Tag: dumbing down

Dumber Decade: Report Shows Human Reasoning, Attention, Problem-Solving, Declining Substantially Since 2010

A growing body of research suggests that human intelligence, particularly in reasoning, problem-solving, and concentration, may have peaked over a decade ago and has been in decline ever since. Data from international education assessments and studies on adult cognitive skills reveal a concerning trend: individuals across all age groups are struggling more with focus, logical reasoning, and numerical understanding.

On Friday, the Financial Times of Britain published an essay “Have humans passed peak brain power?” which addressed these concerns, and presented the startling evidence, available here.

Long-Term Decline in Cognitive Skills

Recent results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an OECD-backed international exam measuring the reading, math, and science skills of 15-year-olds, indicate that test scores have been declining since 2012.

While much of the recent discussion has focused on the educational disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the data suggests that the decline in cognitive performance predates the pandemic by several years.

The trend is not limited to teenagers. A separate OECD study tracking adult skills also showed similar declines across all age groups, with reductions in problem-solving abilities, attention span, and even fundamental numeracy.

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A Massachusetts School District Rolled Back Advanced Classes. Teachers Are Starting To Revolt.

In 2021, a school district in Newton, Massachusetts, got rid of advanced classes in a bid to increase racial equity. But instead of reducing achievement gaps between racial groups, teachers are now sounding the alarm that the strategy is resulting in classrooms that serve neither struggling students nor high achievers. 

According to a Boston Globe article by reporter Carey Goldberg, several parents brought up similar concerns with the new policy—but say they were smeared as “racists” and “right-wingers.”

Goldberg writes that, in 2022, a group of three moms—all Democrats—started a petition to create a parental advisory panel for the school district. The move was motivated by what one parent described as “ideology superseding student needs,” following the school district’s decision to place students in “multilevel classes.” In these new classes, rather than sorting students by ability, students would learn together in the same classroom. The school also decided to stop allowing advanced math students to skip a year to access higher-level classes. The parents also shared concerns that the school’s approach to race and identity issues “emphasized differences rather than commonalities.”

The women say they were branded as far-right conservatives motivated by racial animus rather than a genuine concern for academic opportunities. According to Goldberg, Parent Teacher Organization newsletters urged parents to speak out against the petition at a public meeting. An email from local activist group Families Organizing for Racial Justice said that the petition was “tied to the apparent belief that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts that take race into account compromise academic excellence” and claimed that some petitioners “challenge the need for any activities related to micro-aggressions, inclusion, respect or belonging.”

“The mothers and their allies found themselves portrayed online and in public as dog-whistling bigots doing the bidding of right-wing national groups. Social media comments painted their side as ‘racism cloaked as academic excellence’ and ‘right-wing activism cloaked as parental concern,'” Goldberg wrote. At one meeting, a speaker compared those who supported the petition to “white women who helped perpetuate segregation and white supremacy.”

But years later, the Newton mothers are being vindicated. Teachers themselves are now openly criticizing multilevel classes, arguing that it isn’t serving students’ needs.

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Leading UK Universities Look to Expand Use of Open-Book Exams to Help Grades of Minority Students

Leading British universities are preparing to lower test standards in a bid to help improve the grades of ethnic minorities and poorer students in a major DEI initiative.

The universities of Oxford and Cambridge are among those preparing to implement “inclusive assessments” such as open-book exams and take-home essays rather than monitored in-person testing in the hopes of cutting the gaps between groups of students, The Telegraph reported.

In its annual Access and Participation Plan (APP) — a yearly report into how a university is seeking to improve the lot of disadvantaged student groups — the University of Cambridge said that traditional “assessment practices” may be responsible for varying performances among groups.

Cambridge said that it would specifically seek to “improve outcomes” for Black and Bangladeshi heritage students. The university went on to cite research from its own academics, finding traditional tests represent “threats to self-worth” for students.

Meanwhile, Oxford University’s APP reportedly said that it would seek to “use a more diverse and inclusive range of assessments” in order to “improve the likelihood” of better grades for students from “lower socio-economic backgrounds”.

The Office for Students (OFS), which regulates higher education in England, has reportedly backed the plans, and other Russell Group elite schools are considering following the example of Oxford and Cambridge.

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Dumbing down society

Dumbing down of society has benefited the ruling and wealthy classes to the point that, more likely than not, it’s been done on purpose. Discussing with any seriousness the lowering of average individual’s IQ is quickly marginalized as a conspiracy theory. Yet paradoxically, it’s the same « Joe Average » in society who’s sounding the alarm on a situation that’s becoming self-evident even to the intelligence challenged. This is akin to an obese person looking at themselves in the mirror and acknowledging that they have a weight problem.

The internet has undeniably changed the way humans consume information, share ideas, and engage with one another. While it has led to tremendous advancements in various fields, it has also had an effect: the dumbing down of the general population. This phenomenon leaves many people vulnerable to manipulation by governments and corporations. Whom appear to have purposely orchestrated this process for greater control over society, thereby securing their interests.

There’s no shortage of political and financial organizations where the self-titled « elites» of society interface with one another. Despite globalization policies, a conspiracy for control of the entire world still seems improbable. More easy to accept is how the late George Carlin put it, « There are no conspiracies when there are convergent interests. » Or, people will inevitably support and cooperate with others whose actions / policies fit with their own agendas. – It’s obligatory to explore the reasons for the dumbing down of society, the role the Internet plays and the benefits which governments and large corporations gain from it.

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Five and Dive—Low Expectations Plague The Air Force Academy

During their final year at the Air Force Academy (AFA), cadets choose the specific jobs they will be assigned while on active duty.  This crucial decision, made in the nascence of one’s career, has far reaching implications with regard to career advancement.  The Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC) links available jobs with an alphanumeric designation, and not surprisingly, pilot training represents the most popular AFSC for graduating cadets at the AFA.  But the second choice is astonishing for cadets who have received a four year education worth $416,000 at an institution that is tasked to train career Air Force officers.

The minimum commitment for an AFA education is five years of active duty service, and the AFSCs that obligate cadets for the least amount of payback time represent the second most popular job selections in the aggregate.  The act is known among cadets as “five and dive,” and it is borne of disillusionment and the realization that DEI entrenched military leadership, quota-based promotions, and falling standards are not what they signed up for. 

DEI’s nonsensical, unsupported claims that phenotype and sexual identity are indispensable components of superior military performance and the intimidating effect of DEI political officers embedded within the cadet wing breed cynicism and psychological fatigue. Recent undercover investigative reporting that exposes blatant corruption within Air Force DEI programs and an admission of DEI’s lack of benefit, affirms the negative view of DEI held by most cadets. If the real Air Force is at all similar to the academy experience, then why devote a career to an organization with priorities more in line with Cloward-Piven than the Constitution?

The AFA entices prospective cadets by falsely claiming that they will be challenged to the full extent of their abilities.  Those times are gone, and to revisit them, one must return to the academy’s early years.  The performative expectations of academy administrators and their political enablers have fallen precipitously—a disappointment for patriotic men and women, who do not expect, nor bargain for an Ivy League attitude at a U.S. military academy. 

The 4th class system at the AFA essentially no longer exists.  During basic summer training, upper class instructors cannot raise their voices, and safe spaces are available for those sensitive personalities bearing the brunt of criticism. Basic cadets are limited to performing three pushups if commanded by an upper classmen.  Summer training concludes with Hell Day, which lasts only hours, after which time members of the fourth class are allowed to function at ease for the remainder of their time at the academy.   Ask contemporary commanding officers to defend training that minimizes psychological and physical hardship, and they will respond in unison of their commitment to train “warfighters.” 

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‘Equity’ Grading Is the Latest Educational Fad Destined To Fail

Modern public-education history is littered with novel education theories that have failed so spectacularly that the terms are now used as pejoratives. For instance, when I was in elementary school in the 1960s, the “New Math” focused on teaching abstractions rather than fundamentals. You can find reams of research documenting its failure decades later, but the evidence was recognized almost immediately.

That then-new approach “ignored completely the fact that mathematics is a cumulative development and that it is practically impossible to learn the newer creations if one does not know the older ones,” according to Morris Kline’s 1973 “Common Core,” a set of educational standards embraced by California and 39 other states in 2010. On hindsight, it also deserves a failing grade.

“Despite the theory’s intuitive appeal, standards-based reform does not work very well in reality,” read a 2021 Brookings Institution report. “The illusion of a coherent, well-coordinated system is gained at the expense of teachers’ flexibility in tailoring instruction to serve their students.” Don’t get me started on some of the loopier ones: pass-fail grading, the replacement of phonics with whole-language learning, and Social Emotional Learning (SEL).

“Education in the United States has lurched from fad to fad for the better part of a century, finding ever-ingenious ways to underperform preceding generations,” explained investigative reporter Joe Herring in a 2022 piece reviewing some of them. Apparently, there isn’t enough productive employment for education PhDs, so they spend their time dreaming up big experiments to improve education rather than focusing on the obvious ones.

The process gains life as evidence pours in about the latest underperformance. And the latest data certainly is impressive, albeit in a depressing way. Following COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, traditional public schools (and California’s in particular) couldn’t rise to the occasion. Teachers’ unions slowed re-openings. Test scores plummeted, especially for poor and minority students. Many students checked out permanently, as soaring chronic absentee rates prove.

Always eager to embrace easy-button solutions rather than, say, ideas that promote competitiveness and excellence, our school bureaucracies are on to some “innovative” ideas that have a ballpark-zero chance of improving educational outcomes. The new ones are based around the concept of equity. As with every education reform fad, they sound OK in the elevator pitch. Who doesn’t support equity? But they will create a mess that further impedes student progress.

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‘Grading for Equity’: Promoting Students by Banning Grades of Zero and Leaving No Class Cut-Ups Behind

Joe Feldman has faced many tough crowds in the course of successfully selling his “Grading for Equity” program to school districts across the nation. During the consultant’s presentations, teachers concerned that his approach lowers standards have rolled their eyes, questioned his understanding of students, and worse.

“A guy in the front row got his stuff together and walked out of the room,” Feldman told RealClearInvestigations.

Despite the frequent resistance from teachers, dozens of districts from California to Massachusetts are giving the consultant’s ambitious project a shot. As schools face a series of crises, including a spike in chronic absenteeism and sharp academic decline, grading for equity offers a path to better grades and higher graduation rates. Its practices include the removal of behavior in calculating grades, the end of penalties for late assignments, allowing students to retake exams, and a ban on zeros as the lowest mark.

Since the pandemic, districts have been lowering standards by making grading more lenient to help struggling students, according to several studies. But Feldman insists that his sweeping overhaul isn’t part of that controversial trend. He says the practices he promotes are a matter of fairness and accuracy in an educational system that’s stacked against blacks, Latinos and other disadvantaged students.

Grading for equity, however, stirs enough dissent among teachers and parents that some districts have dropped the difficult revamp in mid-stream. They say Feldman’s reforms are a form of leniency that brings out the worst in some students, hurting the very kids he wants to help.

“What’s most troubling are the practices that lower expectations, like giving a 50 percent grade instead of a zero even when a student doesn’t attempt the assignment,” said Meredith Coffey, a former teacher and now a researcher at Thomas B. Fordham Institute who co-wrote a report on grading for equity. “If students know that they could do nothing and get 50 percent, why would they work hard? Many would do nothing.”

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‘Arbiter of Truth’ & ‘Disinformation Guru’ Tells Public ‘Don’t do Your Own Research’

During a recent discussion, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt and Executive Director of the Pitt Disinformation Lab Beth Schwanke spoke about beguiling the public into believing establishment sources.

The discussion specifically regarded what they deem as misinformation and disinformation on elections and how Americans should not have a mind of their own.

The Pitt Disinformation Lab executive lambasted self-led investigations, instead saying Pennsylvanians should just blindly eat up what the ‘trusted sources’ claim to be true. She also discussed January 6th and the 2020 election as a failure of control over the minds of citizens.

“One thing everyone can do to make sure they are seeing accurate information is to use trusted sources. So in elections that means using the Department of State, that means using your county elections office, it means using media organizations that follow, that adhere, to professional journalism standards like … your local NPR affiliate,” Schwanke said. “And it doesn’t mean you know, ‘doing your own research’ and just asking questions and sharing, you know, posts from – I don’t know, in my case, it’s Uncle Joe, right? It means being thoughtful about where your sources are coming from.”

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Fury over Seattle’s axing of gifted and talented schools for having too many white students grows, as unearthed footage shows weeping black mom begging board to keep them, before bully member forces audience to listen to poem to mark his birthday

Anger over Seattle’s decision to close its schools for gifted and talented students has grown – as newly-unearthed footage showed shocking behavior from the board who made the decision. 

Last month’s announcement that the Highly Capable Cohort (HCC) schools would shutter because they have too many white and Asian students enraged parents who say bright but disadvantaged children of all races will now suffer.

Kiley Riffell, whose two daughters attend HCC school Cascadia Elementary, said: ‘SPS is scrapping all HC programming and replacing it with empty promises, zero plan, and zero funding. I’m sad to watch so many families leave the public school system, but I can’t blame them.’

Eric Feeny told Fox13: ‘Until you have a better system, don’t give out a fake system or half solution’ 

Teachers will now be forced to manage classes of 30 children of mixed abilities at the same time, without additional resources or funding. The HCC schools, which are targeted at the top two percent of students, are now being aggressively phased out and will be gone completely by 2024. 

And newly-unearthed footage of the board behind the decision displayed behavior that will further concern parents, with two of the most vocal ringleaders since disgraced by bullying accusations.

During the January 2020 meeting, a high-achieving black tech leader and mom called Sara Jones, who flourished after attending a HCC, wept as she begged the board to keep the schools. 

‘It breaks my heart that little boys and girls like me may not get the opportunity that I did,’ she told the board, in remarks first reported by the Seattle Stranger.

Other parents of all ethnicities made similar pleas – only to be sharply cut-off by former board member Zachary DeWolf after their allotted time ran out. 

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Seattle Is Getting Rid of Gifted Schools in a Bid To Increase Equity

Seattle is getting rid of its specialized public schools in an effort to increase racial equity. Ironically, this decision may end up hurting the very students the policy change is intended to help.

In 2021, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) moved to phase out its “highly capable cohort schools.” The district had three elementary schools, five middle schools, and three high schools devoted to teaching students at an accelerated pace. The district plans to finish phasing out the specialized schools by the 2027–28 school year. The reasons behind the change are rooted in the disproportionate number of white and Asian students in the program.

“The Seattle community and our families began to demonstrate discomfort with the racial gap disparity in classrooms and in schools now affiliated with” the advanced schools, reads a 2020 SPS task force report, which recommended doing away with the accelerated program. “Our current data regarding students receiving services who are identified as highly capable is disproportionate to the student populations who attend our school classrooms each day….Current practices must be interrupted and an authentic examination of our commitments and priorities must occur.”

School officials say that gifted students will still get specialized instruction through the “highly capable neighborhood” model it plans to start next school year. However, a recent story from The Seattle Times sheds doubt on Seattle’s ability to make good on this promise.

“SPS is offering a whole-classroom model where all students are in the same classroom and the teacher individualizes learning plans for each student,” writes reporter Claire Bryan. “Teachers won’t necessarily have additional staff in the classroom; the district is working to provide teachers with curriculum and instruction on how to make it work.”

The idea that teachers have the extra time to craft individual instruction for each student in a classroom with a wide range of ability levels is obviously far-fetched.

“You can only do so much differentiation,” Karen Stukovsky, a parent with three children in highly capable cohort schools, told the Times. She added that one principal told her, “You have some kids who can barely read and some kids who are reading ‘Harry Potter’ in first grade or kindergarten. How are you going to not only get those kids up to grade level and also challenge those kids who are already way above grade level?”

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