re: I'm convinced education's steep decline began and continues today for 3 main reasons!

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As I've said before, I can only speak to what I am seeing in my immediate area.

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The title of the thread is about education's steep decline beginnings and why it is still declining. The decline started 30 or 40 years ago but somehow you keep referencing a budget cut for the 2023-2024 school year. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

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. Removal of old fashioned teaching - today, we think computers are supposed to teach our children, but they've become more of a problem than an asset. Call me old, but there is a tremendous amount of value in a pencil and a piece of paper. I can remember doing my multiplication chart over and over, until I finally got it all right and my parents said I could stop. Today, we care more about optics and not reality. School systems across the country want everything to appear great, but the reality is social promotion is alive and well, even if the student barely picked up a pencil all year. School systems care more about making the numbers look good, regardless if a student can read or write.

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This is a major pet peeve of mine, specifically with math. Math HAS to be written w/ pencil and paper and a friggin textbook. While the teachers sold the technology as a new way of doing things, I think the real reason was laziness. Daily homework is done online, and that favors getting the answer 100% correct rather than the process of determining the answer. The teacher no longer have to grade math HW, because it is all done by the computer. Getting the correct answer is a good thing, but IMHO, knowing the process that generates the answer is far more important. Tests and quizzes are graded the same way. So you can have a kid who understands how to do a problem, but may transpose a negative incorrectly and he gets the problem wrong, and there is no distinction between a kid who has no clue and a kid who made a careless math mistake.

To your larger point, there is way too much BS in schools today. School should focused on English, Math, Science, History, and a language. That's it. No more, no less. No "Life Management Skills" or other BS classes. Classes should be 50 minutes and school should be dismissed at noon or shortly thereafter so that kids can play sports or have time for other interests and get their homework done.

My son is in the IB program and he also swims competitively, and it's a friggin struggle for him to manage his time. He gets up at 4:45AM, swims for 2 hours, goes to school until 3:30, has another swim practice from 4:30- 6:00PM, and then 2-4 hours of homework. It's bullshiite that a KID works harder than most adults at their job.

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Who are you to say where God should or shouldn’t be? That’s laughable. God can be anywhere he wants. I’ll add that a God of mercy grace and love is not a bad thing to have ina place where children may not get it from their parents.

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The U.S. Gov’t says it with the separation of church and state. Not all students believe in God or just 1 God.

Religion should not be a part of public classrooms.

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real answer is shrinking budgets

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nope

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shrinking budgets

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poor parenting

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yep

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Perhaps I should have said academic standards instead of expectations

Been teaching 28 years, and high school standards have crept their way down to as early as 4th grade.

I’m trying to teach 7th graders the same concepts my kids learned in dual enrollment high schoool math classes.

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In my experience, admittedly limited, it's the exact opposite. My nieces and nephews are in a top 10 public school district in Louisiana and I am constantly amazed at how low expectations are. The most recent example was when I looked at my nephew's take home history quiz. He is a junior in high school and I would have thought it was an easy, closed book, 10 minute in-class assignment for a seventh grader. Instead he had 2 days to complete it and could use the internet.

It’s more the destruction of the family by progressive policies. Without good parenting school teachers don’t stand a chance.

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why would I cut the highest-performing employee first?

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Because they’re most expensive.

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Because they’re most expensive.

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More expensive than keeping the low-performing employees in place and having to pay for their screw ups?

And bringing this back to education, are you advocating for keeping the dumbest of the teachers and principals in place because they're cheaper? How does that fix the problem?