Years ago, I wrote a column denouncing the decision of the University of California system to drop standardized testing in the cause of greater racial diversity. Now, hundreds of UC mathematics faculty have called for a return to such testing after reports showing a thirtyfold increase in students with math skills below high school level.
As written earlier, the University of California system was an early supporter of this disastrous move. It was heralded as a way to preserve diversity after voters in California repeatedly rejected race-based admissions and the Supreme Court appeared ready to bar such practices (commonly proven with reference to standardized test differentials among applicants).
Now, many professors in the California system have come to the same conclusion as some of us who denounced the move years ago. They have witnessed the drop in academic skills and abilities among incoming students.
These tests not only have the most significant predictive value for performance but also play an important role in the advancement of minority students. Former University of California President Janet Napolitano, however, overrode those conclusions.
Napolitano responded to such criticism with a Standardized Testing Task Force in 2019. Many people expected the task force to recommend the cessation of standardized testing. The task force did find that 59 percent of high school graduates were Latino, African-American or Native American but only 37 percent were admitted as UC freshman students. The Task Force did not find standardized testing to be unreliable or call for its abandonment, however.
Instead, its final report concluded that “At UC, test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average (HSGPA), and about as good at predicting first-year retention, [University] GPA, and graduation.”
Not only that, it found: “Further, the amount of variance in student outcomes explained by test scores has increased since 2007 … Test scores are predictive for all demographic groups and disciplines … In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority Students (URMs), who are first generation, or whose families are low-income.” In other words, test scores remain the best indicator for continued performance in college.
That clearly was not the result Napolitano or some others wanted. So, she simply announced a cessation of the use of such scores in admissions. The system would go to a “test-blind” system until it developed its own test.
Ending standardized testing had an obvious secondary purpose: to frustrate new legal challenges to the use of race in college admissions. Last November, Californians rejected a resolution to restore affirmative action in college admissions.
We have also seen the dismal decline in standards at elite universities like Harvard, where faculty have been compelled to teach high school-level math classes to students.
Various schools have now reversed this ridiculous move pushed by faculty and administrators in the cause of racial diversity. The proponents of the change, such as Napolitano, have said little after they decimated the academic integrity and standing of their schools.
The UC faculty cited the UC San Diego Senate–Administration Workgroup on Admissions report, which found that 70 percent of these students are performing below a middle-school level.
Like Harvard, faculty are now teaching high-school-level math.
The declining performance reflects the failure of our public schools, which have also lowered graduation standards. The top-spending public school districts are also some of the worst-performing districts.
My university had both an English Proficiency and Math Proficiency exam requirement prior to graduation. In 1977 it was always fun to watch those Phi Beta Kappas and Tau Beta Pi’s attend review sessions and sweat.
Cal State all have one bone head math test, called the Entry Level Mathmatics (ELM) test, and two writing tests, the lower division writing test and the upper division writing test. The ELM is basic algebra geometry and trigonometry and can be waived by passing a certain level math class, the two writing tests cannot be waived, everyone who graduates from one of the 23 Cal State campuses must pass them.UC I’m sure has a similar testing scheme.
The dumbing down of American students continues. As Yoda would note: “knowledge” should not be confused with “education;” “education” should not be confused with “intelligence;” and “intelligence” should not be confused with “wisdom.”
When will parents realize that the grade schools are failing for the most part in preparing their kids for college? IMHO the lack of preparedness is on them for not putting more into the growth of their children. They could, send their children to a local community college to get the basics at a much lower cost. It would also weed out the ones that aren’t meant to continue on. The colleges, with great financial loss, could require students who fail the tests to attend their local junior college as well. This would enable the professors to properly teach the subjects if they are qualified.
Hey, look on the bright side. Numbers and counting are some of the foundations of math. I’m pretty sure the kids in grade school can at least correctly count the number of queens they were forced to watch during Drag Queen Story Hour. Can there be any better use of classroom time for preparing students to learn high school math?
(That was meant to be sarcastic.)
The fact that colleges will willingly accept any student who can procure funding is not insignificant in these discussions. Too many of these encourage students into gender studies or ethnic studies programs that have little to no employability future. These are primarily the students who default on their student loans–not because they intended to default before entering college but because they were given unrealistic expectations by their parents, their high schools and their college/university. High schools do not actively work to inform students about what is necessary for various majors. A student who is weak in math and refuses to take physics should not leave high school believing that he/she can major in engineering. A student should not believe that caring for the plight of others will enable them to get a degree in social studies. A student who, as a high school student, was finally able to read The Giving Tree for the first time should not be thinking about a career in journalism. Sadly, these things are happening and the colleges are accepting them. They don’t worry about admissions tests because the colleges aren’t requiring them. These same students also use AI to write their essays and the colleges don’t verify what is in the essays until the student is about to be awarded that college diploma (or later).
Too many colleges/universities are only about building up their endowments not about educating their students. Would things be different if these colleges/universities (and public schools) were held to account for students with degrees/diplomas not being able to find employment because they are unqualified for any job?
Professor V.D. Hanson has been shooting out his concerns over the pathetic lack of education kids graduating from high school show up as freshman at universities.
Just a thought — if you want to know why the schools are failing, perhaps it would help to examine the requirements, which vary by state, of what one needs to ‘know’ to obtain a license to teach at the high school level. I suspect what you will find is that at least 30 credits (a year in the classroom) must be in ‘education,’ while fewer than ten (less than a semester) need to be in the subject taught. If so, then the technique of teaching trumps knowledge of subject taught.
Whether this is still the case, I do not know, but it was the situation as recently as 2000, when last I checked. If so, there is no mystery regarding why so many students who have a high school degree are not prepared for university.
It is not a matter of those who can’t do, teach; it may just be a question of those who are only taught to teach, can’t.
Student to physics teacher: I don’t understand optical refraction, can you explain it to me?
Physics teacher: I don’t understand it either, but I know how to put together a lesson plan, how about I explan that?
Student: Sure, that’ll help me do well on the final exam.
Student to librarian: I don’t understand optical refraction, can you explain it to me?
Librarian: I can show you how Sir Isaac Newton explained it as well as sources for the modern understanding of the way light works starting with Einstein’s explanations. I can also show you how to tell when some old man is making up garbage on the Internet.
“It is not a matter of those who can’t do, teach; it may just be a question of those who are only taught to teach, can’t.”
Brutal. Accurate. Memorable.
In 1991 my wife and I were at parent teacher conference with my daughter’s fourth grade teacher. I explained to the teacher that I, a parent with a graduate degree in science (medicine), could not understand the rationale behind the method she was using to teach the current math topic to her fourth grade students. Her response was that she also did not understand the method, nor did she need to, because she was only required to know how to teach it. This idea that elementary, middle school, and high school teachers are not required to intimately understand the topic being taught, a notion fostered by academic Schools of Education, has become pervasive in teaching with the not unexpected results so apparent today. Would it be acceptable to have non-physicians teach postgraduate physician residents, non-dentists how to practice dentistry, non-engineers to teach mechanical engineering students how to design and construct a bridge that will not collapse? Some medicine residency programs have begun to hire D.Ed.s to direct the teaching of postgraduate residents in training. While they themselves have minimal, if any, intimate personal knowledge of, or experience in, medicine or of its complexity, the public will have to accept future doctors having been taught by non-physician teachers who at least know how to teach it. Does anyone really think that the results will be any better than what we see in high school graduates taught by teachers with Education degrees? God help us.
Since you know so much, explain how Acetylsalicylic acid acid works so well as a pain moderator and general anti-inflammatory. Describe the exact molecular dynamics of the process.
It is my experience that often, the most capable practitioners are the most terrible teachers, having forgotten the majority of intermediate scaffolding required to reach a certain level of knowledge, scaffolding that they have discarded from active memory as no longer relevant. It is more often the case that a collection of experts and educators working to develop a curriculum that even a dummy can follow will lead to a better result than trying to get mid 6-figure experts into a classroom and deal with beginner questions for a low 5-figure salary and endless abuse.
You do you, Vincente.
Jonathan Turley’s arguments for reinstating standardized tests at the University of California overlook systemic K-12 learning loss, legal mandates, and the predictive validity of holistic admissions. While citing rising remedial math needs, Turley fails to account for COVID-19 disruptions and, contrary to his claims, research consistently shows high school GPA is a stronger long-term predictor of student success than test scores. The UC system’s transition to a test-blind policy was primarily driven by a 2020 court ruling ensuring equitable access for disadvantaged students, not simply an ideological agenda.
Sources please.
His source is AI, as it always is.
“the predictive validity of holistic admissions.” LMAO he doesnt even know what that means.
The source is Google. Anyone can look it up, are you trying to say you’re not smart enough to figure out how to find a source?
Google is not a source, dum dum. Certainly you might use Google to find a source. But this dunce clearly cut and pasted Google AI, not his own words, and he doesnt even know what it means. Next?
So you’re still not able to figure out how do find a source using Google.
You’re not showing what was posted is wrong. If you think the data itself is wrong, then prove it. Otherwise, you’re just complaining about the delivery because you can’t dispute the facts.
By the way, anon….we know its you, X
“The predictive validity of holistic admissions” sounds like Professor Erwin Corey and Kamala Harris had a child and they named him X.
Turley fails to account…? George its an opinion piece, not a essay. BTW, you failed to account for your lack of sources in your rambling comment.
X says that the cause of lower academic success was caused by Covid. The lower education levels began long before Covid. Covid may have exasperated the problem but what explains the drop before Covid?
By the way. What political party insisted that the kids stay home from school when it was known that kids were not as vulnerable to the virus as the elderly. I understand X. The fault lies only in the stars for those unwilling to accept both the blame for the damage and reality.
TiT,
The one upside of COVID lockdowns, remote learning was parents got to actually see what was being taught and exposed much of the leftist indoctrination that was going on, rather then educate the students.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/tennessee-parents-waiver-eavesdropping-online-lessons
Upstate.
I wonder if this has something to do with it.
_______________________
At the state level, the Oregon Board of Education paused the requirement that high school students must demonstrate basic proficiency in math to graduate. While students still must complete their required math credits, they do not have to pass standardized tests or “Essential Skills” exams to receive their diploma. This pause has been extended through at least 2029
Thinkitthrough,
The surge in academic deficiencies is not a pre-COVID trend; data shows it began precisely in 2020 due to the simultaneous arrival of pandemic disruptions and test-blind admissions.
The data from the UC San Diego Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions Report shows that remedial math enrollment was under 1% in Fall 2020. The “thirtyfold increase” to 11.8% occurred entirely between 2020 and 2025. This timeline completely disproves the idea that this specific drop began long before the pandemic.
Your convoluted sentence contains this admission:
“The surge in academic deficiencies [. . .] began [with] test-blind admissions.”
Do you even read your “own” comments?
Sam, you stripped out half the sentence to manufacture an admission, completely ignoring how the data actually connects.
The full quote explicitly stated that the drop began because of the simultaneous arrival of two massive disruptions: K-12 pandemic learning loss and test-blind admissions.
Are you dyslexic or just lazy?
“. . . and test-blind admissions.”
Which is what I noted.
Thank you for re-admitting your admission.
TiT,
This may provide some insight, Kids’ test scores began declining way before COVID. These schools are making gains
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/13/nx-s1-5812483/reading-math-scores-data
Upstatefarmer,
Dropping that NPR link doesn’t prove your point; it actually exposes the exact flaw in your argument by conflating national K-12 trends with a localized university admissions failure.
The article discusses a slow, decade-long national “learning recession” among 4th and 8th graders. It does not explain the sudden, localized catastrophe within the University of California system.
The Article Actually Undermines Your Point: The researchers explicitly state that a main trigger for the national decline was “the fade-out of test-based accountability.” They note that when schools stopped looking at test data, achievement collapsed. You are citing an article that blames a lack of testing for making kids less educated.
The NPR piece describes a “steady kind of decline” since 2013. But the UC system saw a sudden, vertical 30x spike in remedial math students after 2020. A slow, 13-year national trend cannot explain a sudden cliff-edge drop in elite college freshmen.
Turley’s arguments for reinstating standardized tests at the University of California overlook systemic K-12 learning loss,
A slow, 13-year national trend cannot explain a sudden cliff-edge drop in elite college freshmen.
AI told this idiot both of these things.
Turley’s arguments for reinstating standardized tests at the University of California overlook systemic K-12 learning loss,
The surge in academic deficiencies is not a pre-COVID trend;
And this…. I dont think he even reads before he pastes.
Nope, you’re not keeping track of the thread. Your laziness is showing.
And? They are not wrong. If you think it’s wrong show us why or how.
X, why do you keep demanding that others explain why your facts are wrong, when you come here everyday and try to discredit others with your own unverified “facts?” Truly a childish clown you are. Verifiable, I might add.
If the facts being brought to this thread are so obviously “unverified,” it should take you less than ten seconds to post a link and prove them wrong.
Every major point raised here is backed by institutional documents you can pull up right now—whether it is the UC San Diego Admissions Workgroup Report tracking the math collapse, or the official May 2020 Board of Regents vote minutes proving the timeline of the testing ban.
Demanding accountability for facts isn’t “childish”—it is the bare minimum requirement for a serious adult conversation.
You are complaining about “unverified facts,” yet you haven’t provided a single source, a single date, or a single piece of verified data to show I’m wrong.
Exacerbated is the word you were trying for. Yes, you’re an example of how poor the education system is in the USA.
The reason for children to stay at home during a pandemic, even though the children were unlikely to die, was so they would not bring it home and kill their parents or their grand parents. That this requires explanation is further proof of how terrible the education system is in the USA and how it failed Thinkitthrough.
Hey X, it’s not just Professor Turley who is calling for the reinstatement of testing but now even those who advocated for the elimination of testing are saying they made a mistake and that testing should resume. What is the definition of someone who keeps doing the same dumb thing over and over again and expecting the results to change?
Is it X?
Thinkitthrough, you never think things through do you?
In 2020, the decision to drop standardized testing was pushed through primarily by the UC Board of Regents and top administrative leadership—not the broad math and science faculty.
The Academic Senate actually fought against dropping the tests. The UC Academic Council’s Standardized Testing Task Force released a comprehensive report explicitly recommending that the UC system keep standardized testing.
The hundreds of UC mathematics faculty calling for a return to testing are not “admitting they made a mistake.” They are the exact same group of experts whose data-driven warnings were ignored by administrators years ago.
The faculty are not repeating a failed policy. They are trying to fix a broken, top-down administrative policy that they opposed from the very beginning.
The assertion that the exact same people are doing the same thing over and over is factually inaccurate.
X, why was there a push to do away with standardized testing? Was it or was it not done because a certain segment of the population was doing badly in these exams and therefore not being accepted at universities?
Now X, which cohort, liberal or conservative, pushed this agenda?
Ok X, now let’s see where we are. Liberals wanted to make it easier for all students to be accepted at all schools even if it meant students who worked harder, did better and deserved it more, were denied these seats.
It’s liberals pet idea of equity, everyone ends up the same, over equality, where everyone has the same shot.
Not sure high school GPA is the best predictor of future success. I’m a remedial education expert – didn’t have a high school GPA.
I’ve run the numbers. They are astronomical off-the-charts. Numbers you’ve never seen before.
*and when you add it all up, good things are going to happen.. .
Dgsnowden,
A high GPA cannot be achieved through a single good day or a lucky guess. It reflects four years of consistent effort, time management, turning in assignments, and navigating diverse teacher expectations—the exact soft skills required to survive college.
Surely as an expert you can see why GPA would be a good predictor.
Landmark research from the University of Chicago (consistently replicated across thousands of schools) shows that a student with a high GPA and low test scores is statistically much more likely to graduate college than a student with a low GPA and high test scores.
Landmark research from the University of Chicago (consistently replicated across thousands of schools) shows that a student with a high GPA and low test scores is statistically much more likely to graduate college than a student with a low GPA and high test scores.
Exact AI quote that I replicated in Gemini.
Congratulations! You know how do look up sources. Now show us if it’s wrong or not.
I dropped out at 15, got GED at 18, blew away high school kids on SATs. Due to having a wife, 2 kids, and a mortgage I couldn’t accept the scholarships. Took night school Purdue classes and quit because I wasn’t learning anything and they wouldn’t let me test out. I could ace any test, just couldn’t stomach the homework. ADHD will not let you be one of society’s drones. Life is good!
“The UC system’s transition to a test-blind policy was *primarily* driven by a 2020 court ruling ensuring equitable access for disadvantaged students, not simply an ideological agenda.” (emphasis added)
You need a new AI source.
You’re referring to a 2021 settlement based on a filing by (racist) plaintiffs. UC agreed to the terms because they had already decided to scrap standardized testing (on the racist grounds of “equity”).
Sam, the claim that a 2020 court ruling “primarily drove” the UC system to a test-blind policy is a total rewrite of history; the university had already voted to kill the tests months before that lawsuit even reached a judge.
May 2020 (The Board Vote): The UC Board of Regents voted unanimously (23-0) to phase out the SAT and ACT. They established a five-year plan to move to a test-blind system by 2023. This ideological shift was entirely engineered by the university leadership long before any court ordered it.
September 2020 (The Injunction): A state judge issued a preliminary injunction. The lawsuit argued that because pandemic disruptions closed testing centers, a “test-optional” policy discriminated against disabled and disadvantaged students who couldn’t find an open venue.
When UC settled the lawsuit in May 2021, they agreed to go test-blind immediately instead of waiting for their original 2023 timeline. The university did not fight the injunction because the lawsuit gave administrators the perfect legal shield to accelerate the exact policy they had already voted to implement.
One source is UC’s own study which the Prof links to in his column. The report contradicts your “google claims”. Here’s the URL in case you miss the hyperlink in the column. https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/underreview/sttf-report.pdf
Linking that exact PDF is an absolute self-own because it explicitly validates my argument, proving you didn’t even bother to read the report.
You posted that link thinking it contradicts me, but the 2020 Standardized Testing Task Force (STTF) Report is the exact paper trail I have been using to prove that the faculty experts desperately tried to save standardized testing before the administrators killed it.
Page 7 (The Recommendation): The faculty task force explicitly states: “The Task Force does not recommend that UC make standardized tests optional for applicants at this time.”
Page 3 (The Predictive Power): It explicitly states: “At UC, test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average (HSGPA)…”
Page 4 (The Counterintuitive Benefit): It explicitly notes: “In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority students (URMs), who are first-generation, or whose families are low-income.
This report proves my exact point: the UC Faculty Task Force looked at the data, concluded that tests were highly accurate and protected disadvantaged students, and formally voted to keep them.
It was the political appointees on the UC Board of Regents who ignored this exact document months later and unilaterally forced the test-blind policy anyway.
I told you so, oh, I told you so.
I told you someday you’d come crawlin’ back and askin’ me to take you in.
Please keep voting for me cause I’ve changed.
Please excuse us if we don’t believe a damned word you’re saying.
Now the bleeding hearts try to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Diversity was just an excuse for the failing education of the minority children by the lazy non caring
who want to make you think they care.
I told you so, oh, I told you so.
Come On Man! The Racist, Colonialist, Supremacists want to go back to standardized testing? NOOOOOOO! That is meant to keep the WO(MAN) DOWN and under the BOOT. The only to Freedom is through IGNORANCE and purposeful STUPIDITY! The Journey to being a country of MORONS has taken decades of hard work by teacher unions and wokies infiltrating the school system.
Give me just one generation of the children and I will change the nation. Two men said this.
One man who said this was Barrack Hussein Obama. I’ll let you guess who the other man is.
I’ll give you a hint. He lived in Germany.
You made that up. Need sources. Not thought through again.
“Give me the Child until he is 7 and I will show you the man”, so said Aristotle 300 BC.
You were off by a bit.
Cutting to the chase, well articulated by phinca,, failure to address the global needs of the K-12 such that they’ve been able to acquire the basic skills sets needed to function effectively in a 21st Century society, as well as pursue advanced studies, just doesn’t add up. The global needs go beyond the curriculum in the class or the presenters therein. The issue is the ability to learn. Those who can do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach teachers. Beyond that, little much as been done to address the causes of ‘why children fail’, since the publishing of the book of the same title. Therein lies the rub.
Global needs? Where did you get that line? There is no intl. dept. of education and standards. Certainly not the UN or such. So that stmt. is void.
Why do Germans, Indians and Asians surpass Americans whites educationally and professionally? Their home countries made a point of supporting education.
I took “global needs” to mean the requirements of global markets in which nations compete. Markets don’t care about any country’s philosophy, their buyers make decisions based on merit. If the US falls behind, the buyers in the global market will buy from others. Maintaining competitiveness in global markets is vital to any nation’s future, including the US’s.
So you’re saying, countries won’t buy US because we’re stupid?
OldManFromKS,
Well said.
This is why those nations offer free college education, many with stipends to support students to graduate without loan debt. They also divorce healthcare from employment so that they are free to move to better jobs without fear of losing medical insurance coverage.
Trapper John,
Employers are eliminating jobs that require education; that is the 21st Century society.
‘Instead of addressing the failure to educate kids in these communities, the push was to eliminate testing itself. As I wrote in 2021, “The deficiencies will remain — but the ability to expose them will be gone.” Those deficiencies are not evident in applications and admissions, but they are clearly manifesting themselves in classes.’
It isn’t restricted to any particular communities – this is simply pervasive in American primary school in 2026, across the board. There are many factors, but it’s a mess, and plenty of ‘non-minority’ students are just as deficient. When you see kids that are an exception, it’s usually because parents supplemented at home, or they got that rare teacher over 45 who hasn’t retired yet. The state of our schools in general is abysmal.
As I wrote in 2021, ???
James,
There is a reason why homeschooling has increased. Parents see what is being taught or I should say, not taught, and are rightfully concerned about their child’s future.
Upstate, homeschooling is on the rise as more parents want to delay their children growing up by holding back modern education in favor of religious indoctrination. It’s like withholding vitamins to keep them from growing taller. Mentally stunting their development to match the close minded parents is too often the goal.
About five decades ago, the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey adopted a policy of admitting students for reasons of equity, and found the need to give the college graduates courses to improve their academics before their first semester of graduate school. About the same time, again in New Jersey and again for reasons of equity, the Bar Exam was revised to allow for an increased passing rate. And about a decade ago, again in New Jersey, Princeton eliminated the requirement for students majoring in the classics to be competent in Greek or Latin. And, as we all know, inner-city public school students don’t have to be proficient in anything to receive a high school diploma. May the Loud Voices very soon quiet.
Building upon what Benisch observes, we are mired in mediocrity for the sake of division, exclusion, and indoctrination. The consequences of that are written in the annals of history, time and time again. Santayana counseled that those who fail to learn from them are doomed to repeat them. As Ben Franklin wisely observed…”a Constitutional Republic….if you can keep it.” Res ipsa loquitor.
Mediocrity. You hit the nail on the head. So it all stated, or after, with your generation? So, you and your fellow commenters here are living proof of that mediocrity?
You could not be more wrong.
It is the lowering of standards in public education and in higher education that has lead to mediocrity. Higher education is not preparing grads for the corporate world.
Bosses are firing Gen Z workers in record time: ‘Yeah, checks out’
“However, HR consultant Bryan Driscoll argues that it is not just young employees presenting a problem, but the education system itself which is not preparing its graduates for the working world.
Another wrote: ‘As a milennial working with Gen Zs I have to admit that I’ve told a couple not to wear their bizarre trendy dirty 90s Filas to work.
‘I literally never thought that would have been appropriate in an office environment as a young person.’
A third person said: ‘They have issues showing up everyday where I work, so it’s mainly attendance problems.’
Upstate,
In the 1950s most every major corporation had a research division. Now almost none of them do. Corporations want to get the pre-trained workers they used to pay to train but without paying for it – which is what happened when the top tax rates were cut. No longer was on the job training and research and development a way to offset income to reduce taxes.
So this is what we get by giving tax breaks to billionaires. Crappy education and crappy jobs.
I expect this is what you wanted, so stop complaining.
The Bar exam exists to modulate the number of lawyers; to control the market and ensure just the right number of lawyers exist to keep prices controlled. Too few graduates means too few doing the scut work in law firms.
Public education is failing students and then in turn higher education is failing them again by lowering standers, doing away with standardized testing, grade inflation (Harvard just recently voted to limit the number of A’s they give out). Higher education also fails to prepare college grads for the real corporate world.
Public education is failing students… Now, how do yo know that as a fact? Fox news? Or a teacher?
Several teachers I know.
Just several? And all from your home town, I assume? Just through conversation? And you conclude that your stmt. is valid for the entire country? Obviously you do not know what your talking about.
Public education is failing students… Now, how do you NOT know that as a fact?
It’s a widespread general understanding. Public schools suck and students are the victims.
The evidence is in the stupidity demonstrated daily and you might be their leader.
“widespread general understanding”. Just an understanding you say?
No evidence, just you spewing stupidities garnered from your circle of idiots… you all know its just an “understanding” .
You’re living proof of American mediocrity.
This doesn’t help Ano
___________________
SALEM — Oregon high school students won’t have to prove basic mastery of reading, writing or math to graduate from high school until at least 2029, the state Board of Education decided unanimously on Thursday, Oct. 19, extending the pause on the controversial graduation requirement that began in 2020.
Can somebody wake up George. Please!
This year’s college freshmen were 7-8th graders when the Covid nightmare closed their CA school. Next year, it will be those cheated out of their 6-7th grade math education, then 5-6th. Mathematics is a highly-organized system of prerequisite knowledge — knowledge built vertically upon earlier knowledge. You can’t paper over a learning gap.
This gap could have been addressed if California’s Education leadership had not chosen social promotion and abandonment of standards as their management tactics. For example, back in the 2000s when getting a high school diploma required passing a high school exit exam (CAHSEE), learning gaps were addressed through summer school. You were forced to catch up.
In 2017, Jerry Brown signed law eliminating the exit exam, just as cell-phone-addiction-culture was overtaking the attention spans of incoming high school students. Silicon Valley techies brought on that crisis, and education leaders couldn’t stomach countering it forcefully, so in essence they threw in the towel.
About 30% of UC freshman arrive with truly pathetic math skills, and another 40% with sub-par problem-solving skills.
The top 30% are the ones who adapted well to online learning during covid, and resisted addiction to social media and gaming. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the entire UC establishment is doomed, because there are some incredibly bright, motivated well-adjusted young Californians ready to lead the future.
It’s just that they will find it much more difficult than past generations to employ the skills of their chronological peers, because they wasted their youth on inconsequential forms of self-gratification, while their education leaders’ commitment to their mission was weak and defeatist.
You got any sources for that lie?
Very rich from someone know as Anonymous who never provides a source to support her conclusions.
Contrarianism for the sake of contrarianism does not provide an argument. It is her sworn duty to battle a windmill that she perceives to be a dragon. Dementia?
Um… what no intellectual ( a stretch at that) contribution on the subject, just dishing out stupid childish responses. Stupidity run in the family? Apparently so.
Speaking of stupid childish responses….
Irony is lost on the double digit IQ
Socialists don’t address the root cause of a problem, like requiring students, regardless of race, to learn basic math at a formative age.
Instead, Socialists manipulate outcomes by forcing Universities to accept unqualified students. Unfortunately for those students they then enter the very outcome based world of capitalism totally unprepared for its realities.
You got any logical proof and facts for that?
Socialists don’t address the root cause of a problem, Gotta ask, how the heck do you know that as a fact Ken? Have you attended a socialist university or worked in one?
Can anyone point out who the socialist universities are in the US? They’re called non-profits, but they sure don’t act like it. Do they?
Democrats always demand to be judged on their intentions, rather than results. It’s a recipe for disaster, and China is laughing.
Really?
China has its own serious problems, with youth no longer believing in “the system”. Only escapists are laughing at the other one’s failings.
and you got that precious insight from… Xi?
End Federal Aid to Cities, STates, Non-profits and colleges
Outlaw Public Unions
Stop rewarding Democrat Failure!
First of all, the PPRC left socialism about 3-4 decades ago and started a capitalist society which basically brought their nation out of poverty. XI has tried to re-impose more of the authoritarian state part but still uses capitalism so now the PPRC more resembles the classic fascist state like Germany 1933-1945.
Math, which I hate, is still incredibly important in a modern highly technological nation and is relatively easy to test for the appropriate skills. It’s kind of like a binary skill and you either have it or don’t. You can be taught the skills with appropriate teaching or you may simply be lucky to have a mind that clicks with math. But it requires skilled teaching and even before we left standardized testing it was not often taught well. We need the testing to know where our students are in their skills and we need standardized math teaching which is highly likely to be successful in teaching the appropriate skills. It’s rarely subjective so the DEI crowd likes to call it racist. Thats about like calling the ability to read and write racist.
From China to Nazis in one paragraph? Whew! Then claim reading and writing racist… double whew!
Math, which I hate, … was not often taught well. Because you suck at it you blame the teacher? How liberal of you. So based on that bit or inanity your comment is completely dumb.
GEB… seriously?
The math doesn’t lie. Worldwide, every school system has kids who get math and kids who don’t, whether you’re looking at Russia, Nigeria, Finland, or China. But about forty years ago, the U.S. decided to declare every student a math genius. The predictable result? Lowered standards and plummeting test scores. For colleges, this meant putting almost everyone through remedial math. Now, the very professors stung by their own bad policy are screaming foul. It just goes to show: when academics step out of their lane, they aren’t any smarter than your local lawn guy.
My lawn guy went the Holy Cross. BS in economics. Imagine that eh?
Funny but true
The Soviet Union failed economically and thus proved that the practice of socialism, as designed by Russian intellectuals, was a failure. This did not deter the group of American intellectuals who were educated in the 1960s. They gave birth to the ridiculous, non-intellectual, non-logical university faculties of today. Now with the rise of an economically much more sophisticated attempt at so-called socialism in the form of the People’s Republic of China, the poorly educated fools who dominate what this author refers to as our “elite” universities have placed the United States on a race to the bottom that has resulted in the populist revolt that has given us the Presidency of Donald J. Trump. I believe that the Pax Americana, created by the massive failure of European resource imperialism is facing its first challenge, the outcome of which cannot be foreseen. The situation in America is often compared to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. That analogy is false. A better one would be that the situation is much more like the collapse of the Roman Republic.
The Soviet Union failed economically … Incorrect, it failed politically – old vs. new, and not because of CCCP socialism, the CCCP was communistic up until its final moments.
Everything else you note is complete and utter hogwash Jack.
Dear Anonymous. Your arguments have as much substance as your identity,
This “Anonymous” is never upbeat on any response he posts. . .kind of like a baby crying for their toy when their parents are trying to feed them.
. phantomboldly5cb0d04b6f .. .kind of like a baby crying for their toy when their parents are trying to feed them.
As does yours?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.Any reply to the Anonomi is time better spent elsewhere. They are oftimes tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,
And yet here your wasting your better time replying to an anon. You ain’t too smart are you?
And yet here your [sic] wasting your better time replying to an anon. You ain’t too smart are you?
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YOU’RE= YOU ARE
Pot, meet Kettle.
😸😸😸
That’s all you got?
StitchfromHawaiiSavingtheWorld,
HHAHAAHAHAAHHAAHAAHHAAAH!!!!
In that you’ve thrown down the gauntlet, let not your ego be massaged by this retort, in that I go out of my way not to suffer fools and knaves. I make the painful exception in this case for the sole purpose of setting the record straight in rebuttal. It was Porter G. Shepard I replied to but, of course, you knew that, didn’t you. So do the others.
Oh oh, someone’s pissed. Suffer fools … so says the fool. Gawd, you’re stupid.
^^^^Stupid
You admit socialism failed. your excuses are hogwash. Commies are murderous, are you?
Of course the USSR failed economically. Centrally planned economies ALWAYS fail. Prices are determined by central planners rather than supply and demand. The result can only be a massive misallocation of resources. Shortages of some items. Gluts of others. And very little is produced outside of the most basic necessities.
The grocery shelves in the USSR were often bare. Stories about people hoping to get a loaf of bread often stood in line for hours and then were turned away empty handed. During the ’80s, I can remember the USSR importing HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF TONS of grain from the West to sustain livestock and bread. Similar dynamic with steel.
When Soviet leader Yeltsin visited a grocery in Texas he famously said there would be a revolution in the Soviet Union if the Soviet citizens saw American grocery stores. In his autobiography, Yeltsin said he felt “sick with despair” for the Soviet people as a result of his trip to the grocery.
Gawd you bought into the ancient capitalist propaganda. Imagine if actually had a brain … at least yo have the basis for a love novel.
Yes, it’s based on the creator’s endowment of self interest. Some are better endowed.
When I traveled the US States I’d visit grocery stores, supermarkets. This was evidence of how well the State was doing economically. I now attempt to read the labels of origin. Give up beef certainly in lesser socioeconomic areas as well as other meats. The quality is meant for zoo carnivores, maybe dog food.
It’s collapsed.
The Soviet Union failed economically … Incorrect, it failed politically …
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Better to keep mouth shut and be thought the FOOL, than to open mouth and remove all doubt.
😸😸😸
Empty heads think alike. Obviously you’re practicing what you’re preaching.
You’re saying the internal collapse preceded the empire’s collapse? Makes sense doesn’t it.