Almost 70% of 8th Grader are Stupid...

a reply to: Cygnis

Same ol politicians.
Same ol game.

I see people blaming social media.
Look at China. Social media is just as popular but their youth is excelling above and beyond ours.

19 States still allow corporal punishment. These kids aren't dumb they just don't have any respect or discipline!!! They grow up with the internet where filth is just a thumb stroke away. The world has changed and people better start adapting soon.

And who's to blame for this?
We have an education system that is more interested in test scores for federal funding than actually educating people.

Cognitive abilities and critical thinking are not promoted.

A herd mentality and subservient mind are promoted.

Title irony! Wanna go back and fix that?

originally posted by: StallionDuck
Title irony! Wanna go back and fix that?

Don't forget he didn't use proper punctuation. He/She must not be proficient in English either.

originally posted by: Edumakated
According to the National Assessment of Education Progress test, 67% of public school 8th graders are not proficient in Math and 65% are not proficient in English. W to the T to the F!

Public School Kids are Stupid

The sad thing is that in some districts, practically all the kids aren't proficient. I read an article that in Baltimore, 1/3rd of the schools didn't have a SINGLE GOD DAMN KID that was proficient at math. NOT ONE. Baltimore Kids are Even Dumber

How is this possible with all the money we spend on education locally and the billions of dollars the fed steals from us every year to fund the Dept of Education?

While I am no friend of the teacher's unions, I believe results like this are a reflection of how some segments of our society are just failing at parenting. Schools reflect the communities they serve. Good public schools aren't good because of the teachers, but because the majority of students come from homes that expect academic excellence. In many areas, public schools have become glorified day care and social service programs, not places of higher learning.

Discuss...

I dunno I did poorly in math all through elementary school and highschool. I know sometimes it was lousy teachers other times my own fault. It tool until I was in university before it all suddenly clicked and math all made sense to me. I had probably one of the most patient, hard working teachers i've ever met for math in university. She was literally a rocket scientist, taught from at least 7 am when I would have class with her and would still be there at 10 pm teaching night classes when I was working night security at the school. She would go over an entire lesson again with each student individually if they needed it and had an extra tutoring session for anyone struggling she did in her free time.

Im still not sure entirely how useful highschool and elementary school are in the long run. I know I learned things there but it feels like a lot of time and opportunities were wasted. Both by myself and non-caring or just not very good teachers and there's a lot of things I really wish they had taught me or someone anyway that you just kinda learn when you're forced to do it as an adult.

originally posted by: StallionDuck
Title irony! Wanna go back and fix that?

Only if you fix your "Wanna". I knew the grammar and punctuation Nazis would come out.

originally posted by: JohnRiggs
Social Media is the reason for this. They would rather check their twitter, facebook or whatever, than do homework or study.

EXACTLY.

However, it doesn't stop there. One must factor in the ease of use with these devices that everyone uses to obtain knowledge without having to actually RETAIN IT because it is presumed to be always at one's fingertips.

Ask the average person how many names to phone numbers they can actually recall...

...I guarantee less than 10.

GUARANTEED.

a reply to: EternalShadow

There's no longer a need to recall numbers.
That's like saying kids these days don't know how to milk a cow.

a reply to: Edumakated

Sooo are you saying that when cnn said americans are stupid it wasn't fake news after all?

a reply to: Edumakated

I don't think it's as bad as you're claiming. Quite the opposite actually... it seems kids are learning more and learning it earlier. The definition of proficient in this case is quoted in the study as

“Eighth-graders performing at the Proficient level should…understand the connections between fractions, percents, decimals, and other mathematical topics such as algebra and functions,”

When I was in 8th grade, the year was 1995. I don't really remember what math I learned in 8th grade but I remember 7th grade spent a lot of time on fractions, percentages, and long division. I also remember 9th grade and that's where algebra and functions were introduced (and I went to private schools where these topics were introduced earlier than in public school).

So, the way I read this study isn't that 67% aren't proficient in math, but rather that 33% of 8th graders are capable of math that was considered 10th grade material 20 years ago.

To me, that seems pretty darn good.

originally posted by: Milkweed
a reply to: EternalShadow

That's like saying kids these days don't know how to milk a cow.

Right. They can Google a YouTube video to show them how.

a reply to: Edumakated

The church used to have followers blindly obey because only the church had people who could read.

Society today doesn't want thinkers, society wants obey'ers.

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

I dropped out of 8th grade to get away from abusive parents.

But I have since used the internet to educate myself.

There is a difference between ignorant and stupid.

I'm not surprised, just log in Facebook for ten minutes

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

I dropped out of 8th grade to get away from abusive parents.

But I have since used the internet to educate myself.

There is a difference between ignorant and stupid.

Agreed. Education is what you put into it, not what grade you make it to.

originally posted by: EternalShadow

originally posted by: JohnRiggs
Social Media is the reason for this. They would rather check their twitter, facebook or whatever, than do homework or study.

EXACTLY.

However, it doesn't stop there. One must factor in the ease of use with these devices that everyone uses to obtain knowledge without having to actually RETAIN IT because it is presumed to be always at one's fingertips.

Ask the average person how many names to phone numbers they can actually recall...

...I guarantee less than 10.

GUARANTEED.

But to be fair being on social media involves a lot of writing and reading skills.

And if you belong to a forum like this one well you better have some ability to research and form cognitive arguments. least you get ridiculed.

So in a way kids are still learning things, just not in the old fashion way most of us grew up with.

My friends kids have all learned how to read and write and use computers at very young ages. Much younger than those from my generation.

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

Agreed.

My father dropped out of school in 4th grade but he learned how to run a farm when he was 9.

I'm 30 and I have no idea how to run a farm...but I could write a book if I wanted.

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
My friends kids have all learned how to read and write and use computers at very young ages. Much younger than those from my generation.

How old are those kids?

There's actually something of a problem with the technology skills of generation Z. Computers have gotten so easy to use, and handy GUI's plus cloud services have abstracted away so much of how things work underneath the hood that technology skills are getting worse.

Knowing how to install an app on your phone that searches a bunch of tweets for mention of your name is not on the same level as what one had to do to install and properly configure a file parser and then write a matching regex for it to find the information you wanted back in 1990.

The average teenager or younger today has no concept of encryption vs plaintext, cloud vs local storage, non plug and play hardware (they don't even know what a ps/2 keyboard/mouse port is), disk transfers, or command line interfaces. Lots of underlying concepts have been abstracted away, and as a result technology is becoming more like magic than it already was.