[phil21]

The single variable that actually matters when it comes to school - and nothing else matters until this one is fulfilled: The quality of the peers who make up the student body.

Or put another way: The quality and involvement of the average parent.

A school can absorb an extremely small minority of "problematic" students if the rest of the student body is stellar, but that's about it.

There is not a single thing any public education system can do to counteract that simple fact. If the average student in the classroom is uninterested at best and troublemaking at worst, it doesn't matter how good the teachers are or what the ratios are, or if the classrooms are old and busted or brand new.

Until society becomes serious again, this problem will only get worse as education continues to be a political and culture war football. The best realistic thing I can think of is take a look at nearly all other western social democracies who have much better outcomes and immediately implement student academic tracking. But that would be politically impossible to do in the current state of the US.

I fear that things are going to get far worse before they get better. You could 10x the primary school education budget and likely continue to see worsening results.

When I went from private (poor) primary and middle school, to a rich suburban high school, to a poor inner city high school back in the 90's this was self evident. I didn't think it could get much worse than that, but the administrative and political classes figured out how to wildly beat even my exceedingly low expectations.

[mothballed]

If you ask boomers they'll be far more likely to tell you dad was out working 16 hours in the oil field / carpenter for the housing boom or something like that. Mom has no time for you either, she is busy with the 4th baby. Kid gets a nice belting for bad behavior and other than that, be back before the street lights come on for a dinner conversation and then left to your own devices before bed.

I think if anything parents are more involved now than they used to be.

The most obvious difference to me other than ipads/social media is we don't beat kids anymore and we give them way less autonomy.

[ytoawwhra92]

Another big difference is the amount of interaction between kids of different ages.

[Tanoc]

Yes. When I was ten I had friends ranging from age eight to fourteen that I regularly hung out with, and older people in their forties or fifties that I would drop by when I saw them outside to learn things from. There was a hierarchy of responsibility in our group where the oldest kept track of the ones younger than them, and those kids kept track of the ones younger than them. Beyond that we had no supervision because everyone knew someone who disapproved of something and would tell their parents, whether that be my same age peers disapproving of cursing or the eldest kids disapproving of everyone going to someone's house uninvited. That risk of strain on the friend group kept everyone in line.

Nowadays parents are very strict about the age gaps between their kid's friends, especially with how older kids usually know how to get into risque stuff online. They aren't exposed to differences of opinion and ability as much in real life, and that somewhat hinders their development. There's nothing that can teach you patience like trying to calm down one of the younger kids so you don't get kicked out of a friend's house during the basketball game. Just like there's nothing that motivates you to get better than your six foot two friend intercepting every single pass to your receiver.

And this isn't even getting into the hobbies, interests, and skills kids can learn just by watching adult neighbours. While this year I'm seeing more people outside doing things, for a long while everyone was inside. That meant there weren't older people outside working on cars, tending to their gardens, preparing their boats for fishing season, or just sitting around talking about activities from the past that might be interesting. Kids are more likely to take an interest in a new activity if somebody they know does that activity, because that person is much easier to ask questions and directly show problems to. If they see something online it will probably be a momentary passing interest that they'll forget by the end of the day because once that video's gone so is their interaction with it.

[QuarterReptile]

The school system is going to crash out in the US. The public school teachers will readily share symptoms ("enrollment going down", "2X the IEPs of 3 years ago", "non-verbal ipad kids", "kids only sleeping 4 hours a night because of ipads", etc.). As everyone with means or time escapes, the system increasingly distills problems and legitimate special-needs cases while no longer spreading them out among cooperative kids, and teachers will continue to burn out in such a thankless environment.

At varying times in various places, public school is or will become just like riding the bus: technically a viable option for a needed service, if you have no other choice and are ready to suffer in a place that tolerates all manner of dysfunction.