Education

It is often observed that students across the nation, but particularly in the schools of large cities and blue states, are learning little. It’s not uncommon to discover huge portions of kids in those cities can’t read, write or do math and many graduate from high school functionally illiterate. That this is on purpose is horrifying:

A recent study suggests that, for the first time in nearly 100 years, Americans’ average intelligence quotient (IQ) is declining.

The professors who authored the study theorize that the quality of education could play a role in reversing the IQ gains enjoyed by previous generations.

Look at it this way.

If you’re with the Chicago Teachers’ Union which is demanding $145,000 salaries, free abortion and weight loss surgeries (and do they ever need those) and money for migrants and ‘green schools’, it’ll help if your voting base can’t do math.

Modern public-education history is littered with novel education theories that have failed so spectacularly that the terms are now used as pejoratives. For instance, when I was in elementary school in the 1960s, the “New Math” focused on teaching abstractions rather than fundamentals. You can find reams of research documenting its failure decades later, but the evidence was recognized almost immediately.

It’s easier to indoctrinate uneducated children.

h/t XC

Ontario will ban cellphones in elementary schools for the entire day, and during class time for middle and high school students, under new rules to start this September that are being touted as the toughest in Canada.

The changes will also force school boards to remove all access to social media websites from their networks, and report cards will be updated to include comments on students’ distraction levels.

Unless teachers want to use devices for learning, “when it comes to cellphones, our policy is ‘out of sight, out of mind,’ ” Education Minister Stephen Lecce said in his announcement Sunday.

So how many cell phone confiscation assaults before this policy is quickly and quietly abandoned? Any bets?

“Give me my f—king phone, n—a!”

A student confronted & punched a teacher at Lamar High School in Houston, Texas. pic.twitter.com/pZr8UzVCwA

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) April 7, 2023

Having a qualified teacher in every class, every day, would seem the most basic thing one could expect from a public education system. Ontario is failing to meet this standard in spectacular fashion.

A March report by the advocacy group People for Education found that 24 per cent of Ontario elementary schools and 35 per cent of secondary schools have daily teacher shortages. The information comes from a survey that included principals from 70 of Ontario’s 72 school boards. The survey included 21 per cent of publicly funded schools.

The New York Times published an article last week noting that chronic absenteeism in American schools has “exploded,” reportedly transcending narrow silos of region, race, class, and age. But why wouldn’t students skip school? These days they aren’t missing out on much.

The most powerful quote of the Times piece summarized the essence of the new reality facing American educators: “Our relationship with school became optional.” It turns out parents have decided school isn’t the pressing priority it once was and that bargain family vacations, running errands, or just taking random days off are paramount to the demands of the traditional school schedule.

Over the past couple decades, Ontario school boards have chosen experimental teaching methods over the safe and proven, embraced mandated diversity over merit and have sometimes failed to secure the safety of students and staff. It’s no wonder that students are learning less. But, because it’s easier to scapegoat than to fix oneself, these school boards are taking to the courts to pin their failings on social media, specifically Facebook/Instagram, SnapChat and TikTok.