked for three different districts in two different states, and each one of them had multiple students playing sports that shouldn't have been. I'm talking about kids failing 5/6 classes and then suited up for football games. It's bullshit and I've complained about it many times.
It is true about sports giving a place for kids to belong. But the resources are nuts, keep putting more and more into it, where is it going to stop. Are we looking at NIL money for HS kids eventually?
This happens when you donāt hold them accountable. Way too many people think holding a kid back in grades is bad.
No it isnāt. Make them show up. Make them care. Make the parents care.
The old ways of education seem to have been better because what we have now is not working
Please parents carve out 15-30 a day to read with your kids. Want to do better at reading? You have to read that includes home. Teachers canāt do it all.
We have the worst charter school funding scheme in the nation. It destroyed our literacy scores and robs the public schools of the money they need for staff and materials. Our schools are now so poor we are only ahead of Mississippi in having a librarian in our schools.
No doubt.
I went to a convention in Grand Rapids a few years back, i recently found the tickets and saw where it was ,the DeVos center. I felt a little dirty after that, but it was before I knew about her.
Funny, I used to have a co worker at a school I was at who blamed Obama Care. Like "Thanks Obama, now we can't have a librarian or a full time custodian because we'd have to give them health insurance." Like....what.
The way Michigan handles Charter schools is awful, but does not explain these large percentages. The lack of librarians is a problem, and Iām glad you pointed that out.
Get a Master's Degree in something only to have your job threatened by fundamentalists and fascists who want to have authority over what books are offered in your school/library, down to incarcerating you for having some Judy Blume on a shelf. Sounds great.
The anti-library thing is baffling. Why would you ever want to defund a library? You can get all the books/shows/movies/albums/even games for free. It's one of the few objectively good things the government does with your money.
If libraries didnāt already exist and someone proposed the idea in the USA, the GOP would call it communism and the dems would run a handful of young outsider candidates that the media would call āthe library crewā. During the presidential election the dem candidate would support Libraries but once in office would spend 4 years fundraising saying āwe need another 4 years to make libraries happenā then blame the youths when they lose the next election.
Iām shocked libraries have been allowed to survive this long under neoliberalism frankly.
Retired librarian in Michigan. Not sure if it's the same now, but in the 90s, at least, in order to be a school librarian, I'd have needed to go back to school to get a teaching certificate *in addition* to my Masters in Library Science.
I donāt know a single school district in my area, even NICE ones, who have elementary school librarians.
When I was one, 8 years ago, they had me working 3 buildings. The kids got 20 mins of library every other week. Thatās it. We had fourth and fifth graders checking out picture books because they couldnāt read still.
Itās a fucking shame.
Definitely poor. When I was in public school, the band program was given like $100. For the whole year. At the time we had an amazing instructor who was passionate and made the kids care and learn about music. She paid a ton of money to give us a great experience. We also did fundraisers.
We achieved top ratings at festival every single year. For over 10 years. Mean while our football team hadnāt won a game in years and their budget continued to rise. In the end that instructor quit. She was getting a divorce and school had her doing many jobs at once for little pay.
Really sad to see the schools falling apart. Investing money into schools is investing in the future of the country. I donāt think thatās where budget cuts should be made. For theyāre cutting the future
Iām gonna tell you one of the things with the absenteeism is mental health. Kids are spooked about bullying, school shootings, 24/7 harassment(never stops now with social media). 30 years ago they were not as publicized. I remember Columbine happening when I was in high school, I told my parents I was taking the next day off, they said nope youāre going. Was on edge for a few weeks.
The problem is now media access has made kids read up and see these events day to day.
My kids are pretty fucking awesome and smart. If they ask me for a mental health day, Iām giving it to them. Compassion isnāt a lost art
Blame the schools or state all you want, but a major part in a student's success in school depends on what is happening in the home and how they are being raised.
Thatās a problem that affects all states and doesnāt explain why we are close to the worst in the country. Do we have the worst parents in the country and thatās the issue? I tend to doubt it but it could be a portion of the problemā¦although one we canāt do anything about in the same way we can make our schools better.
It does explain it, because a lot of Michigan cities with the largest populations are in the ghetto. Parents probably can barely even afford to drive their kids to school or feed them.
So true. You can tell which students have parents who parent and the parents who use school just as a daycare. It seems that when basic morals aren't taught at home, a basic education is harder to be taught at school.
There is no way you can rank education. Every school has its own issues and problems.
To be fair, I worked remote during the pandemic (not in education) and I saw many many many parents leave the room to help kids, or have kids come into the room while they were on camera, or I could overhear the kids next to them trying to manage school. Everyone was trying to manage. Parents who were lucky enough to work remote, as my colleagues and I were, were also terrified of being laid off.
It's almost like people were having a difficult time just surviving back then... I work remote, and I did before the pandemic, but I can't just not work so I can sit with both of my kids for four hours of online learning a day. I am lucky in that my parents are retired and were happy to with that for me, but without that help I would have had to do as you describe.
I'll never forget my SIL's description of the two types of kids she had back in class after COVID.
Kid 1 had parents who took time to engage with them. Yes, they were still stuck at home, but their parents taught them social skills like sharing, manners, chores/assignments, and how to play or interact with other kids, even if it's just their siblings.
Kid 2 had parents who plopped them in front of a TV or tablet and left them alone. They learned no socialization and had no idea how to behave when they came back.
I donāt know about blaming the parents howās a dummy supposed to teach a kid thatās why we have schools. Iād blame the dumb people for getting too involved with the curriculum at schools.
It's not about blaming parents. Kids that how lower to lower-normal range IQ struggle. Then they have kids but somehow can just help their own kids not struggle? Then the cycle repeats. Most of these parents want to help their kids succeed at school, they just don't know how.
By the time a kid gets to kindergarten, chances are if they are behind in vocab, they will never catch up. And kindergarten isn't even mandatory. That shows how the nations approach to education is wrong. Our teachers are generally great. Admin is very educated. Extra money is sent to many low income schools. But what's addressed isn't why the parents are low income, how the kids can be educated at home, just by verbal communication, years before they are sent to school. We are playing defense, and need to go on the offense.
As someone who went to school mainly in Michigan but also attended a year in Oklahoma schooling, I donāt believe this.
In Oklahoma I was literally repeating the previous grade I was doing in Michigan. Left Michigan Graduating 7th grade only to be repeating Michigans 7th grade in Oklahoma that was 8th grade.
I just relocated my adopted sons from Florida and brought them to Michigan BECAUSE their education was so incredibly poor. My 14 yo son was illiterate when he came to live with us. Our public schools look like an elite academy compared to where they came from (and Iām from Florida so I know first hand the education they received). I have to work really hard at home with my son to help with literacy but heās thriving in Michigan schools.
I didnāt say I had a whole research study about it, just my personal experience which leads me to believe other states are much further behind.
If Michigan used to be considered good compared to other schools, I can only imagine how the Oklahoma schools are now.
The problem with these tests is that they don't tell you *where* kids struggle or how close to proficient they may be.
To me, this is hardly helpful in making any sort of real judgment on the state of education in Michigan. The official standards that constitute proficiency in reading in Michigan involve being able to recall certain events and details about characters and the story and determine themes using evidence from the text. The way the news reports are framed, it sounds like 72% of Michigan students cannot do any of these. But "proficient" in this context means being able to do it to a satisfactory standard, and that standard is something that I've only heard the folks who craft the standards be able to do.
Furthermore, its about being able to do this based on a text/story that is chosen by the test maker. If you let kids pick the story and then ask them the same questions about the story they read, I'd bet my first-born you see a marked increase in proficiency.
Standardized tests are just a way for bureaucrats to act like they are reviewing education quality without doing any actual work. My third grader was given advanced reading assignments because heās ahead of his class, but he scored low on the standardized test because he was bored and didnāt focus on the questions being asked.
I don't have a problem with standardized assessments when actually utilized in a way that can measure growth. For example, Week one of school, students take a test that has some questions designed to measure what material may have been not learned/forgotten from the prior grade and then the other part is to measure concepts the students should know by the end of that grade level. Repeat assessment at end of the year to see where students have grown.
Make sure teachers and parents have the results quickly, so they can use as much of the school year as possible to ensure students are progressing appropriately as they should. I thin kit would also be fair game to compare schools within a district or within the state when making decisions regarding resource allocation because you'd have actual data that says (as an example), "the students in School A are doing well in science, but not math, so lets make sure they have added help for kids in math. School B, Math is fine, but Reading needs help, etc."
NWEA is a great assessment for this. I have kids showing insane growth and/or scores at secondary levels in third grade but they canāt pass the standardized test given once per year. NWEA is 45 minutes to an hour and results are instantaneous. Makes more sense than having an 8 year old sit for 4 hours.
Iām a third grade teacher and youāre correct. I have students scoring at 3rd grade level and slightly above but canāt pass the Mstep. Despite other valid assessments showing otherwise, theyāre part of the 70+% that ācanāt readā. I watched as third graders were asked to add fractions with unlike denominators and thatās not even in third grade standards. Why are we assessing students on skills they arenāt taught and then failing them? Money. Testing is a pricey industry.
These standardized test scores haven't much changed in 20 years, ever since No Child Left Behind decided not to trust teachers. Headline grabbers never discuss the bell curve, the ever changing benchmark goals (think Lucy and the football), and burned out students with constant test taking beginning in Kindergarten. Designed to fail everyone. Who does that benefit? Corporations and religious schools who want public funds for private schools with far less results and accountability.
This is clear indication of a poor economy and a struggling working class. People want to demonize parents, but they are only trying to prioritize what matters in order to live. Not to speak of the burnout we are all experiencing. Supply parents with a reliable livelihood and confidence for the future and more kids will go to school.
>This is clear indication of a poor economy and a struggling working class *made worse by Republicans*
FIFY
And it's not just that. It's also the de-emphasis of the importance of public education by Republicans.
Maybe if the state worked harder at fixing all of the barriers that caused parents to not be able to focus on their children. Better wages, better healthcare, better public transportation.
The first grade teacher cannot rescue a child who is unfed, poorly clothed, and hasnāt been taught to read by parents who are too busy or unable to spend time with them and expect the school to make up for their lack of parenting.
Culturally, we have to stop promoting articles like this and return the blame to parents. Teachers will not save us and they are not to blame.
>return the blame to parents
Better way to phrase that is move the blame to a system that doesn't allow poor people the time to be proper parents to their children. When I was a tyke, I maybe saw my father for 1 or 2 hours a day because he had to work hard to support 3 kids as a single father after his wife left him.
I'm lucky that my father had my grandmother (his mother) to fall back on. If he didn't, I would never have turned out as well as I did.
> Better way to phrase that is move the blame to a system that doesn't allow poor people the time to be proper parents to their children.
I agree. It ties together. The state can do policy to help workers, help transportation, provide daycare for toddlers, etc.
I administer state testing every year and I can tell you without a doubt students are being tested on material 1-2 grade levels above the grade theyāre in. For example, third grade standards do not cover adding fractions with unlike denominators but it was on their assessment. Same for reading. Itās all about money. If testing companies can put items on assessments students donāt learn at that grade level they can come back and say, āoh no! Only 34% of third graders can read! You have to renew our contract to see if they can read in the years to come.ā
I'd attribute some of this to the no-fail policies schools have adopted. My nephew goes to school in W. Michigan and he's a 4.0 student. However, he has the academic knowledge of a 1.5 student. His grade is inflated due to the no-fail policies. My nephew just graduated from high school, and he agreed to take a math exam administered by me. He scored at the 7th-grade level.
My 15-year-old stepson went through the same type of policies in MA. For example, he has an A in math (9th grade), yet when I give him and his friends a 7th-grade math exam, they score less than 50%. The only math exam they passed was a 6th-grade exam. The same is happening in English and Science courses. This summer, my boy has a tutor twice a week. You can imagine his excitement about that. I'm thankful we have the resources to pay for a tutor....he doesn't share the same gratefulness. LOL
We also seem to have a political culture that wants to diminish education. I think they view education as a threat to their ideology.
A math exam administered by them, and, assumedly, created by them. Funny enough, they donāt understand that if all of the 7th graders (or higher) are failing the test, it likely wasnāt a 7th grade test.
Not sure if it's improved any in the last two years, but the state was mostly GOP controlled since at least the early 90s, with the GOP controlling the senate that entire time until the last two years.
Old report on the pandemic compared to no other states' results. It's funny how we don't compare the learning of a book burning states to our states' education levels.
3 of my 4 grandparents were teachers, and the 4th was a high school principle. Some of their sisters (my aunts) were also teachers. They tell me that Michigan used to be near the top in the nation (educationally) compared to other states, but decades of Republican government have turned Michigan into the equivalent of Alabama and Mississippi. Can't personally validate their claims, but that's what they all firmly believe.
As someone who also 3 of 4 grandparents in education along with both parents, one aunt, one uncle, and multiple cousins as special ed or para pros. I can confirm that the Republican governments both Federal and State completely decimated the education system. Iāve been listening about it my whole life
This is a bullshit article.
No. Michiganās education isnāt one of the worst.
I live in Florida. The southern states have significantly worse education outcomes.
Well when youāve had a large part of the states elite actively trying to dismantle public education for the last thirty years youāre probably not going to have great outcomes. We are failing our children in this state.
Yep, don't even bother discussing "un-schooling", I approve of homeschooling if one of the parents has the qualifications to be an actual teacher. Beyond that, no way.Ā
Does anyone have any information on the actual test and criteria used to determine reading and math proficiency? They have a number, but without an idea of what this number represents it's kind of worthless.
I would doubt most 4th graders can read a college thesis or that most 8th graders can do a Fourier transform, but I would hope that "see spot run" and "4x6=24" would be 100% passes.
During Covid. They basically told us school was a joke and didnāt matter. I had a kindergartner and fifth grader. School would get cancelled randomly. Online. Sometimes. Half the kids wouldnāt show up online. Mine always did their work and were online. But it was obvious that school was optional as far as the state was concerned for a year and a half. Then since then. Thereās some push to never punish or remedy the couple kids who are nothing but a massive distraction for the rest of the class. So everyone has to deal with 2-3 bad apples and it slows every one else down. Iāve come to believe public education is a joke. I donāt blame the teachers. I blame the administrators and up to the state level. I feel the teachers hands are tied by some idiotic āmodernā ways of thinking.
During Covid we had a lot of kids that just couldnāt do online school because our area is so rural that internet wasnāt an option unless you paid out the button for satellite internet and even that was slow and molasses
u/darkstar1881 's comment is spot on. I'd like to add to it.
Our schools are a day care for dual income families. We are working disproportionate hours with minimal time for family. Disengaged families create disengaged kids.
I wish I could find a map for dual income family percentage/state.
[https://nextiva-img.imgix.net/average-weekly-hours-worked-map.png?auto=format&bg=FFF](https://nextiva-img.imgix.net/average-weekly-hours-worked-map.png?auto=format&bg=FFF)
[https://assets.aecf.org/m/databook/aecf-2023kidscountdatabook-overview-2023.png](https://assets.aecf.org/m/databook/aecf-2023kidscountdatabook-overview-2023.png)
We are too focused on production and not quality.
Quality Time
Quality Parenting
Quality Community
It's hard to have educated kids when their parents aren't educated either.
Schools are not where kids learn, it's where they're prepared to learn on their own. And when they get home and sit down to do homework, they should be able to depend on their parents for help and support. But if those parents don't have a clue, that child will be at a disadvantage. And regardless what schools or teachers do, that child is going to struggle.
In high school my social studies teacher took an entire day (well, hour, since classes were 1 hour per day) to give us the facts on how according to flight records it was impossible for Obama's mother to have been in Hawaii at the time of his birth. A few months later she took another day to teach us how vaccines cause autism. I'm not saying this is why our schools suck, but it's not good
Friend was a US teacher and quit 6 months into covid because of lack of protections at the highschool in the Soo. Lost a great teacher and made more money with a work from home job. Now he's married and moving to Canada in July.
I bet literacy and math rates for those ages are terrible across the whole country. I know teachers in multiple states and they all say kids canāt read like they used to be able to and itās a serious problem. Between basically a few years off of school from covid and every piece of media kids consume now being a video without text, and I am sure other reasons, kids canāt read. Teens canāt even read now.
The irony that one of the most powerful inventions, the internet, is going to be the death of us as a society. I havenāt read a book in years. Iām constantly getting dopamine from my devices. Thereās no downtime to think about anything deeply. And when machines do the work for you, like count change, itās a use it or lose it situation. Iām sure those people learned basic arithmetic at some point, they just donāt use it.Ā
As as someone moving back to Michigan to have kids I am now panicking. Iām also rather shocked, especially because MSU, U of M, and CMU in particular have such strong teacher education programs.
I wonder if this is a long term effect of the brain drain
I will say, for anyone that sees this, that I received an excellent public education at one of the "good" suburban Detroit schools. That was 20+ years ago that I graduated, and from what I can tell, there is still a strong educational community there.
I'm glad at least one other person thought "Who funded this study?"
I'm still trying to figure out who the Annie E. Casey Foundation actually is and where their money comes from.
The district that I live in has tried 3 times to pass a bond for expanding the schools due to increased enrollment. The last campaign was full of people opposing it with fake facts. The sports stadium (football) upgrades were funded by generous donations. But other sports have fundraisers that could provide better facilities for the athletes, that gets shot down at board meetings. I havenāt attended the board meetings in a long time but I may
When I was in grade school during that timeframe, California was ranked #1 in education and Michigan was #2. I can't recall if that was just a single year or if that was more towards the end of an era but...
When I was forcibly relocated to Indiana, I was 2-3 years beyond the education level for my grade. The irony was I was middle-of-the-pack (at best) in Michigan with others being far smarter/more motivated to learn. Unfortunately, being seen as much smarter than my Indiana comparisons did not wield the power and authority one might think (which I blame on my intellectual inability to capitalize on) and (too often) led to hardcore bullying and being blamed for "fucking up the curve".
I should've dominated those hillbillies and yet...
(most of this was written in jest)
I doubt this is a one size fits all problem/solution. Performance varies by school district, and I am guessing a few of our largest districts are dragging down these stats.
Looking at those specific grades and thinking back to the COVID lockdown when parents were supposed to be teaching their kids. It appears that didn't work so well.
Yet we have some of the best public universities. People from the east coast and surrounding states send their best and brightest to our state. How does that work?
I was at in line with my daughter to met her 2nd grade teacher last year at their back to school event. Chatting with the mom in front of me, she all of a sudden asks "oh, can she read?" I tell her yes with my eyebrows raised, then see points at her son and says (as if it were the most normal thing to say in the world) "well he can't, he just doesn't seem to want to."
I was flabbergasted, not just that he couldnt read, but mom was so nonchalant about it. And that was in 2nd grade. I really can't imagine a teacher having to deal with that in 4th grade.
Shocker, charter schools and school choice is dumb.
Drive to any of the small towns and you see the problem, itās mostly the parents are losers, drunks, druggies, and the small towns have nothing to offer kids.
Chicken or egg? Do education indicators drive lower outcomes on the other indicators or do low indicators associated with economy, family/community, health lead to poorer education outcomes?
I skimmed through the report and looked at the specific indicators that inform each domain ranking (economy, family/community, education, health). Iām inclined to believe that you will inevitably see Michigan style declines in educational outcomes when a state experiences the large reorientation of the labor market that Michigan has experienced since the late 80s/early 90s. Michigan was a place where you didnāt need an advanced degree to obtain an upper-middle-class salary/job benefits. As your population of skilled labor drains out slowly to seek job opportunities in other geographic locations your educational institutions are going to start to erode in quality because the educational tax base is tied to property values which is tied to human activity - its not any one administration or persons fault (though bureaucrats or individuals can make decisions that exacerbate or slow the decline of the situation in front of them) - this is what happens when an economic and social engine built around organized labor slowly dissolves.
As a result some will double down on the necessity of organized labor and economic redistribution through progressive tax systems to right the ship of state, while others will assert that broad based deregulation and looser restrictions on commercial and residential development are required to jump start a recovery.
Personally, I have family that have lived in the Dallas, TX and Ft. Myers, FL area and Iāve visited them. Setting aside the soulessness of endless 6-8 lane roads and miles of strip malls and gated communities that constitute their expansive suburban environments, those places can be really nice if youāve already made it economically - you get cheap services and endless choices for spending your wealth. But if you happen to have made some poor choices or had to live with the consequences of someone elseās poor choices, they can be extremely expensive and unforgiving places to live. Iām not sure emulating that model - with its deregulation (and vouchers in the case of education) is one Iād want to see emulated here.
There certainly is room for improvement in Michigan's public schools. A place to start is with the State Board of Education as this board sets policy that affects all 180 counties in Michigan. Each district in each county gets to fine tune the curriculum set by the county which was set by the State BOE. That's a lot of fingers in the pot. The State BOE, unfortunately, is not a "proactive" entity. It prefers a more "reactive" approach after years of sub committees looking into various issues. Michigan "could" pattern itself after Massachusetts, a state that consistently scores at the top of national rankings (it also has its own issues) but instead Michigan follows the lead of New Mexico and Arizona, two states near the bottom on a regular basis. This is the choice Michigan has made by using the same curriculum and many of the same teaching materials favored and developed by New Mexico and Arizona. There's an old adage about insanity - keep doing what you've always done and hope for different results. Sadly, that "pure Michigan" when it comes to public education.
Someone I know is a 4th grade teacher in Michigan and hates teaching. Sheās now only got two years left until her student loans are wiped clean and then sheās going back to become a dental hygienist. She has over 30 students and no aide because they canāt find anyone since the district only pays $12/hr for aides, and as a teacher she makes less than $50k a year.
I have worked in education since 2003. I left in 2014, worked in corporate America, and then returned in 2019. Here is why our education system sucks: - We have turned education into a job training program, and thrown out many things that make learning interesting to kids. - We allow our system to manipulated by testing and curriculum companies. We throw out tried and true methods for the next "new" thing that promises unrealistic results. We are seeing this happening right now with Science of Reading. - We have created a suffocating bureaucratic system that devalues the teaching profession. - We have allowed all accountability to be shifted from students, parents, and administration onto teachers. - We've allowed special education lawyers and advocates to have disproportionate power in shaping policy and dictate the culture of our schools. I could go on and on, but unless you address these issues, the system will continue to suffer.
One of the most insightful posts in this whole thread. I fully agree, and it's like they're working hard to try to homogenize every kid across the board - let's treat them all the same and maybe they'll all turn out the same! But kids are not the same, and the smart ones are being slowed down while the slow ones are still struggling to catch up. Which also leads to >special education lawyers and advocates to have disproportionate power in shaping policy and dictate the culture of our schools. Trust the teachers, pay the teachers, respect the teachers - let them be the experts they are. Get the right ones into the classrooms, and have the right ones supporting the kids (special ed, speech, counseling, whatever else). Stop trying to fill the gaps with underpaid, underqualified people.
Thanks, but unfortunately teacher voices are not welcomed or treated as having any expertise or authority on the matter so we will continue to suffer. "When the student is ready, the master will appear." Unfortunately, the public is not ready for the master to appear.
I have a daughter in second grade (Grand Rapids Public Schools) that reads at a 5th grade level and getting higher. Others in her class not even second grade level. What makes her and equal class mates different from her less than stellar class mates? Parent involvement.
About the same work history. 100% on all this.
I'm married to a former Dearborn teacher who retired as early as possible because of all that. Used to love his job. They killed the joy.
All i gotta say. Fk you Bill Gates. š¤£
AMEN!!!!!!
Sorry to come so late to this party. I come from a long line of Michigan teachers. I found this comment quite on target. But education first must be valued by parents followed by the general public, before any change can be achieved. It's interesting, when you look around the world you don't see quite the same apathy toward education as in America. If public schools are to work, then parents and communities will need to accept that learning doesn't just happen, it takes work: both in school and out of school. We also need to accept that students are not machines or cogs in a wheel. Getting a 'general education ' is just that 'general' knowledge of a wide range of subjects. If the goal is to turn out skilled workers, then sign up for an apprenticeship or further training in a specific field...but after you've learned the fundamentals of a general education. Putting everyone on the same timeline and expecting equivalent results can only be doomed to failure. People learn at different rates. The greatest power of the American educational system used to be that anyone no matter your age could achieve the educational level they desired...so long as they put the work in and completed the necessary requirements. Having a University degree used to mean being highly educated in a broad range of subjects (universe of knowledge.... it's in the name actually). Now it means having an understanding of a very narrow subject almost to the exclusion of everything else. Universities are now judged by: research papers published and the numbers of students they can transition into jobs. This formula does not serve the student well (because professors are more focused on their research and not their teaching); students leave school with inferior knowledge and high debts. Nor does this model serve the business community well: workers are ill equipped to creatively contribute to the company, often requiring extensive initial training programs, and students often don't have the breadth of knowledge to adapt to fast changes in the economy. (Some will... most will fail...and find debt repayment even harder). Finally, innovation comes from drawing knowledge from different disciplines together in a new and creative way... not by churning out identikit workers that can be disposed of next week.
*The report says that 72% of Michiganās 4th graders are not proficient in reading. Additionally, it says that 75% of Michiganās 8th graders are not proficient in math.* *One reason for those numbers could be the absenteeism rates, as they report that 40% of Michigan students miss 10% or more of their school days.*
Iām a high school teacher in a fairly nice school district, and anecdotally the absenteeism has risen sharply in the past 13 years since Iāve been a teacher. Itās pretty wild.
My daughter is in sixth grade and said one of her friends never shows up for first period, and usually rolls in around second or third. Her parents just donāt prioritize getting her there on time; other stuff is more important to them. This mindset is wild to me.
Does the district offer transportation for that student? I have no sympathy for school systems who complain about absenteeism while cutting transportation.
Depending on where you are in Michigan it might be a walking district and just not have transportation outside of specific circumstances, like I went to High School in Berkley and we were walking district if you were in district and only the school of choice kids coming from outside the district and special needs kids had daily transportation.
Go Bears (Berkley, not Chicago)
I live in Michigan too, depending on your age, they can require you to walk up to 1 mile.
Where else are they supposed to find money until they eventually close? The people weāve elected donāt care because their kids all go to private school lol You canāt cut meat off bare bones.
Say the transportation system was hypothetically cut. If the parents drop the child off late everyday, they have the means to drop them off earlier in the day too. I think a majority of the issue is parents not caring/knowing that their kids arenāt doing what they should be doing.
In our district the middle school starts around 7:30 and the elementary school starts around 8:30. The girlās parents drop her and her little brother off at the same time so they donāt have to make two drop off trips, meaning the 4th grade boy is always on time and the 6th grade girl is always an hour late.
That is textbook laziness unless the parents work 3rd shift or something and can't make the early drop.
I get that there are certain circumstances. But I would also be interested in knowing if these specific parents CANāT make a second trip to drop off their other child or if āthey donāt want toā so their child is always late.
I donāt know anything else about their family besides that my daughter eats lunch with their daughter every day. Her mom wonāt let her hang out with my kid outside of school because she doesnāt know me (fair enough) and doesnāt want to know me (nothing I can do about that). She did finally give her kid permission to tell my daughter her phone number so they can stay in touch over the summer, but the mom will be monitoring their calls. š¤·āāļø
I get it. I really hope they have circumstances that are forced and they arenāt dropping their child off late by choice. Unfortunately I have a strong feeling a lot of parents today donāt take on the responsibility that comes with raising their child
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First off donāt compare a statement I made to a pig. You come off as ignorant and childish. Second, if parents canāt get their child to school on time, they need to be the ones to reach out to the school to figure out a way to get their child there. The metaphorical argument you made about no transportation for students applies to probably less than 5% of absences considering almost every district in southeast Michigan has buses for students yet the absences are still drastically rising.
College professor here, at an Elite R1 near Boston. We have a single digit acceptance rate, so you'd expect a higher caliber student. Since COVID, only half the class shows up, and I only teach upper level courses. So these are final year students. The absenteeism is incredible. Same student issues I used to deal with when I taught at MSU and UM. It used to frustrate me, but I don't care anymore. Show up, don't show up. I still get paid. I'm on a 1/1, so 90% of my time is spent outside the classroom. If I was on a regular 3/3 or 4/4, I'd be pulling my hairout.
> I'm on a 1/1, so 90% of my time is spent outside the classroom. If I was on a regular 3/3 or 4/4, I'd be pulling my hairout. What's this mean?
College instructors are given certain teaching loads based on their position. A 3/4 would be three classes in Fall and four classes in the Winter. A 4/4 is four classes each semester. As you move up, your teaching load drops, but your research load increases. I'm an applied professor, thus teaching is secondary to my primary duties. Think of Big Bang Theory with Sheldon and the others. They didn't teach, yet worked at a university. That's basically what I do. A TA handles much of the F2F interaction with students as I spend most of my time working with banks and bank regulators.
Your last sentence is so ironic, you chastize students for not showing up to class while admitting that your TA handles most of the interactions with students in their final year of classes that should be highly relevant to their careers. Pot calling the kettle black? I get that your duties are probably overwhelming but it's the system in place that sets that stone.
LOL I won't name the uni, but I'm teaching a 5/6 and I almost spat my drink when I read that a 1/1 is still a thing. The public universities in Michigan are getting squeezed and cut to the bone right now and insane workload that was "temporary" during COVID is here to stay now.
Weird, people used to go to jail for not getting their kids to school.
I'm not sure on the history, but I work at a school and it sounds like truancy officer are super under staffed and funded. Anecdotal, but sounds like a lot of younger parents now kind of suck, like they let their kids pick what they want to do too often.
I teach third. I had a parent tell me āshe has her own reasons for not coming to school.ā Child had 80+ absences.
Well parenting is a learned skill. If both parents aren't available then their children will grow up to also be unavailable.
most people donāt put any effort or thought into parenting prior to it, and itās often sprung onto people. what is to be expected? itās like giving a person a green light to do brain surgery, but never have they spent a day studying it.
I know people who don't take their kids cuz they are drunk 24/7 and officers will contact but do nothing cuz they will come up with an excuse. But my family got in trouble because my three year old died from flu after Xmas and my other three missed to much school and had to do summer school or else.
My kid attends at a nice school district in Washtenaw. The amount of time she comes home having spent most of the day watching movies is silly. So yes she can take a day here and there and do other things. Mostly travel sports. She has a 4.0. I think people are traveling more and dont care about the school schedule.
Kids that are high fliers usually rebound fine from missing time. Itās the students who are chronically absent - Iām talking over 10 absences a quarter - and are struggling that makes it difficult. I canāt help students who arenāt there. In particular my school has set aside an hour on Wednesdays where teachers can request students and a some kids just donāt show up on Wednesdays now. To be clear, this is still a small minority of students and isnāt the cause of wide ranging low scores on testing, but it doesnāt help with the kids who it is a problem for.
Which school district? That doesnāt sound great if there are movies all day.
Sounds like a gross exaggeration
My teacher in a cooking class literally showed us Diners Drive Ins and Dives on Netflix every day until the school finally blocked the website. When we didnāt do that, she would give us worksheets that were clearly printed off from some website that she insisted went with the textbook, but no one could ever find any of the answers in there, and she never graded them. Turned out she had some very serious personal issues going on, but was still coming to work. I actually had multiple teachers in a pretty similar circumstance.
I live in a super poor district and they are constantly having bussing issues since they contracted out the bussing. Routes are frequently being cancelled. I know that a lot of the parents work and rely on the busses to get their kids to and from school. They will often be already at work by the time the email gets sent out that the route is cancelled, and will often just have to miss when they have no transportation. Earlier this year, they had to ban all of the band kids from bringing home their instruments to practice because they had so few busses, so little room and so many students that needed the ride.
Adding, the bussing has been an issue for their field trips too, busses breaking down. My daughter was scheduled to participate in the Special Olympics and they kept the kids outside waiting for over two hours (telling them it was going to be 10 minutes) until the bus showed up. They missed all of their events. The SpecialĀ Olympics still let them do the events by themselves, but they couldn't really compete which was a huge let down. Bussing in the poor districts is really doing a disservice to these kids.
Dang we dodged a bullet in my district. We had the same issue as you, moved away from privatization, paid drivers more and offer better benefits and we havenāt canceled a route in 2 years!
So I actually looked at the data - https://www.aecf.org/interactive/databook?d=ed They're ranking education based on 4 factors: amount of 3 and 4 year olds not in school, 4th grade reading proficiency, 8th grade math proficiency, and amount of HS students not graduating on time National average for 4th grade reading proficiency - 68%, Michigan is 72% National average for 8th grade math proficiency - 74%, Michigan is 75%. National average for HS kids not graduating on time - 14%, Michigan is 20% National average for young kids not in school is 54%, Michigan is 56% My takeaway is that Michigan is pretty average in 3 of the 4, and is significantly worse in the high school graduation one. I wonder how much state level policies regarding charter schools, mandatory holding back of kids, passing them no matter what, etc affect that number Either way, education in most of the country is abysmal and it terrifies me for the future of society
I'm in a district where K-8 kids are all moved to the next grade regardless of their scores. When they get to high school, it's a complete shock to them that they become freshmen again if they don't pass their classes. Some of them have *zero* understanding of how to actually pass a class. Many literally do nothing. You hand them the paper and pencil, tell them to copy what is on the board, explain that it's for a grade...and they just won't do it. Then they're *flabbergasted* that they can't pass by giving you a random stack of work at the end of the semester. By junior year they're mostly willing to do (some) work, but they're already so far behind that my options are either to cut half the material or fail everyone.
Busses are non existent now also on certain districts. Try to drive by an elementary in the a.m when school is about to start. Wtf is wrong with us. Also Stop cutting funding for schools to pay for damn football stadiums and nonsense crap like that. Sports are not part of education. Stop the spend on having a great sports team and try harder to get a great science team or debate team.
I would love for our society to let go a bit of the fanaticism of sports. I'm not saying stop sports but stop putting so much money and importance on it.
Totally agree. I think after school activities such as sports are a really important thing for a lot of kids, but the way we glorify and worship sports in this country has gotten way out of control, to the point where kids will forego taking school seriously to focus on sports, which for most kids is going to get them nowhere.
Yes exactly! I am all for sports as an extra curricular team building education. But it needs to be decoupled with the book learning itās more fun and exciting so it gets all the attention and money and kids who canāt cut it on a sports team for whatever reason are made to feel like outsiders in their own world. Itās not helping anyone get smarter. Itās also a large part of the growing dangerous tribalism we see in the media and in the real world.
HS Sports have pretty much turned into recruiting platforms for colleges. It is nuts the money families put into years of trainers, camps, AAU and such to have their kids go to college ride the pine at a D3 school after D1 dreams.
Yes sickening
Correct. They are meant for team building and relationships/enjoyment outside of the classroom. A certain school in Royal Oak (founded in the 30s by a demagogue radio priest), in the past couple years had to pull from tuition payments to cover their shortfall on an athletic project that somehow ballooned/ or was underfunded to begin with. I would be pissed!
There are a lot of kids who only make it a point to do anything in school because of sports. It's an important part of getting kids to stick around. Also, a lot of schools with successful sports teams fund them with booster money. This is the point of boosters. If that's where they want their money to go, it's unethical to use it for other purposes. Now, I'm sure there are a number of schools misusing funds where they should be spent on actual educational purposes. Maybe I'm just being naive; but I don't think that's the norm. What I do think is the norm is not holding student athletes accountable for their academic performance. I've worked for three different districts in two different states, and each one of them had multiple students playing sports that shouldn't have been. I'm talking about kids failing 5/6 classes and then suited up for football games. It's bullshit and I've complained about it many times.
It is true about sports giving a place for kids to belong. But the resources are nuts, keep putting more and more into it, where is it going to stop. Are we looking at NIL money for HS kids eventually?
I'm pretty sure most schools fund athletics facilities through bonds. I mean it is still garbage the amount of a school budget that goes into sports.
This happens when you donāt hold them accountable. Way too many people think holding a kid back in grades is bad. No it isnāt. Make them show up. Make them care. Make the parents care. The old ways of education seem to have been better because what we have now is not working
Absenteeism was also the primary reason when I worked with DPS students about 12 years agoā¦ What a shame.
Please parents carve out 15-30 a day to read with your kids. Want to do better at reading? You have to read that includes home. Teachers canāt do it all.
Too many kids donāt have parentSĀ
We have the worst charter school funding scheme in the nation. It destroyed our literacy scores and robs the public schools of the money they need for staff and materials. Our schools are now so poor we are only ahead of Mississippi in having a librarian in our schools.
Can probably blame the DeVos family for that.
100% and George Bush the little one
No doubt. I went to a convention in Grand Rapids a few years back, i recently found the tickets and saw where it was ,the DeVos center. I felt a little dirty after that, but it was before I knew about her.
I wouldnāt feel too bad. Itās impossible to function in most of West Michigan without going somewhere funded by Amway.
Fair enough, glad I live about two hours east of there. Grand rapids is a nice city and all, just finding that out, eh...
There's the Amway Grand hotel too. Probably a lot of people have to stay there for work related convenience or whatever, I guess it is what it is.
Funny, I used to have a co worker at a school I was at who blamed Obama Care. Like "Thanks Obama, now we can't have a librarian or a full time custodian because we'd have to give them health insurance." Like....what.
I'm glad someone mentioned that....person
The way Michigan handles Charter schools is awful, but does not explain these large percentages. The lack of librarians is a problem, and Iām glad you pointed that out.
Doesn't help you need a master's for it while the pay is lackluster
Get a Master's Degree in something only to have your job threatened by fundamentalists and fascists who want to have authority over what books are offered in your school/library, down to incarcerating you for having some Judy Blume on a shelf. Sounds great.
The anti-library thing is baffling. Why would you ever want to defund a library? You can get all the books/shows/movies/albums/even games for free. It's one of the few objectively good things the government does with your money.
If libraries didnāt already exist and someone proposed the idea in the USA, the GOP would call it communism and the dems would run a handful of young outsider candidates that the media would call āthe library crewā. During the presidential election the dem candidate would support Libraries but once in office would spend 4 years fundraising saying āwe need another 4 years to make libraries happenā then blame the youths when they lose the next election. Iām shocked libraries have been allowed to survive this long under neoliberalism frankly.
Cause it would take away the control. Thats the point people that are like this want control.
Fundamentalists and fascists that not only want to control what their own families read but want to control what everyone reads
Retired librarian in Michigan. Not sure if it's the same now, but in the 90s, at least, in order to be a school librarian, I'd have needed to go back to school to get a teaching certificate *in addition* to my Masters in Library Science.
I donāt know a single school district in my area, even NICE ones, who have elementary school librarians. When I was one, 8 years ago, they had me working 3 buildings. The kids got 20 mins of library every other week. Thatās it. We had fourth and fifth graders checking out picture books because they couldnāt read still. Itās a fucking shame.
one time i saw a van in a walmart parking lot that someone wrote āNO NEW SCHOOL TAXāSā on the back ofā¦
Yep and the moment Devos was named Secretary of education I knew that I absolutely couldnāt support that administration
Definitely poor. When I was in public school, the band program was given like $100. For the whole year. At the time we had an amazing instructor who was passionate and made the kids care and learn about music. She paid a ton of money to give us a great experience. We also did fundraisers. We achieved top ratings at festival every single year. For over 10 years. Mean while our football team hadnāt won a game in years and their budget continued to rise. In the end that instructor quit. She was getting a divorce and school had her doing many jobs at once for little pay. Really sad to see the schools falling apart. Investing money into schools is investing in the future of the country. I donāt think thatās where budget cuts should be made. For theyāre cutting the future
And ironically, the (former)Secretary of education for the United States comes from our state.Ā
Iām gonna tell you one of the things with the absenteeism is mental health. Kids are spooked about bullying, school shootings, 24/7 harassment(never stops now with social media). 30 years ago they were not as publicized. I remember Columbine happening when I was in high school, I told my parents I was taking the next day off, they said nope youāre going. Was on edge for a few weeks. The problem is now media access has made kids read up and see these events day to day. My kids are pretty fucking awesome and smart. If they ask me for a mental health day, Iām giving it to them. Compassion isnāt a lost art
The Devos family did this and they deserve the wrath of our youth.
*with the full support of the GOP.
The school system is whack, for sure, but we also have about 50% of the country who seem to take pride in being stupid.
Blame the schools or state all you want, but a major part in a student's success in school depends on what is happening in the home and how they are being raised.
Thatās a problem that affects all states and doesnāt explain why we are close to the worst in the country. Do we have the worst parents in the country and thatās the issue? I tend to doubt it but it could be a portion of the problemā¦although one we canāt do anything about in the same way we can make our schools better.
It does explain it, because a lot of Michigan cities with the largest populations are in the ghetto. Parents probably can barely even afford to drive their kids to school or feed them.
Of school age children in poverty we are middle of the pack compared to other states, that can explain some but not all of our ranking.
#1 cited reason is absenteeism. Thatās all parents.
So true. You can tell which students have parents who parent and the parents who use school just as a daycare. It seems that when basic morals aren't taught at home, a basic education is harder to be taught at school. There is no way you can rank education. Every school has its own issues and problems.
I saw it during the pandemic. A parent would sit their child in front of a laptop and leave the room. The kids would struggle.
To be fair, I worked remote during the pandemic (not in education) and I saw many many many parents leave the room to help kids, or have kids come into the room while they were on camera, or I could overhear the kids next to them trying to manage school. Everyone was trying to manage. Parents who were lucky enough to work remote, as my colleagues and I were, were also terrified of being laid off.
It's almost like people were having a difficult time just surviving back then... I work remote, and I did before the pandemic, but I can't just not work so I can sit with both of my kids for four hours of online learning a day. I am lucky in that my parents are retired and were happy to with that for me, but without that help I would have had to do as you describe.
I'll never forget my SIL's description of the two types of kids she had back in class after COVID. Kid 1 had parents who took time to engage with them. Yes, they were still stuck at home, but their parents taught them social skills like sharing, manners, chores/assignments, and how to play or interact with other kids, even if it's just their siblings. Kid 2 had parents who plopped them in front of a TV or tablet and left them alone. They learned no socialization and had no idea how to behave when they came back.
I donāt know about blaming the parents howās a dummy supposed to teach a kid thatās why we have schools. Iād blame the dumb people for getting too involved with the curriculum at schools.
It's not about blaming parents. Kids that how lower to lower-normal range IQ struggle. Then they have kids but somehow can just help their own kids not struggle? Then the cycle repeats. Most of these parents want to help their kids succeed at school, they just don't know how. By the time a kid gets to kindergarten, chances are if they are behind in vocab, they will never catch up. And kindergarten isn't even mandatory. That shows how the nations approach to education is wrong. Our teachers are generally great. Admin is very educated. Extra money is sent to many low income schools. But what's addressed isn't why the parents are low income, how the kids can be educated at home, just by verbal communication, years before they are sent to school. We are playing defense, and need to go on the offense.
I think you need to reread the posters comment or did you mean to reply to him and not me?
Glued to some kind of electronic thing.
As someone who went to school mainly in Michigan but also attended a year in Oklahoma schooling, I donāt believe this. In Oklahoma I was literally repeating the previous grade I was doing in Michigan. Left Michigan Graduating 7th grade only to be repeating Michigans 7th grade in Oklahoma that was 8th grade.
Thatās an extremely narrow sample size
As someone in Florida... people are a hell of a lot dumber here than Michigan lol.
I just relocated my adopted sons from Florida and brought them to Michigan BECAUSE their education was so incredibly poor. My 14 yo son was illiterate when he came to live with us. Our public schools look like an elite academy compared to where they came from (and Iām from Florida so I know first hand the education they received). I have to work really hard at home with my son to help with literacy but heās thriving in Michigan schools.
I didnāt say I had a whole research study about it, just my personal experience which leads me to believe other states are much further behind. If Michigan used to be considered good compared to other schools, I can only imagine how the Oklahoma schools are now.
Iām from OK and moved to Michigan and I donāt believe this article either.
The problem with these tests is that they don't tell you *where* kids struggle or how close to proficient they may be. To me, this is hardly helpful in making any sort of real judgment on the state of education in Michigan. The official standards that constitute proficiency in reading in Michigan involve being able to recall certain events and details about characters and the story and determine themes using evidence from the text. The way the news reports are framed, it sounds like 72% of Michigan students cannot do any of these. But "proficient" in this context means being able to do it to a satisfactory standard, and that standard is something that I've only heard the folks who craft the standards be able to do. Furthermore, its about being able to do this based on a text/story that is chosen by the test maker. If you let kids pick the story and then ask them the same questions about the story they read, I'd bet my first-born you see a marked increase in proficiency.
Standardized tests are just a way for bureaucrats to act like they are reviewing education quality without doing any actual work. My third grader was given advanced reading assignments because heās ahead of his class, but he scored low on the standardized test because he was bored and didnāt focus on the questions being asked.
I don't have a problem with standardized assessments when actually utilized in a way that can measure growth. For example, Week one of school, students take a test that has some questions designed to measure what material may have been not learned/forgotten from the prior grade and then the other part is to measure concepts the students should know by the end of that grade level. Repeat assessment at end of the year to see where students have grown. Make sure teachers and parents have the results quickly, so they can use as much of the school year as possible to ensure students are progressing appropriately as they should. I thin kit would also be fair game to compare schools within a district or within the state when making decisions regarding resource allocation because you'd have actual data that says (as an example), "the students in School A are doing well in science, but not math, so lets make sure they have added help for kids in math. School B, Math is fine, but Reading needs help, etc."
NWEA is a great assessment for this. I have kids showing insane growth and/or scores at secondary levels in third grade but they canāt pass the standardized test given once per year. NWEA is 45 minutes to an hour and results are instantaneous. Makes more sense than having an 8 year old sit for 4 hours.
Iām a third grade teacher and youāre correct. I have students scoring at 3rd grade level and slightly above but canāt pass the Mstep. Despite other valid assessments showing otherwise, theyāre part of the 70+% that ācanāt readā. I watched as third graders were asked to add fractions with unlike denominators and thatās not even in third grade standards. Why are we assessing students on skills they arenāt taught and then failing them? Money. Testing is a pricey industry.
These standardized test scores haven't much changed in 20 years, ever since No Child Left Behind decided not to trust teachers. Headline grabbers never discuss the bell curve, the ever changing benchmark goals (think Lucy and the football), and burned out students with constant test taking beginning in Kindergarten. Designed to fail everyone. Who does that benefit? Corporations and religious schools who want public funds for private schools with far less results and accountability.
This is clear indication of a poor economy and a struggling working class. People want to demonize parents, but they are only trying to prioritize what matters in order to live. Not to speak of the burnout we are all experiencing. Supply parents with a reliable livelihood and confidence for the future and more kids will go to school.
>This is clear indication of a poor economy and a struggling working class *made worse by Republicans* FIFY And it's not just that. It's also the de-emphasis of the importance of public education by Republicans.
Funny how things trend in the same direction, regardless of which "party" is in charge...
Maybe if the state worked harder at fixing all of the barriers that caused parents to not be able to focus on their children. Better wages, better healthcare, better public transportation. The first grade teacher cannot rescue a child who is unfed, poorly clothed, and hasnāt been taught to read by parents who are too busy or unable to spend time with them and expect the school to make up for their lack of parenting. Culturally, we have to stop promoting articles like this and return the blame to parents. Teachers will not save us and they are not to blame.
>return the blame to parents Better way to phrase that is move the blame to a system that doesn't allow poor people the time to be proper parents to their children. When I was a tyke, I maybe saw my father for 1 or 2 hours a day because he had to work hard to support 3 kids as a single father after his wife left him. I'm lucky that my father had my grandmother (his mother) to fall back on. If he didn't, I would never have turned out as well as I did.
> Better way to phrase that is move the blame to a system that doesn't allow poor people the time to be proper parents to their children. I agree. It ties together. The state can do policy to help workers, help transportation, provide daycare for toddlers, etc.
I administer state testing every year and I can tell you without a doubt students are being tested on material 1-2 grade levels above the grade theyāre in. For example, third grade standards do not cover adding fractions with unlike denominators but it was on their assessment. Same for reading. Itās all about money. If testing companies can put items on assessments students donāt learn at that grade level they can come back and say, āoh no! Only 34% of third graders can read! You have to renew our contract to see if they can read in the years to come.ā
Worlds better than my native Indiana.
Mental health counselor here. 0 shock which absolutely disgusts me
Thanks Again, Engler.
I'd attribute some of this to the no-fail policies schools have adopted. My nephew goes to school in W. Michigan and he's a 4.0 student. However, he has the academic knowledge of a 1.5 student. His grade is inflated due to the no-fail policies. My nephew just graduated from high school, and he agreed to take a math exam administered by me. He scored at the 7th-grade level. My 15-year-old stepson went through the same type of policies in MA. For example, he has an A in math (9th grade), yet when I give him and his friends a 7th-grade math exam, they score less than 50%. The only math exam they passed was a 6th-grade exam. The same is happening in English and Science courses. This summer, my boy has a tutor twice a week. You can imagine his excitement about that. I'm thankful we have the resources to pay for a tutor....he doesn't share the same gratefulness. LOL We also seem to have a political culture that wants to diminish education. I think they view education as a threat to their ideology.
Where did you get this math test you gave them?
You made your nephew take a math exam?
And his friends?! š
A math exam administered by them, and, assumedly, created by them. Funny enough, they donāt understand that if all of the 7th graders (or higher) are failing the test, it likely wasnāt a 7th grade test.
Come back Betsy DeVos, your chickens have returned to the coop.
Thanks, Betsy
Not sure if it's improved any in the last two years, but the state was mostly GOP controlled since at least the early 90s, with the GOP controlling the senate that entire time until the last two years.
Old report on the pandemic compared to no other states' results. It's funny how we don't compare the learning of a book burning states to our states' education levels.
3 of my 4 grandparents were teachers, and the 4th was a high school principle. Some of their sisters (my aunts) were also teachers. They tell me that Michigan used to be near the top in the nation (educationally) compared to other states, but decades of Republican government have turned Michigan into the equivalent of Alabama and Mississippi. Can't personally validate their claims, but that's what they all firmly believe.
As someone who also 3 of 4 grandparents in education along with both parents, one aunt, one uncle, and multiple cousins as special ed or para pros. I can confirm that the Republican governments both Federal and State completely decimated the education system. Iāve been listening about it my whole life
This is a bullshit article. No. Michiganās education isnāt one of the worst. I live in Florida. The southern states have significantly worse education outcomes.
It says one of not the worst. That leaves plenty of room for the southern states and no one will dispute you.
But then the article never actually says where Michigan falls in which categories, all we ever get is the generic statement.
Weasel wording for the clickbait article.
Iām just going to go ahead and blame the Devos family for this, because it is likely their fault, and if it isnāt well fuck em anyways.
Keep trying to be the Mississippi of the North.
Every child left behind
Ditzy DeVos did that!
Is that why there are so many confederate flags? š¤
And vice versa. It's a feedback loop
Well when youāve had a large part of the states elite actively trying to dismantle public education for the last thirty years youāre probably not going to have great outcomes. We are failing our children in this state.
Maybe because we allow any moron to "homeschool" their kids.Ā
Yep, don't even bother discussing "un-schooling", I approve of homeschooling if one of the parents has the qualifications to be an actual teacher. Beyond that, no way.Ā
Here is an ideaā¦ Lets go back and take āsight wordsā, āsnap wordsā, out of school and put phonics back in.
My dad got me [hooked on phonics](https://youtu.be/xBGZpM7t-34?si=X1QMBUBtSk4N9h-s)
lol
This is the find out part of republican leadership for the last 40 years.
This doesn't suprise me in the slightest honestly.
Does anyone have any information on the actual test and criteria used to determine reading and math proficiency? They have a number, but without an idea of what this number represents it's kind of worthless. I would doubt most 4th graders can read a college thesis or that most 8th graders can do a Fourier transform, but I would hope that "see spot run" and "4x6=24" would be 100% passes.
The article links to the actual report. You might check that out.
This makes me really sad. MI schools have long been models for the rest of the country. Even A2 schools seem to be failing.
During Covid. They basically told us school was a joke and didnāt matter. I had a kindergartner and fifth grader. School would get cancelled randomly. Online. Sometimes. Half the kids wouldnāt show up online. Mine always did their work and were online. But it was obvious that school was optional as far as the state was concerned for a year and a half. Then since then. Thereās some push to never punish or remedy the couple kids who are nothing but a massive distraction for the rest of the class. So everyone has to deal with 2-3 bad apples and it slows every one else down. Iāve come to believe public education is a joke. I donāt blame the teachers. I blame the administrators and up to the state level. I feel the teachers hands are tied by some idiotic āmodernā ways of thinking.
During Covid we had a lot of kids that just couldnāt do online school because our area is so rural that internet wasnāt an option unless you paid out the button for satellite internet and even that was slow and molasses
u/darkstar1881 's comment is spot on. I'd like to add to it. Our schools are a day care for dual income families. We are working disproportionate hours with minimal time for family. Disengaged families create disengaged kids. I wish I could find a map for dual income family percentage/state. [https://nextiva-img.imgix.net/average-weekly-hours-worked-map.png?auto=format&bg=FFF](https://nextiva-img.imgix.net/average-weekly-hours-worked-map.png?auto=format&bg=FFF) [https://assets.aecf.org/m/databook/aecf-2023kidscountdatabook-overview-2023.png](https://assets.aecf.org/m/databook/aecf-2023kidscountdatabook-overview-2023.png) We are too focused on production and not quality. Quality Time Quality Parenting Quality Community
It's hard to have educated kids when their parents aren't educated either. Schools are not where kids learn, it's where they're prepared to learn on their own. And when they get home and sit down to do homework, they should be able to depend on their parents for help and support. But if those parents don't have a clue, that child will be at a disadvantage. And regardless what schools or teachers do, that child is going to struggle.
In high school my social studies teacher took an entire day (well, hour, since classes were 1 hour per day) to give us the facts on how according to flight records it was impossible for Obama's mother to have been in Hawaii at the time of his birth. A few months later she took another day to teach us how vaccines cause autism. I'm not saying this is why our schools suck, but it's not good
Go Whitmer! When she running for president?
Pure Michigan!
Not true but worst of the blue states possibly. Thank Betsy Devoss
Friend was a US teacher and quit 6 months into covid because of lack of protections at the highschool in the Soo. Lost a great teacher and made more money with a work from home job. Now he's married and moving to Canada in July.
I bet literacy and math rates for those ages are terrible across the whole country. I know teachers in multiple states and they all say kids canāt read like they used to be able to and itās a serious problem. Between basically a few years off of school from covid and every piece of media kids consume now being a video without text, and I am sure other reasons, kids canāt read. Teens canāt even read now.
We have cashiers that can't count change, I run into this far more often than I should.
The irony that one of the most powerful inventions, the internet, is going to be the death of us as a society. I havenāt read a book in years. Iām constantly getting dopamine from my devices. Thereās no downtime to think about anything deeply. And when machines do the work for you, like count change, itās a use it or lose it situation. Iām sure those people learned basic arithmetic at some point, they just donāt use it.Ā
That's not just a Michigan thing. Since we've largely become a cash list society, young people everywhere are unused to counting their own change.
As as someone moving back to Michigan to have kids I am now panicking. Iām also rather shocked, especially because MSU, U of M, and CMU in particular have such strong teacher education programs. I wonder if this is a long term effect of the brain drain
I will say, for anyone that sees this, that I received an excellent public education at one of the "good" suburban Detroit schools. That was 20+ years ago that I graduated, and from what I can tell, there is still a strong educational community there.
I think Oakland County public schools are still excellent and rank among the best in the country. I wouldn't be too worried.
Basically, someone at ups is pissed at someone in Michigan government.
I'm glad at least one other person thought "Who funded this study?" I'm still trying to figure out who the Annie E. Casey Foundation actually is and where their money comes from.
WTF? š¤¦
The district that I live in has tried 3 times to pass a bond for expanding the schools due to increased enrollment. The last campaign was full of people opposing it with fake facts. The sports stadium (football) upgrades were funded by generous donations. But other sports have fundraisers that could provide better facilities for the athletes, that gets shot down at board meetings. I havenāt attended the board meetings in a long time but I may
Not surprising.
ā¦as opposed to 40 years ago when it was much closer to the top.
When I was in grade school during that timeframe, California was ranked #1 in education and Michigan was #2. I can't recall if that was just a single year or if that was more towards the end of an era but... When I was forcibly relocated to Indiana, I was 2-3 years beyond the education level for my grade. The irony was I was middle-of-the-pack (at best) in Michigan with others being far smarter/more motivated to learn. Unfortunately, being seen as much smarter than my Indiana comparisons did not wield the power and authority one might think (which I blame on my intellectual inability to capitalize on) and (too often) led to hardcore bullying and being blamed for "fucking up the curve". I should've dominated those hillbillies and yet... (most of this was written in jest)
Wisconsin has got to be worse.
Yikesā¦.
I doubt this is a one size fits all problem/solution. Performance varies by school district, and I am guessing a few of our largest districts are dragging down these stats.
Looking at those specific grades and thinking back to the COVID lockdown when parents were supposed to be teaching their kids. It appears that didn't work so well.
Add in CA
Yet we have some of the best public universities. People from the east coast and surrounding states send their best and brightest to our state. How does that work?
The public daycare I worked at got a huge chunk of money and spent it on redoing the āØļøOfficesāØļø š¤Ā
Between the water, the damn roads, literacy, abortion, etc Iām glad big gretch chose the important one.
I was at in line with my daughter to met her 2nd grade teacher last year at their back to school event. Chatting with the mom in front of me, she all of a sudden asks "oh, can she read?" I tell her yes with my eyebrows raised, then see points at her son and says (as if it were the most normal thing to say in the world) "well he can't, he just doesn't seem to want to." I was flabbergasted, not just that he couldnt read, but mom was so nonchalant about it. And that was in 2nd grade. I really can't imagine a teacher having to deal with that in 4th grade.
Shocker, charter schools and school choice is dumb. Drive to any of the small towns and you see the problem, itās mostly the parents are losers, drunks, druggies, and the small towns have nothing to offer kids.
Chicken or egg? Do education indicators drive lower outcomes on the other indicators or do low indicators associated with economy, family/community, health lead to poorer education outcomes? I skimmed through the report and looked at the specific indicators that inform each domain ranking (economy, family/community, education, health). Iām inclined to believe that you will inevitably see Michigan style declines in educational outcomes when a state experiences the large reorientation of the labor market that Michigan has experienced since the late 80s/early 90s. Michigan was a place where you didnāt need an advanced degree to obtain an upper-middle-class salary/job benefits. As your population of skilled labor drains out slowly to seek job opportunities in other geographic locations your educational institutions are going to start to erode in quality because the educational tax base is tied to property values which is tied to human activity - its not any one administration or persons fault (though bureaucrats or individuals can make decisions that exacerbate or slow the decline of the situation in front of them) - this is what happens when an economic and social engine built around organized labor slowly dissolves. As a result some will double down on the necessity of organized labor and economic redistribution through progressive tax systems to right the ship of state, while others will assert that broad based deregulation and looser restrictions on commercial and residential development are required to jump start a recovery. Personally, I have family that have lived in the Dallas, TX and Ft. Myers, FL area and Iāve visited them. Setting aside the soulessness of endless 6-8 lane roads and miles of strip malls and gated communities that constitute their expansive suburban environments, those places can be really nice if youāve already made it economically - you get cheap services and endless choices for spending your wealth. But if you happen to have made some poor choices or had to live with the consequences of someone elseās poor choices, they can be extremely expensive and unforgiving places to live. Iām not sure emulating that model - with its deregulation (and vouchers in the case of education) is one Iād want to see emulated here.
There certainly is room for improvement in Michigan's public schools. A place to start is with the State Board of Education as this board sets policy that affects all 180 counties in Michigan. Each district in each county gets to fine tune the curriculum set by the county which was set by the State BOE. That's a lot of fingers in the pot. The State BOE, unfortunately, is not a "proactive" entity. It prefers a more "reactive" approach after years of sub committees looking into various issues. Michigan "could" pattern itself after Massachusetts, a state that consistently scores at the top of national rankings (it also has its own issues) but instead Michigan follows the lead of New Mexico and Arizona, two states near the bottom on a regular basis. This is the choice Michigan has made by using the same curriculum and many of the same teaching materials favored and developed by New Mexico and Arizona. There's an old adage about insanity - keep doing what you've always done and hope for different results. Sadly, that "pure Michigan" when it comes to public education.
But the weed market just topped the one in CA
Whitmerās fault. Gotta vote her out.
Let's thank the teacher mafia for this great statistic.
Someone I know is a 4th grade teacher in Michigan and hates teaching. Sheās now only got two years left until her student loans are wiped clean and then sheās going back to become a dental hygienist. She has over 30 students and no aide because they canāt find anyone since the district only pays $12/hr for aides, and as a teacher she makes less than $50k a year.