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Notes -
I think until we require that students read and do math at their grade level (as proven by international standardized testing) before moving on to the next grade, very little will change because the system needs a giant slap in the face — to the tune of half or more of the kids being held back — before things really change. One of the things that’s fueling the complacency is that people just don’t know (or want to know) just how bad the schools are. The schools are mostly manipulating the standards of the curriculum such that students aren’t behind, not because they’re actually learning but because they aren’t held to a proper standard.
Is there any example of a school system anywhere in the world being able to fail kids below standards en masse once the expectations of universal high school education sets in?
I get the feeling that once we agree everyone should stay in theoretical education until 18 standards have to fall inevitably
I don’t think the American system would be as bad if we didn’t essentially try to shoehorn every student into the exact same school system where everyone must graduate from the same curriculum no matter what. Other systems are able to maintain semi-decent standards by tracking kids into either trade or labor or university tier scholars and thus once it becomes clear that you cannot or aren’t going to study well enough to really succeed as a scholar you simply tailor his schooling to make him a skilled laborer or a unskilled laborer if he’s really dumb and thus the students who are worthy get a high level education and there’s much less pressure to lower the standards so that everyone, even the kid in the back making armpit farting noises, gets a college-bound education.
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