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EP: 122 Who Failed America Kids? Part 1 · Humanity Unplugged Podcast

0:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, good morning to all.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, guys.
0:10
[SPEAKER_00]: How you guys doing?
0:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to humanity on Park Blockcast.
0:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I am your host, Jermaine McCrimon.
0:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And first off, just give an honor to the most high for allowing us to be here.
0:26
[SPEAKER_00]: another day.
0:29
[SPEAKER_00]: We thank everyone for being a part of the family here at Humanity Unplug Podcasts.
0:38
[SPEAKER_00]: We like to invite everyone over.
0:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen up, get your pinning pads ready and sit down and let's just have a conversation.
0:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's not the wrong.
0:50
[SPEAKER_00]: We're sitting down
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: talking about issues and values that we all feel we need to discuss or talk about.
1:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And our last two episodes, we had men of color in America and what might be the issue.
1:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'd like to thank you guys for all the positive and negative feedbacks on all social media platforms.
1:20
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys have continued to show support, whether in a negative or positive fashion,
1:27
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't bother me, but I do enjoy commenting back and talking with you guys because it's great to see people listening to you or your perspective being brought to the forefront.
1:45
[SPEAKER_00]: We all know
1:47
[SPEAKER_00]: As we look at this year, it is in unwinding months to come.
1:53
[SPEAKER_00]: We see that we have war on the forefront and we know about Trump Trump and what he does and how he broke down the government and continued to do things that might be against some people's principles, morals, ethnic values.
2:11
[SPEAKER_00]: we had to look deeper to what's going on in America.
2:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I look deeper into one part of men of color in our communities and what goes on, we continue to come up with the same point, or we've got stuck at the same area if you ask me.
2:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we look at it and look at it as a whole,
2:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It comes down to the accountability.
2:44
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to take accountability for our actions, for our kids, for our livelihoods.
2:54
[SPEAKER_00]: What do we want to get out of life?
2:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes you to have accountability for that.
3:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, guys, by no means am I judging you or anyone else, but I want you to understand, if you make your bed, you got the land, you know, a lot of guys that's behind bars or people that's incarcerated.
3:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You had to break some type of crime to get there.
3:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You had to do something wrong.
3:22
[SPEAKER_00]: You had to break the law.
3:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You had to do something to get you behind bars, or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time, got you in a particular situation.
3:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
3:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I was intrigued on looking forward to the next episode, which this is today, 122.
3:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So for those of you who don't know who Mary on Plough Park has started last year, and we have a full year on the out belt, and we're very grateful and thankful for everyone who has been listening to us for that.
4:02
[SPEAKER_00]: long period of time for the beginners to first day ones with like to give you guys a round of applause.
4:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we are 22 episodes into the second season.
4:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had some up and down, if we're getting out this year, we change different platforms to see if we can get a fluctuating increase if possible on the views and what people like.
4:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still we're not the common
4:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say podcast, uh, unit because we don't have a lot of life.
4:45
[SPEAKER_00]: interviews as of yet.
4:47
[SPEAKER_00]: But we'd like to do reaction videos and talk to you about things that go on in everyday news.
4:55
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about everything from true crime to politics, presidency, the war, community-based subjects.
5:07
[SPEAKER_00]: We do talk to you about that.
5:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And we like to have that fluctuating
5:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So in today's topic, who failed America kids, that's the topic, who failed America kids?
5:28
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a deeper, deeper subject and quite sure it's going to be a part two, maybe even a part three, to this topic due to the fact that it's long.
5:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It's long because we have to break down and peel back the layers that lay in between is so before we get started because you know I'm about to go I want to give an honor
5:53
[SPEAKER_00]: to the most high I did that already, but for allowing us to give us the wisdom and knowledge and understanding.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Kick off issues, relax your feet, get you something cold and refreshing.
6:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe if you like what I do, I get me a cup of coffee and I get right into it.
6:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I told you the topic, so let's talk about it.
6:12
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
6:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Who failed the American kids?
6:18
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to look at the parents first and foremost, you cannot expect any school that you go to or you sign into to educate your child if you're not going to educate your child at home.
6:35
[SPEAKER_00]: First and foremost, they don't get any child doesn't receive a book.
6:43
[SPEAKER_00]: at school that they get a book at home first.
6:46
[SPEAKER_00]: They get a piece of paper and a pin at home first.
6:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes we will overlook that as adults and don't realize that when we give that child that marker to do coloring or we give that child that marker to draw
7:06
[SPEAKER_00]: you are opening up the brain cells of that individual to receive entransmit information through the pen, eye, hand, coordination, what they see, what they hear, what they speak out they mouth can be articulated on paper.
7:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you don't
7:29
[SPEAKER_00]: entertain those vital, vital signals that come out of that brain.
7:36
[SPEAKER_00]: When you don't push in positive information in that brain, it will not function.
7:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Your child will fall behind.
7:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot as a parent in the 20th century tell me, yeah, you raise your child of an iPad.
7:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to take some notes down because that's the first note, the iPad.
8:04
[SPEAKER_00]: If you get a chance right it down, we're going to go back into electronics and how this has hurt our community.
8:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And before I get deep into that, I want you to know back in the early 70s.
8:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, we didn't have electronics like that.
8:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me get me a sip of coffee.
8:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Most kids in the early 70s wasn't handed the iPad and say go sit in the corner and watch Sesame Street or play on the iPad or doodle or draw on the iPad.
8:45
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't have that that wasn't available like that.
8:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So we had to do other things our parents put us into books.
8:54
[SPEAKER_00]: At that time, in the 70s, we had books.
8:57
[SPEAKER_00]: We had the library to go to the internet probably didn't come around to late 70s, early 80s, 81, or maybe 79, 80 when the internet hit.
9:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember we used to have something called, I believe it was, when your internet was a 56K,
9:22
[SPEAKER_00]: or something like that where you ethernet court was plugged in and we ran it like that it wasn't like the internet now.
9:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Excuse me, where there's routers and there's other things that connect to the internet to help boost your internet and help you get more speed and things as such, that wasn't too much around back in the 70s.
9:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
9:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Your kid's education was based upon the dialect from the parent to interaction.
9:56
[SPEAKER_00]: from the parent, the parent had to sit there and say, I'm gonna write down these math questions for you.
10:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to answer them.
10:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you finish, I'm gonna check them.
10:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Set at the table, and this is what we're gonna do.
10:11
[SPEAKER_00]: These exercises that our parents did with us, or gave us a book and say, read these two paragraphs and then write down what you think is the sum of,
10:23
[SPEAKER_00]: the meaning or what happened in that two paragraphs to me.
10:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to see periods, comments, and deviations.
10:32
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the things that were taught to a lot of kids back in the early 70s and early 80s that made the kids more aware before they even started kindergarten or had start.
10:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Nowadays, you have kids having kids
10:53
[SPEAKER_00]: The mothers are young and they want to be in the street and they want to run around.
10:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So now things change on given kids proper input at a young age so they can excel later.
11:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Statistics show that the kids now statistically are falling behind.
11:15
[SPEAKER_00]: We have the worst numbers since 1992.
11:18
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to get into that.
11:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we're going to get into why our numbers have dramatically decreased on our kids education from kindergarten all the way through, but I want you guys to be aware that the distractions now systematically falls into three different areas, if you like, since the epidemic hit in 2020 or 2021.
11:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I say 2020 when an epidemic hit absentees of school have increased dramatically.
11:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So kids are now not going to school period.
12:04
[SPEAKER_00]: They are saying we're not even going since the epidemic hit in 2020.
12:10
[SPEAKER_00]: numbers have the client and we're going to go over this.
12:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't worry.
12:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to bring you there, but I have to talk to you before I read off some statistics about what's going on.
12:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So kids number one, systematic failure.
12:24
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them we have is kids are not going to school period.
12:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the no kids left behind act expired.
12:42
[SPEAKER_00]: It expired in 2015.
12:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I need you to write that down, too.
12:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a mental note.
12:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to realize why the decrease happened.
12:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And also why were we doing so good at one point because it is act?
12:57
[SPEAKER_00]: See, before this act expired in 2015, people were allowed.
13:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And I say people are must say teachers allegedly was allowed to pass you through because no kids fall behind aquer.
13:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It was active.
13:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So students that didn't deserve to pass and go on to the next grade was skipped anyway.
13:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Now of course, if this is part of what's been going on and it just expired in 2015,
13:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we have a bigger issue and I don't know if you wrote it down at the very beginning but I said it and I said it's accountability.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we pass the book or we pass accountability and put it into an act where now you given the adults a pass of teaching their children because you know as a parent whether
14:00
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, bumped into the next grade or not.
14:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, for a fact, if your child should be held back because they're not there, they're not on the level.
14:11
[SPEAKER_00]: They need to be at and we still going to bump them up to the next grade.
14:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is just doing the child injustice.
14:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But no one's looking at the child because if we look deeper, we're going to go deeper.
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: If you look deeper into 504 plan, you know, the educational plan, the school get a cut of that money that you invest in your kids' college.
14:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's based or upon the school, this doesn't help the child.
14:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of programs and a lot of systematic things we got in place.
14:53
[SPEAKER_00]: we think is for the child to improve, but basically, it's improving the college or the schools funding, not the child's education or the child needing to be held back for improving the child mathematics and reading.
15:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I started off with a general conversation
15:23
[SPEAKER_00]: a child not being able to communicate or perhaps read or write, but when we look deeper into this, it goes past just reading, is reading and mathematics that we are falling dramatically behind.
15:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But this doesn't just stay with the American people, Europeans, also in Asians, have
15:50
[SPEAKER_00]: their ability and understanding that this happens over there.
15:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first thing we said was absentee, people are not going to school.
15:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And the second thing we said was social media, or no, we said, I'm sorry guys, we said, never the act of not leaving a kid behind act.
16:16
[SPEAKER_00]: The third thing is social media.
16:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Please forgive me.
16:20
[SPEAKER_00]: The third thing is social media, because now that phones have taken place of teachers, AI have taken place of teachers, different applications have fluctuated, they weigh into our educational system.
16:40
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what causes our children,
16:43
[SPEAKER_00]: to lose focus on the basic necessities that's needed because they could just look it up on AI or social media platforms and get the answers to whatever else it is, but not really learning the steps how to execute without having these applications.
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So I actually, we have one,
17:08
[SPEAKER_00]: which is absentee and at the epidemic too, we have kids not left behind, act that expired in 2015.
17:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And three, we have our social media platforms that increase by cell
17:27
[SPEAKER_00]: really an issue in our schools system of public and private school sector.
17:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter which one you want to look into, these statistics stand by themselves.
17:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we look at the reading proficiency in the United States have declined, it's significantly between 2012 and 2025, with discouraged dropping to the lowest levels in decades, according to the National Assessment Educational Progress
17:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, let us see levels where relatively stable in 2010, the period leading up up to 2025, so steep drops by a pandemic related learning disruptions, learning, leading to a decline and efficiency across K through 12 and adult population.
18:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so this is the NAEP data center.
18:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we're going to compare the highlights.
18:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And I need you to understand, these levels are the worst since 1992.
18:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want you to think, uh, this is something I made up.
18:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't make this up.
18:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You could do your own research and you could check out statistically what's
18:58
[SPEAKER_00]: This is going on and I just told you three main reasons, right?
19:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So reading scores in 2024 to 2025 hit the lowest levels since 1992 for 12 graders.
19:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're saying the people that's next in line to take over or perhaps run some of our government programs and federal funding programs and possibly your next mayor, your next politician, your next doctor, lawyer, your next
19:35
[SPEAKER_00]: attorney, perhaps police, fire department, whatever department you want to name, the next set of people coming out has a lowest.
19:49
[SPEAKER_00]: level since 1992.
19:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Controversely, in 2013, fourth-graded reading scores and improved from the previous decade as ten years if you don't know what a decade is.
20:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Making a current slump or sharp reverse to prior trend.
20:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Loads for farmers to decline is not uniform.
20:07
[SPEAKER_00]: The lowest performance
20:12
[SPEAKER_00]: steeper drops and proficiency compared to their higher performing peers, widening and achieving gap, adult literacy.
20:21
[SPEAKER_00]: The percentage of United States age from 16 to 65 with the low literacy skill increased from 17% and 2012 to 2014 to 28% by 2023.
20:40
[SPEAKER_00]: or having a major issue in communicating.
20:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So how can they teach their kids?
20:50
[SPEAKER_00]: How can adults teach their children if the adults don't know how to read and write?
20:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Articulate, perhaps just communicate.
21:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's make it more simple.
21:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Just talk.
21:06
[SPEAKER_00]: How can they communicate?
21:09
[SPEAKER_00]: and teach their children anything if they have an issue as well.
21:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So reading for pleasure, daily reading for pleasure among nine year olds fell from 53% in 2012, just a 39% by 2022.
21:27
[SPEAKER_00]: With the downward trend continuing into 2025.
21:34
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the things that we need to talk about in table,
21:39
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not pushing our kids to read because of these distractions like social media.
21:47
[SPEAKER_00]: That pays a big part like AI and the phone being in classes because kids want to be on Facebook and TikTok and Instagram, nobody want to pick up a book anymore and read and if they want a book, they want to download the book on their phones so they can just listen to it.
22:03
[SPEAKER_00]: being read to them while they're chilling out with their friends, not really paying attention to what's going on in the book.
22:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there's a big difference when you have a book on a pad or a note or whatever it is, then you're reading that book.
22:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Focus in your attention that
22:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm talking to you guys to let you understand that this is a huge problem on why one of the reasons why American kids are failing.
22:43
[SPEAKER_00]: It's because of a lot of distractions, social media, the epidemic that happened, then we're looking at not leaving the child behind act.
22:56
[SPEAKER_00]: and then we're about to go into folks and on that a little bit because when we look at not leaving a child behind, this means whether the kid is there or not, we're going to pass them.
23:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's horrible.
23:12
[SPEAKER_00]: That's disgusting.
23:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's unheard of and it's indecent to kids, period.
23:19
[SPEAKER_00]: If the kid is behind, I'm sorry that he's behind, but he's going to stay right here.
23:27
[SPEAKER_00]: and he's going to get it together until we can pass them to the next grade.
23:36
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to take accountability and we have to tell the parent of that child.
23:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what's going on in your world.
23:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And I understand you have your hands full, but he's going to stay in kindergarten until he gets trapped together.
23:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to try to help him,
23:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And if he needs to go to a special school out of the district, that can give him the education he needs because he's dysfunctional, or maybe because he doesn't have a clue because I've been around some kids that just need to get the ass, but I'm sorry.
24:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't mean to say that.
24:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Did I say that?
24:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.
24:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
24:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
24:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Some kids need the ass with.
24:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Get them focused, they may be fine.
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You could pat him on his back all all day and tell him, you're gonna be better, Junior.
24:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You're gonna be alright, Junior.
24:32
[SPEAKER_00]: No, he not.
24:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Buses ass and tell him to sit still and let's get this work done.
24:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry for those parents that want to be the kids for an all the time.
24:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand, I'm with it too.
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the time, you got to be the parent and you got to, you got to tend to them firmly.
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Not saying you got to put hands on them, but be firm and fair.
24:55
[SPEAKER_00]: stand for something or you're going to fall for anything.
25:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I have about an eight minute video or so it's really good.
25:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to skip it.
25:07
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to listen to it.
25:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to enjoy it and that's just going to be that because I think it's great and I think you guys would definitely love seeing this video.
25:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so here we go.
25:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So great video.
25:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It tells us what's going on.
25:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think scores have dropped to their lowest levels in more than two decades among high school seniors.
25:29
[SPEAKER_02]: William Brangham reports on new test scores that have many educators and other experts concerned.
25:35
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right, I'm now these scores come from the latest so-called nation's report card, which is put out by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
25:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And it shows that student achievement has continued to decline significantly since the pandemic.
25:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Among high school seniors, the average reading score last year was the lowest since the assessment began in 1992.
25:57
[SPEAKER_01]: what's worse, nearly a third of seniors did not have the basic reading skills needed to find the details in a given text to understand it's meaning.
26:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Now guys, this is just nine, this not even nine months old video.
26:11
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like a six month old video.
26:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is current stuff.
26:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Our kids don't know nothing.
26:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Excuse my French.
26:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them don't know.
26:22
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have a clue.
26:27
[SPEAKER_01]: average math scores also slipped to their lowest levels since 2005.
26:31
[SPEAKER_01]: There are many theories about what is going on here.
26:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And so to explore some of that, we are joined by Thomas Kane.
26:39
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a professor of education at Harvard's Graduate School of Education.
26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Thomas Kane, thank you so much for being here.
26:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone of a broad question for you, but what is your best assessment as to why these scores are so low and continuing to decline?
26:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So first of all, these latest results are not surprising.
26:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Unfortunately, our research center has been tracking trends at for individual districts around the country for the last time.
27:07
[SPEAKER_00]: This want to tell you, this guy Thomas Kane is from Harvard.
27:11
[SPEAKER_00]: They've been doing a study on this and they own top of it.
27:15
[SPEAKER_04]: That's three or four years.
27:17
[SPEAKER_04]: What is new is the degree to which these losses are concentrated among the lower achieving students.
27:24
[SPEAKER_04]: So the 10th percentile student in the US has lost about two great equivalents since 2015.
27:32
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a large loss.
27:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And it'll be equivalent to about 5% of lifetime earnings.
27:39
[SPEAKER_04]: So this would have impacts on future income inequality if we don't reverse it.
27:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So can you run us through what the sort of principal theories are as to why we are in the state we're in?
27:50
[SPEAKER_04]: There are three hypotheses to explain what's been happening.
27:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Number one is there's been a decline in focus on test-based accountability since the No Child Left Behind Act expired in 2015.
28:03
[SPEAKER_04]: But the two other hypotheses are
28:06
[SPEAKER_04]: the rise in social media use, which is concentrated among lower achieving students.
28:13
[SPEAKER_04]: By the way, a number of European and Asian countries are seeing the same widening that we are.
28:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And a third possibility is the rise in student absenteeism, which spiked during the pandemic, but remains high.
28:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to pick apart a couple of those, one of them in particular, we spoke earlier with a woman named Adiola Whitney.
28:34
[SPEAKER_01]: She's the CEO of a group called Reading Partners.
28:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And as the name suggests, she points to that being a very critical skill that's at the issue here.
28:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's hear what she had to say.
28:45
[SPEAKER_03]: There's research that shows that in order for kids to be better at reading, they have to practice reading.
28:51
[SPEAKER_03]: They need to read more often, but when we look at early grades like K through two, if a child is already struggling to read, reading more if they're not able to read is a challenge in and of itself.
29:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Tom out right there guys, if you already see that your child is
29:14
[SPEAKER_00]: hello hi they don't get better unless they practice war so if they're struggling hello hi hello at kindergarten are you there are you there at kindergarten are you there as a parent hello are you there don't I Joey anymore fire trucks by Joey a book
29:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Sit Joey tailed down and read A. E. I'll get the vowels down.
29:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's practice with Joey.
29:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
29:46
[SPEAKER_00]: He don't need to go outside and play.
29:50
[SPEAKER_00]: No, Joey need to sit out.
29:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Is there someone at home that who can read to them?
29:58
[SPEAKER_03]: There you go.
29:59
[SPEAKER_03]: There's somebody to read the Joey.
30:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you agree with that assessment that one reading is so critical to a student's attainment educationally, but also then how do we address that gap?
30:10
[SPEAKER_04]: So I agree, actually reading and math has long-term consequences for students' earnings and educational attainment and so forth.
30:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And I also agree that early grade reading is critical, but what we're seeing in these numbers is that the problem extends well beyond early grades, that there's been a large decline in eighth grade and in 12th grade,
30:34
[SPEAKER_04]: reading achievement as well.
30:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And so while we work on Kate to two, we need approaches to helping the students who are already past grade two to recover.
30:48
[SPEAKER_04]: If we don't, they will suffer in the long run.
30:51
[SPEAKER_01]: you mentioned this issue of accountability and testing, and there are many educators and experts in the field who believe that that whole era of testing was a failure in and of itself that it didn't really help students and that it was a diversion from other issues, but you believe that a better testing regimen would help.
31:13
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think actually that's misreading the facts of what's happened
31:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Most people don't realize that between 1990 and 2015, there were substantial improvements in math and reading achievement.
31:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Now don't forget guys.
31:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't leave a kid behind act expired in 2015.
31:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's clear that test-based accountability is not sufficient to produce the continued improvements we need.
31:51
[SPEAKER_04]: But once states started taking their foot off the pedal in 2015 focusing on test-based outcomes, we see the result of declining achievement, especially at the bottom, where a lot of the accountability pressures were being felt.
32:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he said at the bottom, is he saying K-12, the McKinney Garden area, head start?
32:14
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to check it out.
32:16
[SPEAKER_04]: But I think recovering from this is not just about the old debate about test-based accountability.
32:23
[SPEAKER_04]: It's about finding effective ways to lower absenteeism.
32:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And we've got to learn as quickly as possible, what are the effects of the cell phone bands that are a number of states and districts have implemented in the last couple of years?
32:38
[SPEAKER_04]: If it is social media, then we ought to be seeing
32:43
[SPEAKER_04]: positive effects of cell phone bands.
32:48
[SPEAKER_04]: If we don't, that will be important to note too.
32:50
[SPEAKER_04]: But I think the solution now is not just about test-based accountability.
32:55
[SPEAKER_04]: It's about states piloting ways to lower absenteeism and as they've already done piloting ways to lower social media use and then us learning from those efforts, what are the impact on student achievement so we can spread what
33:12
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, that is Thomas Kane at Harvard's Graduate School of Education.
33:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for being here.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.
33:18
[SPEAKER_04]: William.
33:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So now guys, first of all, I want to say PBS did that, and PBS is awesome.
33:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always on PBS getting an information because they don't, if you don't know not, you know, PBS is on fire with information.
33:44
[SPEAKER_00]: As you see, we really need to get a hold of this.
33:50
[SPEAKER_00]: because it's affecting all over, not just in America, Asia, European, it's all over.
33:57
[SPEAKER_00]: The use of cell phone, the pandemic, and also,
34:04
[SPEAKER_00]: absentee, you know, people not being in school, kids being absent.
34:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have to understand this plays a factor and everything we do, guys.
34:13
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a part one who failed America's kids.
34:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm quite sure we're going to need a part two.
34:19
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys let me know if you want that.
34:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It's your boy, your main McCremmon.
34:24
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Mani Unplug Podcast, peace, peace, and most peace protect you all that all times.
34:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I talked y'all on Tuesday.
34:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Later.