2y ago

America’s youngest students entered school this year with weaker math and reading skills, compared with before the pandemic

www.wsj.com /us-news/education/when-covid-hit-they-were-in-diapers-so-why-are-kindergarteners-struggling-7d75e37e

27 comments

In kindergarten, students tested in 2023 were about 2 percentage points less likely to begin school at grade level in both math and reading, compared with 2019
2%....
Which is probably because they missed out on Pre-K and just highlights how our education system isnt enough anymore. If there's a real benefit to Pre-K (there is) then let's stop making it something that costs a bunch of money and is hard to get into.
Let's just make it part of the public school system
- The difference in reading comprehension / writing skills between Kindergarteners who went to preschool and who did not is usually night and day imo.
- We already did here in CA. My daughter will be in TK at a cost of $0 to me next year.
Before we blame the pandemic, are there any studies showing whether parents have been reading to their kids these past few years, or has the iPad taken over as the parent?
- Test scores took a dive during the pandemic and never recovered.
  It would be really hard to point to something else other than the pandemic to note the sudden and dramatic drop.
  
  "The pandemic" doesn't explain it.
  What specifically, during the pandemic, led to a 2% drop in their scores?
  Were kids not being read to at home? Did they spend all their time during lockdown watching TV?
  Screen time, which should be limited to under an hour for preschool aged kids, is considerably higher than that, and it got worse during the pandemic.
  It seems like parents or caregivers would be to blame for that.
- Exactly this. If you choose to have kids you've gotta actually nurture them and educate them.
  
  You have to have time to nurture them, as well. I imagine a lot of parents simply don't have the time/energy because of needing to work so much to take care of their families.
Before COVID the US was dropping in worldwide math, science, and writing rankings. I would be willing to bed $1 that this will just hasten our decline.
- COVID actually helped the US go up, but only because other countries were more adversely affected.
  
  I would honestly like to see a reference to whatever study you're quoting. Because all the data I've looked at clearly shows the US getting hit harder by COVID than anywhere else.
  We're #1 in both infections and deaths. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1093256/novel-coronavirus-2019ncov-deaths-worldwide-by-country/
  Over 100 million cases of it have been documented here, with over 1.1 million deaths. This also places us at the second highest of per capita deaths in the world under one country: Peru.
  Our COVID death rate accounts for 1/6 of the total world deaths from COVID.
No one cares about people in America. Just work shitty jobs for asshole legitimate psychopaths and shut the fuck up like a good American. The American Dream isn't for us, it's for them and them alone. You're either a slave to them or you fuck up innocent lives to "gEt MiNe" exactly as they do. That makes you just as much the enemy as them.
Catch 22. Life is evil.
- Oh to be this cynical.

27 comments