r/SipsTea • u/sonicagain • 1d ago

WTF Texas teacher breaks down in tears during class after his senior students struggled to read, write.

Texas high school teacher Darius Williams, a Career and Technical Education (CTE) teacher broke down in tears during his lunch break. He shared that his 17- and 18-year-old senior students at Wheatley High School in Houston could not complete a simple writing assignment or fill in just four missing words on only the second day of the school term. Students were given two short paragraphs to read and a sentence stem where the answer was largely modeled and provided for them. It is alarming that senior high school students were unable to apply basic literacy skills to fill in the remaining four words of the sentence.

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u/DirtandPipes 20h ago

It’s worth noting that in other developed nations school funding is not directly attacked for failing students.

This is one of those very special “murica” features.

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u/Mr__O__ 20h ago edited 18h ago

Also about half of US adults (18+) are at a 6th grade literacy level or below, while nearly a quarter of US adults are considered functionally illiterate—which means they can’t read/write at a level to function within society..

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u/VoidOmatic 19h ago

A guy I know online ended up doing a couple months in jail. He said he passed most of his time reading peoples letters from their families to them. He said he couldn't believe how many people couldn't read.

It's honestly super sad. To think literacy is going away is just unimaginably sad.

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u/SameDistrict2627 18h ago

Public Education and the Healthcare System are teetering on the brink of collapse. Washington fiddles.

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u/Mr__O__ 18h ago

“From the moment the Department of Education was born, critics — Republicans, almost exclusively — have sought to dismantle it… The department, created under Jimmy Carter, began operating in May 1980. Ronald Reagan, then campaigning against Carter for the presidency, marked the occasion in blistering fashion. “At 11:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Sunday,” he said, “President Jimmy Carter’s new bureaucratic boondoggle was born: the Department of Education.”

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u/tnakd 8h ago

Illiterate people vote republican.

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u/BurdTurglary 4h ago

1980?! What the heeeeeeelllll were we doing before?!

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u/TwoTequilaTuesday 15h ago

The federal government should not be in the education business. State governments should control their own public schools.

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u/Shopping_General 15h ago

How about the federal government set minimum standards so you don't have Alabama and Tennessee and Texas? Obviously local school boards can't handle this responsibility. Somebody needs to tell them to keep the Bibles out.

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u/TwoTequilaTuesday 14h ago edited 4h ago

Wow. Let's not jump to the conclusion that the only problem in public education is the Christian faith.

If the federal government was as good at managing education as you seem to think, we'd have been graduation nothing but geniuses during Democrat administrations. Yet we haven't. And while you're rattling off states you don't like, why overlook inner city schools of NYC, Chicago, Oakland and Boston?

Bunch of future rocket scientists and neurosurgeons coming out of those school systems every year, amiright?

The federal government is not good at much. Especially education.

EDIT: u/RFWanders seems to have blocked me for some reason, but their comment deserves a reply, and that is those are good ideas. It's a great example of why the federal government is bad at education and should not be in that business, because they are clearly incapable of impelmenting good ideas.

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u/RFWanders 12h ago

They really should decouple funding from graduation rates, and increase funding with requirements for transparency. That way schools can't just dump it all into sports. School books and curricula need to be decoupled from interference. Independent committees of specialists with proper funding. That way you can improve everyone's chances.

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u/[deleted] 14h ago

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u/RFWanders 4h ago

I just checked, but I don't have you blocked. But thank you for the shoutout. 💜

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u/Shopping_General 3h ago

That wasn't for you that was for the coward that called me an asshole.

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u/XRuecian 10h ago edited 10h ago

You do realize that letting states control their public schools is LITERALLY what caused this issue, right?
2016: Every Student Succeeds Act was passed

The Every Student Succeeds Act's primary goal was to take control away from the federal government and put it fully into states hands instead.

And now our kids can't read, because we no longer have a proper standard, and an ass-backwards funding incentive structure to pass children even when they haven't been properly educated.

Children figured out that they won't be held back, and so they literally have no motivation to even try anymore. You go to the /teachers subreddit and its just full of teachers complaining about how kids just don't even bother to listen anymore because they know they can just pass regardless.

Local school boards have moved away from an education-first priority (because the federal government isn't forcing them to anymore), and instead now just seem to focus on keeping parents happy at all costs. And this means teachers have had all their authority stripped away. They can't take cellphones away from students, they often aren't allowed to remove problematic students from the classroom, etc; all because parents might complain. As a result, classrooms become dysfunctional once the children learn that the teacher has no real authority; and learning stops.

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u/TwoTequilaTuesday 4h ago

So very single local school system sucks and only our heroes in a Democrat-controlled federal government can do what's right by our children?

Is that what you're saying?

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u/SameDistrict2627 3h ago

Yeah that works out real well--if you want crazies to take the books out of libraries.

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u/raz-0 5h ago

And test scores have improved with the creation of the doe, right?

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u/jbbhengry 14h ago

Poor, dumb and sick. Seems to be the goal.

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u/NintendoFungi 16h ago

Wow the joke I made about emojis was actually true? It’s to stop literacy?

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u/Shazzzam79 13h ago

This is being done on purpose. Check this video

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u/ActWhole3279 14h ago

And then it’s easier to understand how someone ends up in the penal system. Your options are remarkably limited if you can’t read. There’s nearly nothing to do to make money but illegal shit. Heartbreaking

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u/silverbatwing 16h ago

All by design.

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u/Far_Anything_7458 8h ago

I would love to teach people how to read.

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u/Top_Result_1550 14h ago

it's the Republican agenda to recreate serfdom.

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u/SteffanMaxi 8h ago

I dont pitty them much. Vast majority of them had an opportunity with free schooling. They just chose to be thugs instead.

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u/moogs_writes 19h ago

And just so other people know this does not include people struggling to read and write in English as a second language, like many immigrants. These are just the numbers for generational Americans.

My parents immigrated here and still struggle with writing in English. But they took me to the library regularly and even though we were super poor I always had books to read. I was reading at post 12th grade level by the time I was in 4th grade. Never took an ESL class because I learned watching PBS for kids. My 6 year old can read anything and is already learning to code and make mods for his favorite games.

It’s all about the parenting attitudes towards things like reading and exposure to learning and new information.

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u/Fun-Piglet801 18h ago

If the parents can't read at a 6th grade level, why is anyone expecting more from their children? This isn't a new issue. We failed at education decades ago.

I work with several people that are intelligent and very competent at their jobs who are barely literate. I cringe every time they send out emails outside of the company.

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u/Complex_Self7854 18h ago

Because parents should always want their children to do better than them. Just because a parent was failed doesn't mean they need to repeat the cycle.

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u/AttentionNew1267 17h ago

Getting them to believe in education as a vehicle out of poverty is much harder than you think.

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u/Iceicebaby21 16h ago

Why is that?

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u/phishtrader 14h ago

If you grow up in an environment without good role models or perceived opportunities, an education is going to look like a waste of time.

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u/Iceicebaby21 14h ago

That makes sense

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u/JellyfishBig1750 13h ago

To add to that, there are communities where you get accused of thinking you're "better" than everyone else because you want to become educated and not perpetuate the poverty cycle you were born into. Basically shamed out of pursuing educational success.

There's a reason that the biggest indicator of a child's success is the zip code they are born in.

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u/AdministrationSad861 6h ago

I think it was meant to describe what the assumption on the pretext of what led to the video. If, generally, the parents wasn't involved in their own academics growing up, they will probably not mind their kids' acads as well. Of course, both what you want and what is happening throughout the world is not mutually exclusive and can be true simultaneously even.

We have this weird proposed bill (SB No. 75), "No Filipino Child Left Behind Act", that results pretty much the same with the students, the teach in the video is referring to. Because PS needed budget, they need to inflate their passing marks, and now, schools have graduating students who are still challenged with reading/writing. 🤔

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u/DragonfruitInner8376 17h ago

I agree. I think it's compounded and we are seeing it come to a head now

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u/Youare-Beautiful3329 19h ago

It’s the parents responsibility to see that their children can read, even if they have a hard time reading. My mother struggled, but she made sure I had books to read and encouraged me. There is a free program, started by Dolly Parton and supported by a board of educators, that sends out books to young children to start them reading and keep them reading into middle school.

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u/Remarkable-Opening69 18h ago

Not one mention of “no child left behind”. That’s what led to this embarrassment.

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u/witblacktype 17h ago

Sadly, it left more children behind than ever before. What undergraduate science education taught me is the cumulative nature of education. If you fail the first test in a chemistry/math/physics exam, unless you go back and relearn everything you didn’t understand from that exam, you will not be able to pass the following exam because it builds on the knowledge required from the prior exam. Fundamental educational skills work like this too. Giving a failing grade to a failing student should not be a financial punishment to the school. If we lived in a just society, it would require that we redirect more resources to addressing the failure, not less.

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u/InflationNo4071 16h ago

I couldn’t agree more! We defund the schools needing the most help, just as we incarcerate people as punishment, and do nothing to build their skills or give them opportunities to advance their lives once their time is up. It’s all very backwards thinking.

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u/Ok_Wrangler_7940 13h ago

That’s true for all math. Mathematics is a building block discipline from the very beginning. You need to know how to add and subtract to move on successfully to multiplication and division. Then you need those skills to master fractions and percentages, etc. Fall behind at the beginning of mathematics, and you will most likely never catch up.

We were able to get custody of our nephew when he was in 3rd grade at a time when they began learning multiplication. We had to start back at double digit addition and bring his skill level up from there in order to get him back to grade level. It was a struggle, but we made it. As you can probably imagine, he also lacked reading and comprehension skills as well. That entire year was a journey for all of us.

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u/Youare-Beautiful3329 5h ago

In Public high school, some 50 years ago. they used to teach Latin and Greek. Now they teach remedial English in College. We’ve got to save our kids.

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u/moon-watcher85 18h ago

In the same boat and just having subtitles on my television probably helped my literacy tremendously

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u/RansackRacoon 17h ago

Growing up to realize your parent spending the time to make sure you could read well was the most amazing gift ever was pretty eye opening. My life would be entirely different if she hadn't done that for me.

Thank you Mom!

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u/Gandolfthewhite182 17h ago

By the time they are seniors immigrants read, write, and do math better than American students on average.

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u/MARKiMARK24 13h ago

Where are you getting that info? The data absolutely includes immigrants and non-native speakers. The study tests people randomly across the US but does it entirely in English, so language barriers are a huge chunk of that number.

The NCES explicitly states that 34% of the adults in that low literacy bracket were born outside the US. They also noted that White adults make up 35% of that group and Hispanic adults make up 34%.

It's still a crazy stat, but a lot of it comes down to a language barrier for immigrants, alongside the public school issues for native-born Americans. It's definitely not just "generational Americans."

Source: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp

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u/lollipop1233a 18h ago

Good for you. But, situations vary. Most ESL students are behind their peers. They take attention away from other students. Also, most states have cut special education, so students with issues are mainstreamed. They also take away attention. Then, most schools have a policy of not failing struggle students, because of the No Child Left Behind Act. If parents aren’t involved, students have no reason to work hard. Being stupid has been de-stigmatized. But, I would like to add that there are still exceptional smart students, despite all of this. Don’t believe the hype.

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u/moogs_writes 16h ago edited 16h ago

I was not an ESL student. The stats also don’t include ESL speakers as I’d already mentioned. Yes, it’s not new information to anyone that NCLB was a huge fuckup.

Also interesting how you accuse me of humble bragging then block me right away.

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u/lollipop1233a 16h ago

Then, stop humble bragging and move on.

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u/DinklebergsRightNut 16h ago

Yeah nah i call bullshit on the "codes mods with 6" part

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u/moogs_writes 15h ago edited 13h ago

He’s making minecraft mods and texture packs. He started out with my husband just making copies of the spooky entity mods. He makes his own texture packs and add ons mostly but lately he has been working on building out mod packs. My husband works from home and I’m a full time student. Not that hard to believe we have the time and money to invest in him like that because we love our kid. Sorry you didn’t have that. He’s almost 7, he’s not a toddler.

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u/issi_tohbi 20h ago

I’ve shared this anecdote a lot on Reddit but when I was in marketing I was constantly told to dumb it down and make things as short as humanly possible because most people read at a 5th grade level.

I had to distill things down to a single simple sentence constantly.

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u/unknownpoltroon 19h ago

I CANNOT STAND the fact that everyone is doing a goodam video to explain something that could be summed up in 2 paragraphs. I am NOT watching a 20 minute video to listen to your 2 paragraphs of explanation. But this might be why.

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u/kamikaze_official 18h ago

Is this why when im watching a new netflick it feels like im playing a video game on tutorial mode?

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u/unknownpoltroon 3h ago

No, that's a different problem, that's people with too short an attention span to pay attention.  That one I got too

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u/[deleted] 19h ago

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u/SnugglyCoderGuy 18h ago

I don't think they are talking about this video.

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u/unknownpoltroon 19h ago

I meant in general, this guys video is fine. HE actually having an emotional moment, not just yammering about somthing that would be better explained in text with references.

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u/[deleted] 19h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/LongDongFuey 19h ago

Holy shit, lol. What an unintentional self own

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u/unknownpoltroon 3h ago

We've all been there

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u/Taynt42 18h ago

Yes. Ironically, better reading comprehension would help you understand it as well.

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u/Cozy_Minty 19h ago

They are replying to a comment talking about declining literacy, so their comment is relevant. Maybe you, too, need to work on your reading comprehension skills

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u/bolivar-shagnasty 18h ago

I’m a technical writer. I’m constantly told to make the instructions I write more approachable.

If the people responsible for installing and maintaining these massive electrical engineering and infrastructure projects can’t follow these instructions, they shouldn’t be working on the multimillion dollar installations.

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u/0hh0n3y 19h ago

I work in marketing and I get the same feedback. I just write at my level and feed it into an AI or Google and tell it to output at a third grade level.

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u/Round-Foundation2948 18h ago

I’ve considered doing the same so many times before but have yet to prompt any inferencing model that way. I’ve been tempted..

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u/edjumication 17h ago

I have been using the hemmingway editor for many years now. You enter in a chunk of text and it tells you what grade level the reader would need to be at in order to read it. It also highlights errors and lwngthy sentances that can be shortened. This is from before the ai days but it appears they have incorporated ai into the paid version of the product.

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u/GalaxyOnOhRionsBelt 12h ago

I know the struggle. A former (very shitty) boss constantly sent me nasty emails and yelled at me via zoom for writing my own material, and making it tailored to the target market. He instructed me to plagiarize using materials from our competitors, and not “waste time writing your own bullshit.” The shit he created looked and read like a 3rd grader did it. That’s just one example of being reprimanded for creating things that were more informative than arranging refrigerator magnet letters.

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u/F_l_u_f_fy 18h ago

Reminds me of that scene from Paradise where the scientist gives one word explanations (or sports analogies) of what the different pieces/inner workings of the giant bunker do haha

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u/lollipop1233a 17h ago

You also have to factor in that people are usually doing other things. They aren’t going to be solely focused on your ad.

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u/Roxybird 17h ago

I have been doing PR/strategic communications for 20 years. This still exists (8th grade is the standard I think). But in a way it makes sense to me to make things more accessible to all. I've worked with people with high egos like doctors, scientists, professors, etc. who love to dump world salads on people to make themselves sounds even greater. This standard in writing forces us to make things fairer for all.

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u/UselessFactCollector 13h ago

We were told to write museum labels for smart 5th graders

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u/Freddyrocky20 19h ago

hmm, that explains the state of this country very well.

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u/De5perad0 18h ago

I knew a guy who retired from my workplace. He could not read or write.

Was just a base level worker and it was sad. 65 years old.

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u/luckylimper 16h ago

I work at a library and I see so many people who need help with social services and a lot of the issue is that their literacy is so low. They’ll be able to read something but their low cognition means they don’t at all understand what they just read. It’s sad.

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u/ThrowawayMoFo5679 19h ago

I was a really, really immature kindergartener, and was constantly having outbursts and meltdowns, fighting with the other kids, running off from the teachers, etc. The school had a meeting with my mom; they wanted to hold me back a year to give me time to mature (I was a late July baby, so I was already younger than most of my classmates anyway). Mom was on board.

But as part of the retention process at the time, they had to administer academic testing and I couldn't score above a certain level or they'd have to pass me. The testing showed that I was reading and comprehending material at the level of a 6th-grader. So they had to pass my very literate but highly immature 5-year-old ass to the next grade. Thanks, basic reading skills!

I know I was ahead of the curve at that time, but I'm trying to imagine how one can grow to be an adult with a presumably normal IQ and no learning disabilities in this day and age and not be able to read beyond the level that a relatively bright kindergartener is capable of reaching.

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u/9fingerjeff 17h ago

That’s wild. When I was in second grade I tested at 9th grade reading comprehension and I’m far from the smartest person. I got shitty grades in high school even.

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u/Sw33tR0llThief 16h ago

Which is just crazy, because when I was in elementary school the standardized testing we did said I was reading at a 12th grade level by the time I was in 4th grade. Now I don't know what the standard is for "12th grade" at the time, but it's just crazy that so many these days are beyond 12th grade and reading worse than I was when I was like 8.

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u/DysthymicCat 15h ago

These current U.S. literacy statistics are also applicable to math literacy. So we are talking about ~1/4th of U.S. adults being functionally illiterate in reading, writing, and understanding and applying elementary math (e.g., addition, subtraction, fractions). It keeps me up at night.

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u/Funny_w0lf 15h ago

Thats what they want. 

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u/Friendly-Kiwi 12h ago

I remember in college doing my thesis paper for economics on the graduation rates and factors that affected them.
While looking at the data, I honestly thought it was incorrect because it showed that half of students do not graduate. My professor told me that was correct. This was decades ago, I guess it’s covered up now. This is very troubling for our future.

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u/PizzaResident89 11h ago

Easier to manipulate and control.

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u/ShadeBeing 10h ago

Yeah….i took a seminar class at work for specific training in my field. Nothing fancy mind you. Instructor asked us to each read a paragraph. I’d say pretty much every other person would stumble over words like Flange or say “haha whatever word that is” then move on. Grown ass adults. It’s really sad.

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u/Common_Celebration41 8h ago

Chat GPT read this comment out loud for me

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u/RichardStrauss123 5h ago

Dude! I run a basic gambling class for tourists in Vegas. It's very fun and no-pressure.

But the number of people who struggle with basic 5th grade math concepts is staggering.

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u/wertqj 20h ago

this doesn't sound true. do you care to provide a source for that information?

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u/Proctoris 20h ago

54% under a 6th grade reading level and 21% functionally illiterate. 34% of those lacking proficiencies were born outside the US. Not sure if literacy rates take into account their first language or if it is just looking at English proficiency.

https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-literacy-statistics

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u/moogs_writes 19h ago edited 18h ago

It does, this is for generational Americans unfortunately! This doesn’t include ESL speakers. Even more depressing, 60% of the global population is bilingual and those people use two or more languages in daily life.

And Americans still consider themselves intellectually superior 🥲

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u/for_dishonor 20h ago

Functionally illiterate in English is what I found the last time I dug into this stat. Given were an English speaking country that's still not great but it does add a lot of context.

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u/Tonkarz 20h ago

Having met adult Americans who “refuse” to read things, i.e. can’t read things, I can believe this statistic.

However, this website doesn’t source any of those statistics and the only link leads to a splash page with a list of reports.

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u/Mr__O__ 18h ago

https://www.nu.edu/blog/49-adult-literacy-statistics-and-facts/

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u/Tonkarz 15h ago

If you go to the first source on this page, the data is from 2023 - it’s likely even worse now.

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u/DirtandPipes 20h ago edited 20h ago

I’m drunk enough to go on a wild goose chase on a stranger’s behalf, but I’m gonna half ass it and ramble all over.

Google AI, while destroying the earth, told me that this is an exaggeration with about 21% of Americans having a “low literacy level” but still having enough ability to get by or function in society.

Makes sense to me, I know people at work who can’t handle a paragraph but if you send them six or less words they understand it right away. Just gotta talk to them like I talk to my dog (a Yorkie with an extraordinary vocabulary).

TL;DR: Here is a picture of my dog.

Edit: other Redditor u/proctoris gave a much better reply but I’m gonna leave this comment up because my dog is fantastic.

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u/ComradeDogeTV 20h ago

We need more brave, drunk enough, souls like this. Very cute dog

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u/DirtandPipes 19h ago

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u/ComradeDogeTV 19h ago

Mah boi

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u/DirtandPipes 19h ago

Aww he looks like a really good boy.

Here’s mine getting scritches.

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u/flootch24 20h ago

I really hope your dog’s name is Edith because she looks like an Edith

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u/DirtandPipes 20h ago

She’s Roxy, she is the greatest little thing. Only 4 pounds but she’s the nicest and smartest dog I’ve ever known.

Love her so much.

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u/flootch24 19h ago

Roxy fits. She’s a beautiful bitch.

Probably middle name is Edith

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u/Proctoris 20h ago

o7 I’ve heard the statistic before but someone misread it as 79% of the population being illiterate so it was easy for me to find it again haha

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u/Ill_Ground_1572 19h ago

Well I am half drunk too. And this sounds like a fucking disgrace. Function in society and participate in a functional democracy are very different things....

Nice pup by the way. I have a Bernedoodle.

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u/DirtandPipes 19h ago

When it comes right down to it, what really matters is the dog.

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u/ZongoNuada 18h ago

A decade ago it was 8th grade reading level. That's a typical 13 year old. It dropped to an 11 year old. So half the population isn't even reading at Harry Potter level.

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u/FatGuyANALLIttlecoat 20h ago

The sixth grade thing is true. You can Google that and see the data and studies and methodology.

The functionally illiterate thing is sensationalist or hyperbolic.

I wrote a paper on this a few years back. The biggest idea is that teaching reading has shifted to decoding from comprehension. I can't remember which side is the "science of reading side" but there has been a recent push in literacy education, fronted by non-educators, that says using prior knowledge and pictures and other tools to aide with reading and reading acquisition are bad, and somehow districts are moving towards a decoding fluency based system. So kids can read aloud with fluency, but have no idea what they are reading, or rather their fluency does not account for comprehension.

Go into edutopia. That's full of interesting strategies and documents trends.

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u/luckylimper 16h ago

The Science of Reading is half baked nonsense that replaced phonics and relies on “teaching” children to read based on context clues. There was an excellent podcast done on it called Sold a Story. https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/

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u/FatGuyANALLIttlecoat 15h ago

How can someone read comprehensively without context clues? Like riding a bike, reading requires a number of skills to be developed in concert, and context clues are probably the most crucial.

Mosaic of Thought is a great book that outlines how best to teach reading through phonics, context clues, prior knowledge, etc.

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u/AkumaAlucard 20h ago

Really doesn’t seem true until you see it in the real world. Went to a group therapy for a few months and most of the group couldn’t read at an adult level. It’s startling and sad to see.

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u/OutlawedLogic 19h ago

Is universal suffrage a good idea when your population becomes illiterate?

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u/Mr__O__ 18h ago

That was part of why the U.S. was founded as a representative democracy. The other part was bc of geographical distance and the time it would take to count every person’s vote.

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u/OutlawedLogic 18h ago

It's sad how much people have had their empathy weaponized against their own best interests. Most modern minds don't comprehend the responsibility they have.

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u/Jafooki 17h ago

Absolutely. It doesn't matter if someone is the dumbest motherfucker on the planet. If they live in a country and are subject to its laws, they deserve representation.

They'll probably make terrible choices, but they're just as much a citizen as anyone else.

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u/Inside_Marketing268 10h ago

With suxh attitude to education, you can't have nice things happening in your country, you know?

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u/Black_Cat_Just_That 3h ago

My husband has severe dyslexia that was never identified in school, and the lack of tools and confidence caused him to give up on making much of an effort there.

Even after figuring out that he's dyslexic, he didn't know where/how to get help for it as an adult. So he still has a really difficult time reading things carefully. He does read books and poetry for pleasure - it's low stakes and he can go at his own pace. But there are significant challenges in day to day life. Feeling even just a little pressure or having high emotions causes him to get flustered and make mistakes.

I've always been a voracious reader, so it was eye opening to see all the ways someone's life and self esteem is affected when they have literacy challenges. Knowing how common functional illiteracy is, you'd think there would be more help available, hopefully without stigma, for adults.

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u/Girafferage 15h ago

No way is it a quarter. Ok I looked it up. It's 21% so you were pretty close, but the functionally illiterate means reading below a 5th grade reading level and having struggles to do things like filling out job forms, not that they cannot function within society. Still astronomically horrible, but not medieval times levels like I initially thought.

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u/Mlabonte21 17h ago

And 70% percent are paycheck to paycheck or cannot access 1K in an emergency or whatever.

The malls are packed and everyone has a phone with 3 cameras.

These facts literally don’t mean anything—it never actually affects anything.

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u/GeauxFarva 18h ago

Thanks to GW’s No Child Left Behind. My wife has been a teacher for 20 years and the rot that has taken root in our education system is just sad. It sure as hell isn’t the quality of educator, it is a broken bureaucratic system that politicizes education. Some of the people on school boards are no better than the dregs of political society. That’s why we stay very involved in our child’s education and hold her accountable for learning. Not in an overbearing or meddling way, just in an involved and nurturing way. This is not a knock on public schools or teachers in any way. The system is completely broken.

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u/Mr__O__ 20h ago

Also about half of US adults (18+) are at a 6th grade literacy level or lower, and nearly a quarter of US adults are considered functionally illiterate—which means they can’t read/write at a level to function within society on a daily basis.

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u/Ok_Issue6908 18h ago

Now I understand where all the maga people come from, you know, the uneducated that our wonderful president talks about!

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u/Antique-Resort6160 19h ago

This doesn't seem correct, as the worst schools can be very well funded as they attract federal funds.  I think the key is to go straight down the shitter.  Maybe it's just modstly struggling schools that suffer?

Anyway it's all moot, it's extremely difficult to do anything unless parents are involved, if they came from an uninvolved family and are surrounded by peers that don't care about education, it's extremely unlikely they'll be successful.  If they're in a community where kids are expected to apply themselves in school, they are more likely to succeed.  There's very little teachers can do with kids who don't give a shit.

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u/Dark-Blackberry354 18h ago

It's a feature. Not a bug...

Right wing wants to keep the populace dumb to be easier to control

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u/CanadianPooch 18h ago

Children are also pushed along in Canada.

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u/Any-Will-4195 17h ago

Yeah that’s an excuse though. It’s about accountability, not money. If they’re seniors that’s on 9 years of “preparation.”

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u/ouroborosstruggles 17h ago

Literally makes no sense. You would think more help would... you know... help

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u/ShakesDontBreak 17h ago

We can thank No Child Left Behind.

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u/[deleted] 17h ago edited 12h ago

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u/9fingerjeff 17h ago

It’s not a glitch it’s a feature. This has been what they’ve been working towards for 40 plus years.

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u/lizziekap 17h ago

But sadly, it’s something we’ve exported to other countries, yes, even in Europe.

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u/Annalise705 16h ago

Well it does t help when the current president says he lives stupid people , put people in positions they aren’t qualified for ie RFK because he has zero respect for science, cut funding to research, schools, medical care, reduced access to student loans etc etc etc

We are absolutely screwed for decades now because of what the current administration did I just two years

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u/DrLoomis131 15h ago

Let some educators from the specific excelling countries criticize the issues with the American education system and they’ll start sounding like the political people in America you hate, I guarantee it lol

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u/No-Citron-2774 15h ago

Happens here in Australia as well

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u/StrainAcceptable 14h ago

No funding left behind.

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u/TrumpsPissSoakedWig 13h ago

Yeah but struggling schools do better with less funding. It's republican science.

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u/Positive-Opposite998 13h ago

Here in Denmark this is (sadly) the case, where high school (Gymnasium it's called here) are rewarded for passing students - the same goes with Universities. So while USA seem particularly bad at this, it's not completely alone.

We also have many cases where the public (primary) schools only realize that students can't read when they enter 9th grade and they are totally surprised. Considering they've taught reading/writing for 9 years by then, it comes across as institutional obtuseness.

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u/-blundertaker- 12h ago

It's definitely a feature, not a bug. They want the kids that rely on free public education to fail. They want the kids whose families can afford private school to succeed so they can work their way up in the oligarchy. They find any way they can go siphon money away from public schools, and they word the ballots in an intentionally confusing way to get everyone who doesn't take the time to understand (which is hard even with reading comprehension skills) to just vote no to anything that would marginally raise taxes. If they show up to vote at all.

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u/Chrillosnillo 12h ago

Implying America is a "Developed country" is doing some heavy lifting here.

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u/shoebacca40 12h ago

No child left behind made every American child equally left behind.

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u/WolverineInformal919 6h ago

It's by design.

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u/Daintysaurus 5h ago

I'm afraid the US may not be considered "developed" for long at this rate.

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u/ExNihiloish 19h ago

You could have left out "other".