The nation’s high school students continue to struggle in the subject areas that are deemed essential for later success, according to the latest ACT results, which show another decline in performance across the four subjects tested, as well as a shrinking proportion of test-takers demonstrating they are prepared for college-level coursework.It's not just the ACT:
The national average scores on the subject area sections of the ACT—math, English, reading, and science—as well as the composite score, all dropped slightly, along with the percentage of students hitting college- and career-ready benchmarks.
The latest results of the tests known as the Nation's Report Card offer a mostly grim view of academic progress in U.S. schools.Scores are going down, but universities will still admit unqualified candidates and programs will be impacted. And some Democrats want to make college free.
"Over the past decade, there has been no progress in either mathematics or reading performance, and the lowest-performing students are doing worse," said Peggy Carr, the associate commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers the NAEP. "In fact, over the long term in reading, the lowest-performing students—those readers who struggle the most—have made no progress from the first NAEP administration almost 30 years ago."
Go figure.
6 comments:
I am old enough to have been taugght my Normal School grads who were academically oriented, academically competent across the disciplines and who believed in, and practiced, explicit instruction both in behavior and in academics. They taught reading with phonics and taught grammar and composition, on a frequent and regular basis, every single year right through HS, along with traditional math, science, literature, history (including art, architecture and music), geography and government. I am betting that we entered HS with better literacy, numeracy and general knowledge than far too many of today’s HS grads- despite being a small, poor town with not more than a dozen college grads (and frequently less) and lots of grandparents who had not gone to HS. BUT, we had two parents - widows from WWII and Korea aside - who cared and raised their kids appropriately. With too many parents not meeting their responsibilities for their kids, and too many ESs failing to build a solid academic and behavioral foundation, too many kids enter MS hopelessly behind and completely disengaged.
I concur 100%.
I have said it before and I'll say it again, the incursion of cell phones into the classroom has resulted in so many distraction that our students are literally incapable of paying attention. I taught 20 years. The students in my last year of teacher demonstrated less ability to read and write, to create complexity or to synthesize. All they wanted to do was copy. They prefer multiple choice tests. They have no depth.
The other scam going on is to not offer higher level courses...so the preferred val and sal can truthfully state they have 'taken the highest level of courses offered to them'. In the meantime, Asian and middle class students will be using their time to take online courses or to self-study and take AP exams for courses not offered in their high school...around here that is all the AP Science courses as well as Calc 2, 3 and Diff Eq which are all offered in the wealthier districts. This is easy to see....look to see where the val went to U -- an Ivy -- and the major -- studies...while the unfavored are in the honors colleges of smaller schools in serious majors.
Math
9th Algebra II
10th Statistics (3 semester hours) and Probability
11th Pre-Calculus with Trigonometry
12th Calculus BC (8 semester hours)
Natural Science
9th Environmental Science (4 semester hours) and Geology
10th Biology (8 semester hours)
11th Chemistry (8 semester hours)
12th Physics C (8 semester hours)
Social Science
9th Human Geography (3 semester hours)
10th World History (6 semester hours)
11th US History (6 semester hours)
12th Government and Politics (US) (3 semester hours), Macroeconomics (3 semester hours), Microeconomics (3 semester hours)
Language
9th Intermediate Vocabulary
10th Intermediate Grammar
11th English Language and Composition (3 semester hours + 3 remedial)
12th English Literature and Composition (3 semester hours + 3 remedial)
Arts and Humanities
9th Music Theory (5 semester hours)
10th Art History (6 semester hours)
11th Latin (8 semester hours)
12th Latin (8 semester hours)
Electives
9th Physical Education
10th Physical Education
11th Seminar (no semester hour equivalent)
12th Research (no semester hour equivalent)
Total 96 semester hours
AP is clearly inflated.
Whose schedule is that?
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