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There's a lot of issues ranging from lack of parental involvement, to school funding based on enrollment which creates an incentive to "go easy", to too much parental involvement and pressure, to fragile kids and parents who can't handle objective standards and failure, to education that has overemphasized feelings and under emphasized stem, and on and on. And, while it's easy to frame this as a resources issue, it's not just poor kids - think about the trophy generation, this basically that same idea but academically. I do think that COVID really exacerbated a lot of this stuff and did harm to young people who lost important socialization opportunities, which, not coincidentally is the group entering college right now.

Unfortunately, the slipping standards and competence results in real world consequences ranging from unqualified workers to discontented youth who think they just need to do the bare minimum to get ahead. It started with the millenials who would get pissed when they'd do a job for two years and wouldn't be running the company, and it's only getting worse.

As my mom would say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

All this lefty bullshit about needing to nurture students (don’t give grades - they are too stressful!) is leading teachers to lower expectations.

It is a problem nationwide.

A lot of colleges are getting rid of requirements on SAT/ACT scores. These used to serve as an important data point to balance with G.P.A.'s to equalize how applicants were judged against each other.

Seems like this issue and your expanded take would mean these scores should carry more weight, not less/zero.

It is just one of the many metrics colleges use, though. And those tests are a good predictor of how a student does in college. So I’m all for them.

The thing that is easiest for today’s students to fudge on - or cheat, or have daddy’s consultants help with if they are rich - is the personal statement.

SAT of 1450 and his parents can't afford to send him, so right now he's doing a menial job part time. And he's extremely proficient in math.

education at an expensive school has slipped. No shame in paying something reasonable the first two years, and then getting the paper from the four year school. People only remember where you finished, not where you started. And the nice thing about community college is that some have trades so you can learn a practical skill while also getting your prerequisites out of the way.

Tell him to stick with it. Overcoming adversity is the best lesson today's young people can learn. As a group resilience isn't a common character trait.

I don't work in academia, so these are just some random musings.

First, schools are often measured on graduation rates at all grade levels. Many teachers, accordingly, are under immense pressure to push these kids through to the next level by their administrators and school systems. If Teacher A has kids being held back at a higher rate than others, the perception can be that he/she is the problem, and not in fact the student or their out-of-school challenges. For the school administrators, if parents start pulling their kids out and pursuing other options (like vouchers or charters), that can cost their school funding, and that creates constraints. Furthermore, if schools held back every kid who probably needed it, you start getting backlog issues in grade levels really fast. Not enough teachers or classes to support the number of 6th graders they'll have, not enough rooms and resources to accomodate the total student body when a new class of kindergarteners is coming in (or freshmen, if it's a high-school issue).

Second, others feel like they're doing the kid a better service moving them along. "What if hold him back and it's the second time he's repeated a grade, and now he's 16 and still a 9th grader....will he just drop out and now things are worse?"

Third, in some of the poorest of school districts, make no mistake that there are teachers who are not qualified to be doing what they're doing, either from subject-matter expertise or in terms of their skill at providing instruction.

I would venture a guess that the bulk of these issues are home-life problems.

That has been going on forever for the marginal students, the study that Iggle posted is about college bound students which I think is something new. "The number of freshmen entering the University of California San Diego whose math skills fall below a high-school level has increased nearly 30-fold over the past five years" and on average received "A" grades. The schools and teachers giving these grades should be investigated.

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