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College Students Are Testing at the Level of 10-Year-Olds
(futurism.com)
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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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This predates the current flood of tech in the classroom. It is due to the low standards of the American education system.
There are loads of reason why US schools are a failure: funding, teachers pay, multiple choice testing, politically driven curriculum, home schooling, anti-science mentality, just to list the biggest problems.
The study was not just the US, they looked at 160,000 students in 38 countries. Their research looked at a period of 10 years to generate its results and students in most of north america and Europe all were down. The US didn't even see the biggest decline, Israel did.
I'm not saying it's just tech in the classroom, but it's a major part.
Guy A: Hot-button opinion.
Guy B: Bunch of facts showing that hot button opinion is wrong.
Equal number of upvotes.
Ah, yes, the very scientific reviewers of ~~Reddit~~ Lemmy.
Upvotes are supposed to be for fostering conversation, not grading accuracy. An equal number of upvotes makes it more likely that the US-centric assumption and the correction are both seen.
"Supposed to" does a lot of heavy lifting there.
They're both correct, though just saying "tech" is pretty vague when he means the specific technology and usage of it. Plenty of 80s and 90s kids had computers in the classroom and it didn't fuck us up. I'm guessing without actually looking into it that when he says tech he means education software which probably is garbage and actively harmful.
It's great that I'm in a place willing to argue minutae of old comments.
So, I think as far as they're saying that the US Education system sucks, they are correct; but as far as saying it sucks UNIQUELY or that this article/subject is only about the US, they are wrong.
I'm inclined to think in the context of the conversation they are mostly wrong, but there is something to agree with there, and since the vote button is really just the agree button, it makes sense.
Edit: Oh, no, a downvote! I must have said something that did not contribute to the conversation! Please help me, I thought I was sharing my perspective, but I must have done so in a way that did not contribute to the conversation! I AM SO CONFUSED RIGHT NOW
Edit: Oh, I'm sorry. You are correct! You are so very right! You are a light of knowledge that shines in the darkness of my own ignorance! I am forever grateful for this marvelous insight you have into not only this conversation but into human nature in it's entirety, and perhaps even into the nature of God! My only regret in life is that I have but two orifices to pleasure you with sexually!
Is that more contributory to the conversation?
Way back in the 80s when I was in highschool in my native Portugal, one of my school colleagues went to the US for a year in a student exchange program.
Now, this was a guy whose average grade in Portugal was 12 (in a scale of 1 - 20, were 10 was a pass mark).
When he came back from the US after a year he had got A grades at everything but one (were he got a B). By the way, he was no better student in the year afterwards in Portugal than before.
It always stuck with me since then the idea that highschool-level teaching standards even in quite a poor and peripheral European country were much more demanding than in the US.
So that's why I always felt like a genius growing up. The people around me were just stupid, and so was the system that enforces their stupidity.
I was always the one ruining the curve by acing tests that everyone else got Cs and Ds on, and people acted like that was my fault. Classmates would ask me to explain something on the homework, and I didn't know where to begin because I just couldn't comprehend how they weren't getting it. I would state it in the plainest terms and they'd say things like "That's not an explanation, you just said what it is" and like yeah, any further detail than that would basically sound patronizing. (The funny thing is, people call me arrogant when I make it sound too dumbed down, but they also call me arrogant when I assume a higher-level understanding. It seems "intelligence" is the same thing as "arrogance" to some people...).
But then I go to Europe and basically feel like a dumb, backwards redneck because everyone around me has such a better understanding of the world than I do. That's why I love Europe though, I'd rather be the dumbest person in a room full of smart people than the smartest person in a room full of dumb people.
People in the US don't get it though. They think Europe is "posh" because all they ever see of it are shallow instagram travelers, so they think I'm a snob for liking Europe better than the US. It's really annoying.
The US is a pretty large place, if you grew up in one of the top states for education (MA, CT, NJ) you likely have had a much different experience than if you’ve grown up in like Louisiana or Alabama. The top states are actually fairly comparable to lots of European education. Hence why the snobbery mentioned about European below is also often applied to many people/places from the Northeast.
Yep. A friend of mine had an exchange student from the US. He was shocked when he started to attend school here. In the US, he had been A and B guy, here he was below average. The other way round, one of my year-mates (if that is a proper word) went to the US. She found the AP classes boring, and her only challenge was sports.