The Kids Are Not Alright

It comes as no shock to most people reading this that the state of education in this country is more dismal than ever before. As just one example, according to The Nation’s Report Card website, just 30% of American public-school 4th graders are proficient in reading according to government standards as of 2024, which is two points lower than 2022.

As a rookie in the field of education, I have recently experienced these failures first hand. I had begun to substitute teach. Most positions have been aide positions, which have allowed me to observe the modern American classroom up close and personal, and I am sorry to report that the findings are disturbing.

So for the sake of this article, I will walk you through my recent three days. Wednesday, I get to the school, a public middle school in South Jersey for context, and I am placed in a small special education class. My duty is to follow two students around and assist them if necessary. A student calls me over to help him with an assignment, and by help, I mean he expected me to give him all the answers, just like his regular aide did. I said, I can help you, but I will not give you all the answers, so what I want you to do is read the text and work through it the best you can and ask me for help only if you are truly stuck. To my astonishment, he tells me “I can’t read.” The next day, I find out from the teacher I am working with that the majority of children at the school are reading at a second-grade level. This school serves 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.

Later that day, in “math” class, if you can call it that, I am asked to assist another student. I observe that both the student I was assigned to supervise and the other student I volunteered to help, as 6th graders, were still counting on their fingers for single-digit addition problems. These kids were in 6th grade, and not only had they not learned how to multiply, they couldn’t even add basic numbers in their head. And it wasn’t as if the “teacher” was of much help, as the teacher, who spoke with such a thick Spanish accent as to be almost incomprehensible (all the more reason for the mass deportations, but that is a subject for another day), stuck the class on their computers and told them to do math problems online. No lecture, no question and answer, no guidance.

I felt like I was teaching the class more than the “teacher.” I later thought how ironic it was that modern children all have a cell phone in their pocket, a laptop in their backpack, more free time in class than ever before, and all the information in the world at their fingertips, and yet they don’t know squat. This could be the most advanced generation in history, and because of the lack of effort, interest, and discipline, on the part of both the teachers and the students, they are the slowest... retarded, in the literal sense of the word, from what I could tell. No one expects every student to be the next Albert Einstein. Not every student is destined to be a doctor or lawyer or rocket scientist, but for a child preparing to enter high school to be unable to add two numbers together without using all the appendages on their body, that is outright alarming, even if they are “special education.”

Thursday, I am switched from the special education classroom to the behavioral disorder classroom. I find out from the teacher that she was the most recent teacher placed in that classroom after six previous teachers were cycled through. She informs me that, being the first real teacher they apparently ever had, the first time she instructed her students to take notes, they asked her “what are notes, how do you take notes?” As she explains the policies of the school to me, I find it hard to comprehend. The students were not assigned homework, the teacher was not allowed to fail students or give them a grade below 50%, even if the student does not submit the assignment, the school allows students to eat in class. What?

Then, I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. The teacher calls one of the students up to have him explain to me what the average class period was like before she got there. He tells me they did not do presentations, or classwork, or lectures, or tests. My next question: “so what did you do?” Answer: “whatever we wanted.” My assumption was, based on the number of students I saw mindlessly scrolling on their cell phones, watching mind-rot Tik Tok videos.

Fortunately, the teacher that stepped into the breach actually took her job seriously and was an old-fashioned, no-nonsense type who had clear rules and followed through with the punishment, you know, like a teacher is supposed to do. Friday, I got an opportunity to step in an interact more with the class, a group of children who apparently have never been disciplined or shown guidance ever in their lives outside of that particular classroom. I reported to the teacher that a student who had been asked repeatedly to put his cell phone away had it out yet again, and she asked me to confiscate it from him until the end of class. I figured, since apparently no one else had done so, I ought to have a little chat with him about his life choices. I explained to him that if he wants to get anywhere in life and accomplish anything, staring at his cell phone during class would not help him do it, and only buckling down and working hard in school could help him amount to anything.

The point of all this is to sound an alarm, from someone on the inside, about the state of education in this country. The educational system is failing students big time, and the students are failing themselves. The teachers are not teaching in many cases and the children don’t care to learn. This is a recommendation to all parents reading to closely monitor your child’s education. Show up to school board meetings, run for the school board, request meetings with teachers, elect legislators who will abolish tenure so the teachers who feel it is not necessary to teach can be given the boot. As the years progress, student achievement regresses. If America wants to maintain its place on the world stage, we have to graduate students who are capable of reading words longer than three letters. This is a warning from someone who has witnessed the abomination of modern education first hand. It is up to you to act.

Image: At via Magic Studio

If you experience technical problems, please write to helpdesk@americanthinker.com