National Test Scores Have Plummeted

Test scores for our kids are falling... and fast. Do NOT get Jack started on "common core" math. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, national test scores have plunged with no sign of
pandemic recovery.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
It frightens me. Go ahead, they were headed that direction
before the pandemic, so it'd been going down for a
long long time. Pandemic hurd it along and it still sucks.
So that's not good. Wow.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Wow, it is heartening at least a little bit to
see that even liberal media is trying to plead with
its side, saying, hey, the conservatives are so stupid with
their vax stuff and they didn't take COVID seriously. But
maybe we kept the schools closed way too long. I'm

(00:40):
seeing that more in the liberal media, thank goodness.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, the axios take on it is. American students' test
scores in math and reading got significantly worse last year,
continuing a decade long freefall. So the results had been
in free fall for ten years, and it got worse
by a lot recently because of kicking our kids out
of school for no good reason. Biggest drop in fifty years.

(01:06):
That's horrible. And think about how much more money we're
spending per student than they did fifty years ago. Well,
there's not as much time to teach reading, right, and
an arithmetic, because you've got to teach radical gender theory
and critical race theory and that sort of thing to
the little kids. So you got to remember that that's

(01:27):
the number that it is a crime that every parent
isn't aware of, or you know, some political party doesn't
do a better job at get in front of our face,
your kids getting less of an education. It should be
well known how much were they spending in today's dollars
per kid fifty years ago, forty years ago, thirty years
I'm thinking about California because that's where I live. We

(01:50):
know from talking to Tom McClintock many times over the years,
it would be a fraction of what we spend now,
and it is demonstrainable that they got better at results.
This is a.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Complicated problem, but one that if people are serious about
it and don't trust the teachers' unions to take the lead,
I think we can make serious progress in American education.
But the government school system is broken. A lot is
completely broken.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
A lot of teachers would at least partially push back
on that with parents were different then, which is absolutely true.
Oh no, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
I'm saying there are a lot of things going on,
and we've got to as a society be honest about
them and not just ask the teachers union, because yeah,
the raw material they're getting is not as good as intact.
Families have declined year after year after year. What culture's
value education, which don't What are the discipline discipline practices

(02:54):
in schools.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Compared to what they used to be. There are all
sorts of things going on. But in addition to the
horror of teaching your things, teaching things to kids that
are going to make them crazy, like you know, asking
a six year old what gender they are, there's just
the whole opportunity cost thing. That's what bothers me. You've
only got so many hours in a day. If you're
talking about this, you can't be talking about that. So

(03:16):
if you're having the kids fill out a form about
whether or not daddy has a gun in the house,
they don't have time to be doing math. When did
that become a thing?

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Students from all regions of the country and of all
races and ethnicities lost ground in math. Reading was more split.
Scores dropped for black, multiracial and white students because of
systemic racism. Oh wait a minute, white student but Hispanic, Asian, American, Indian,
and Alaska Native students were described as not measurably different.
But everybody plunged in math, and though the lower performing

(03:45):
kids plunged the mosts even the highest performing kids plunged
half as much.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Hey, you know what hasn't been brought up in this
I can't believe I didn't bring it up? How about
the new dang math? I almost dropped another fake f bomb.
I'm gonna do it here. I'll pay the dollar phone.
Oh how about that flipping common core math? That makes
no sense to anybody? This garbage guy can't understand how

(04:10):
to help a fourth grader? How about that? Throw that
into the mix. It's the stupidest idea we've ever.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Come up with education as an industry, because that's what
it is, is more prone to fads than a group
of fourteen year old high school girls. It's astounding having
observed education through my life. You know, in schools, as a.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Pair of kids, et cetera, they will all start dressing
the same and all start using the same lingo, that
all have the same sunglasses, etc. All listen to the
same music and then different music and explain how that
music of last month sucks all in lockstep, except it's
not closing sunglasses and music. It's it's modes of education

(04:57):
and what the kids ought to be learning and fable
new ways to teach.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Math, for instance. They're like adolescence in education and some
of your good, solid educators and we love you for it.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Oh absolutely, my son had the great Probably.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Makes you insane to see this stuff.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
My son had the greatest teacher this year. God, I
wish I could have her be his teacher the rest
of his life. So amazing. I mean, just like God.
There ought to be a special like government compensation for
those people. But wow, things like common core math drove
my mom into retirement. Basically she didn't want to teach
the new stuff. So frustrating,