School Too Easy for Millions of Kids

[Deleted]

TennesseanWritten by
Greg Toppo
USA TODAY





Millions of kids simply don’t find school very challenging, a new analysis of federal survey data suggests. The report could spark a debate about whether new academic standards being piloted nationwide might make a difference.

The findings, out today from the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank that champions “progressive ideas,” analyze three years of questionnaires from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, a national test given each year.

Among the findings:

• 37 percent of fourth-graders say their math work is “often” or “always” too easy.

• 57 percent of eighth-graders say their history work is “often” or “always” too easy.

• 39 percent of 12th-graders say they rarely write about what they read in class.

Ulrich Boser, a senior fellow at the center who co-wrote the report, said the data challenge the “school-as-pressure-cooker” image found in recent movies such as “Race to Nowhere.”

While those kids certainly exist at one end of the academic spectrum, Boser said, “the broad swath of American students are not as engaged as much in their schoolwork.”

Robert Pondiscio of the Core Knowledge Foundation, a Virginia nonprofit that pushes for more rigorous academics, says the pressure-cooker environment applies only to a “small, rarefied set” of high school students. The notion that “every American kid is going home with a backpack loaded with 70 pounds of books — that’s not happening.”

The data suggest that many kids simply aren’t pushed academically: Only one in five eighth-graders reads more than 20 pages a day, either in school or for homework. Most report that they read far less.

“It’s fairly safe to say that potentially high-achieving kids are probably not as challenged as they could be or ought to be,” Boser said.

The center supports new standards that are to be implemented nationwide in the 2014-15 school year. The standards, adopted by 45 states, are meant to be “robust and relevant to the real world,” giving schools “a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn,” according to the initiative.

Gladis Kersaint, a math education professor at the University of South Florida and a board member of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, said she’s not surprised by the findings. “I think we underestimate students,” she said.

The push for higher standards — and students’ willingness to meet those standards — “suggests that they’re ready to be more challenged in math classes,” she said. “Hopefully this can be a motivator for teachers to say, ‘Yes, we’re moving in the right direction.’ ”

Florida State University English education professor Shelbie Witte, a former classroom teacher, said standardized tests limit material teachers can cover. “The curriculum is just void of critical thinking, creative thinking,” she said. As a result, students are “probably bored, and when they’re bored they think the classes are easy.”

Witte, who trains teachers, said both their conception and their students’ conception of school have been heavily influenced by testing.

“That’s what they think school is, and that’s really a shame,” she said.

[Deleted]

Interesting. I wonder, though, since this is a self-report survey, if school is actually too easy for these kids. Our nation's test scores seem to show otherwise. It might be, going off what the article stated, that the curriculum is boring, but they're still getting answers wrong and simply not receiving feedback. Hence, to them, school=easy.

All of these studies make me want to spend a year in Finland, where the education is excellent and teachers are revered. I really want to see what they are doing that we aren't.

[IIOY]

So how does school being so easy square with the ever-lower rates of literacy and math skills in high school graduates about which we hear so many complaints? Are all of these students* A+ students, or are they getting Cs and Ds and think that being socially promoted to the next grade means that their school work is "easy?"

*ETA: I'm referring specifically to the students who reported that school is easy.

[Deleted]

Jul 10, 2012 7:00:36 GMT -5 @dontcallmeshirley said:

Interesting. I wonder, though, since this is a self-report survey, if school is actually too easy for these kids. Our nation's test scores seem to show otherwise. It might be, going off what the article stated, that the curriculum is boring, but they're still getting answers wrong and simply not receiving feedback. Hence, to them, school=easy.

All of these studies make me want to spend a year in Finland, where the education is excellent and teachers are revered. I really want to see what they are doing that we aren't.

1. homogenous society
2. teachers are professionals with standing that dr/lawyers get here
3. They fund their schools
4. There are basically no private schools. Rich and poor all go to state schools.
5. They teach to the middle.

[Deleted]

Jul 10, 2012 7:02:51 GMT -5 IIOY said:

So how does school being so easy square with the ever-lower rates of literacy and math skills in high school graduates about which we hear so many complaints? Are all of these students* A+ students, or are they getting Cs and Ds and think that being socially promoted to the next grade means that their school work is "easy?"

*ETA: I'm referring specifically to the students who reported that school is easy.

IIOY I posted this just for you because of the other 2 articles you posted this morning.

I think if you asked my 7 year old school isn't hard. Things come easily for him so far.

[emmybean]

This surprises me not at all, and is something I have heard consistently, if not anecdotally for a long time. The test scores point doesn't much bother me---being bored in school because it's unchallenging can indeed lead to lower grades and test scores. Amongst other things, I think this study exposes how antiquated and out of tune the school model is as a whole.

[wawa]

school being too easy and kids failing math assessments doesn't seem contradictory to me at all.

If kids are allowed to take tests home and fix mitakes for credit, hand in late assignments, and generally dick around without consequences then of course they'll think school is easy. And they're unlikely to actually learn the material well enough to pass a test where they don't get a "re-do."

[IIOY]

Jul 10, 2012 8:18:25 GMT -5 wawa said:

school being too easy and kids failing math assessments doesn't seem contradictory to me at all.

If kids are allowed to take tests home and fix mitakes for credit, hand in late assignments, and generally dick around without consequences then of course they'll think school is easy. And they're unlikely to actually learn the material well enough to pass a test where they don't get a "re-do."

This is what I'm getting at. Are these kids actually not being taught up to their skill levels, or are they being coddled as to what they don't know/can't do?

[cookiemdough]

I do think there is a lot of underestimation of what kids are capable of learning. In addition, I think the way kids are taught now doesn't really work towards enhancing problem solving skills. One of my friend's mentioned she had to re-learn how to do something basic like long division because the way they teach it now is different. So when her son was getting problems wrong, she couldn't tell from the new method where the errors were occurring, and of course he couldn't adequately explain how they were taught to do it. I guess it was meant to be a short-cut, but kids were kind of missing the basics of how the numbers work together.

[noonecareswhoiam]

Jul 10, 2012 7:02:58 GMT -5 @septimus said:

Jul 10, 2012 7:00:36 GMT -5 @dontcallmeshirley said:

Interesting. I wonder, though, since this is a self-report survey, if school is actually too easy for these kids. Our nation's test scores seem to show otherwise. It might be, going off what the article stated, that the curriculum is boring, but they're still getting answers wrong and simply not receiving feedback. Hence, to them, school=easy.

All of these studies make me want to spend a year in Finland, where the education is excellent and teachers are revered. I really want to see what they are doing that we aren't.

1. homogenous society
2. teachers are professionals with standing that dr/lawyers get here
3. They fund their schools
4. There are basically no private schools. Rich and poor all go to state schools.
5. They teach to the middle.

Add 6. Strong social network with little poverty

Problem solved.

[Deleted]

Re: low test scores. I always worked my hardest and did my best in classes with teachers with high expectations/course load. I never did well in the classes that were supposed to be "easy As"

[wawa]

Jul 10, 2012 10:42:29 GMT -5 @septimus said:

Re: low test scores. I always worked my hardest and did my best in classes with teachers with high expectations/course load. I never did well in the classes that were supposed to be "easy As"

me too.

I don't have any real evidence. Just anecodotal crap, but the teachers who had the reputation as being really hard ended up turning out kids who knew their shit. The nice easy teachers didn't. I had the mean teacher for pre-calc. My friend had the nice teacher. I ended up having to tutor her through calc 1 because she hadn't learned half of what she needed despite getting decent grades in precalc.

Teaching should involve a certain amount of tough love. Give the kids extra help after school to prep. Explain things as many times as it takes. But if they bomb the test, they bomb the test. Learning should be hard. You're constantly stretching yourself to learn new things. That's the whole DAMN POINT.

[One Girl In All The World]

Jul 10, 2012 10:42:29 GMT -5 @septimus said:

Re: low test scores. I always worked my hardest and did my best in classes with teachers with high expectations/course load. I never did well in the classes that were supposed to be "easy As"

I was the same way. This was true from elementary school through college for me.

[wawa]

Jul 10, 2012 11:02:42 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

Just skimmed the article, but it strikes me that this is going to continue to be a problem as long as we have a "national curriculum" with federal standards. There will be a dumbing down to the lowest common denominator. This is one of many reasons why I think education should be handled at a purely local level.

Why is it a foregone conclusion that a federal standard can't be set high?

Just politics? Can't have people whining that little jimmy can't pass the math test because the big bad feds made it too hard? What?

[One Girl In All The World]

Jul 10, 2012 11:15:28 GMT -5 wawa said:

Jul 10, 2012 11:02:42 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

Just skimmed the article, but it strikes me that this is going to continue to be a problem as long as we have a "national curriculum" with federal standards. There will be a dumbing down to the lowest common denominator. This is one of many reasons why I think education should be handled at a purely local level.

Why is it a foregone conclusion that a federal standard can't be set high?

Just politics? Can't have people whining that little jimmy can't pass the math test because the big bad feds made it too hard? What?

That was my thought as well. Unfortunately I don't see any way that a national curriculum with higher standards could be successfully implemented, especially in the current political climate (not that I would even begin to know how to do such a thing anyway). But I can only imagine how much lower standards would be at least for some areas if standards we set entirely on a local basis.

[kasi]

DD finds school way too easy and scores in the upper 90th percentiles on state tests. I am hoping middle school is more challenging for her and maybe honors classes will be available to give her some sort of challenge. I was the same way as a kid throughout school and college. It just was easy for some reason.

What I've noticed in the school's my daughter has attended is that they fly through the curriculum which I don't think allows the children to fully process what they are learning. They don't have time to write a paper because the next day they are on to something else.

[mominatrix]

Jul 10, 2012 7:00:36 GMT -5 @dontcallmeshirley said:

Interesting. I wonder, though, since this is a self-report survey, if school is actually too easy for these kids. Our nation's test scores seem to show otherwise. It might be, going off what the article stated, that the curriculum is boring, but they're still getting answers wrong and simply not receiving feedback. Hence, to them, school=easy.

All of these studies make me want to spend a year in Finland, where the education is excellent and teachers are revered. I really want to see what they are doing that we aren't.

One of the pretty horrifying factoids from Waiting for Superman... if we could eliminate the bottom 6% of teachers, and replace them with middle-performing teachers (in other words, not stellar teachers), our schools' performance would equal Finland's.

[pepperpeople]

This was me all through school. I got in trouble every year b/c I would read the entire textbook the first week of school b/c I was so bored listening to the other kids struggle to read, things explained 10 times, etc. And that was before the days of "teaching to the test." I shudder thinking what it would be like these days.

[mominatrix]

The other thing is this:

the top keeps rising, while the bottom keeps sinking. And we have more kids in the "bottom" than ever.



Per student funding is a mess.... and not to point fingers (and I'll probably get flamed to hell for this), but a huge part of it is the requirement that all kids with a special ed diagnosis get all the services in their IEP. When you have a relatively small % of kids using a huge % of the resources, the other kids' education is bound to suffer. And that % is growing every year, much faster than the rest of schools' budgets, in no small part because parents who want their kids to have services have become aggressive about getting them a diagnosis.
...not blaming sped kids or their parents in this... blaming those who think that they can balance the budget by putting it on the shoulders of other kids, instead of finding (getting, taxing) more $$. The pie simply has to get bigger.


...because of all this, $$ for advanced classes is drying up left and right. There are federal requirements re: kids with IEP's, not so "gifted" "talented" or even "smart" kids. Their programs cost more than programs for average kids, and the money simply isn't there.

[Deleted]

Jul 10, 2012 11:21:05 GMT -5 mominatrix said:

Jul 10, 2012 7:00:36 GMT -5 @dontcallmeshirley said:

Interesting. I wonder, though, since this is a self-report survey, if school is actually too easy for these kids. Our nation's test scores seem to show otherwise. It might be, going off what the article stated, that the curriculum is boring, but they're still getting answers wrong and simply not receiving feedback. Hence, to them, school=easy.

All of these studies make me want to spend a year in Finland, where the education is excellent and teachers are revered. I really want to see what they are doing that we aren't.

One of the pretty horrifying factoids from Waiting for Superman... if we could eliminate the bottom 6% of teachers, and replace them with middle-performing teachers (in other words, not stellar teachers), our schools' performance would equal Finland's.

I *loved* Waiting for Superman. I responded to it the way natural birth advocates respond to The Business of Being Born. That said, I realize that both films were made with a definite "spin". However, WFS confirmed beliefs about education that I've held for some time (again, why I responded so positively). I was the only person defending it in discussions after a required viewing at work.

I realize Geoffrey Canada's methods are still being held up to scrutiny, but his cradle-to-college emphasis paired with evidence-based education is a great start. The KIPP schools do a great job of this (maybe not the Baby College) all on a public school budget (one of the criticisms of Canada's system is the exorbitant cost).

[mominatrix]

Jul 10, 2012 11:24:45 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

Jul 10, 2012 11:21:05 GMT -5 mominatrix said:

One of the pretty horrifying factoids from Waiting for Superman... if we could eliminate the bottom 6% of teachers, and replace them with middle-performing teachers (in other words, not stellar teachers), our schools' performance would equal Finland's.

Wait. I'm slow today. Probably because I have tuberculosis or some shit. But explain this to me again. Like I'm five. I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean or how you would do this or what it would look like.

Meaning, because of union requirements, districts can't fire bad teachers.

If schools were empowered to fire the bottom 6% of their teachers and replace them, the effect on kids' eduction would be profound... profound enough to catapult us to the top.

The WFS filmmakers' theory (with experts behind them) is that it's not stellar teachers who make for great students (although they do catapult kids ahead quite a bit)... but really bad teachers have more of a negative effect than good teachers have a positive one.

[mominatrix]

Jul 10, 2012 11:35:45 GMT -5 @dontcallmeshirley said:

Jul 10, 2012 11:21:05 GMT -5 mominatrix said:

One of the pretty horrifying factoids from Waiting for Superman... if we could eliminate the bottom 6% of teachers, and replace them with middle-performing teachers (in other words, not stellar teachers), our schools' performance would equal Finland's.

I *loved* Waiting for Superman. I responded to it the way natural birth advocates respond to The Business of Being Born. That said, I realize that both films were made with a definite "spin". However, WFS confirmed beliefs about education that I've held for some time (again, why I responded so positively). I was the only person defending it in discussions after a required viewing at work.

I realize Geoffrey Canada's methods are still being held up to scrutiny, but his cradle-to-college emphasis paired with evidence-based education is a great start. The KIPP schools do a great job of this (maybe not the Baby College) all on a public school budget (one of the criticisms of Canada's system is the exorbitant cost).

I've been told that I need to now see Not Waiting for Superman ( notwaitingforsuperman.org/ ) for a less-charter-schools based spin on the material.

I would, but if it's not on Netflix instant, I'm probably never going to watch it, cuz I'm too lazy to obtain it.

[sam20]

I can see this. I flew through high school with never studying for a test, half assing reports at the last minute, and ended up as an A/B student. All the tests were always multiple choice so I never really had to put too much thought into the questions. We had multiple drafts of reports to do and the teacher almost always told us what we should be doing and how to do it instead of just saying what I did wrong. It was even like this at the community college I went to.

So I don't think it's because schools are easier. I think it's because of our lower expectations of students and trying to teach to a test instead of teaching students so they actually retain the material long term.

[mominatrix]

Jul 10, 2012 11:36:34 GMT -5 mominatrix said:

Jul 10, 2012 11:24:45 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

Wait. I'm slow today. Probably because I have tuberculosis or some shit. But explain this to me again. Like I'm five. I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean or how you would do this or what it would look like.

Meaning, because of union requirements, districts can't fire bad teachers.

If schools were empowered to fire the bottom 6% of their teachers and replace them, the effect on kids' eduction would be profound... profound enough to catapult us to the top.

The WFS filmmakers' theory (with experts behind them) is that it's not stellar teachers who make for great students (although they do catapult kids ahead quite a bit)... but really bad teachers have more of a negative effect than good teachers have a positive one.

I'm pretty pro-union, and I have to say that this bit has me horrified. The fact that the teachers' unions are willing to pick THIS as the hill they're willing to die on has me more than a little upset.

really. protecting the bottom 6% of teachers, instead of protecting the kids you're supposed to care so much about.

:@

[Deleted]

Jul 10, 2012 11:40:21 GMT -5 mominatrix said:

Jul 10, 2012 11:35:45 GMT -5 @dontcallmeshirley said:

I *loved* Waiting for Superman. I responded to it the way natural birth advocates respond to The Business of Being Born. That said, I realize that both films were made with a definite "spin". However, WFS confirmed beliefs about education that I've held for some time (again, why I responded so positively). I was the only person defending it in discussions after a required viewing at work.

I realize Geoffrey Canada's methods are still being held up to scrutiny, but his cradle-to-college emphasis paired with evidence-based education is a great start. The KIPP schools do a great job of this (maybe not the Baby College) all on a public school budget (one of the criticisms of Canada's system is the exorbitant cost).

I've been told that I need to now see Not Waiting for Superman ( notwaitingforsuperman.org/ ) for a less-charter-schools based spin on the material.

I would, but if it's not on Netflix instant, I'm probably never going to watch it, cuz I'm too lazy to obtain it.

Thanks for this. It would probably do me good to encounter a more balanced view. However, something I loved about WFS was that it was rooted in data, so I hope that this piece is as well.

[mominatrix]

SBP...
If you search ” waiting for superman” on youtube, you can actually watch the whole movie (in pieces) from there.

Sent from my HTC Glacier using ProBoards... So excuse any wonky autocorrect.

[mominatrix]

Jul 10, 2012 14:36:28 GMT -5 mominatrix said:

SBP...
If you search ” waiting for superman” on youtube, you can actually watch the whole movie (in pieces) from there.

Sent from my HTC Glacier using ProBoards... So excuse any wonky autocorrect.

Fyi...
It's pretty anti union and very pro charter schools... ” not waiting” is meant to be a response on those points.

Sent from my HTC Glacier using ProBoards... So excuse any wonky autocorrect.