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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

> Grade inflation seems to be the main long-term culprit

Is it though, or is that just what your ideological sense tells you? Like I'm trying to point out, if you take the pandemic shock out of the data set, there really isn't much to argue about here. US aggregate education results have never been great internationally, but haven't ever been moving particularly fast either and seem not to have been before the pandemic either.

There really is a woke-derangement-syndrome at work among the reactionary geek set these days. Teachers have always had funny ideas, and haven't broken kids yet. People need to relax.

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I can't honestly call myself "anti-woke", nor can I honestly call myself "woke". What a pain. Harping on about either one makes for a dull comment. If anything, I'd probably be considered "woke" by ideological proximity.

> Is it though, or is that just what your ideological sense tells you?

What aside from grade inflation explains why those students in the UCSD report had high grades but had to take remedial math class? The schools I went to had some grade inflation, though perhaps it's not that bad. Heck, Harvard loves grade inflation.

Also, what even is the ideological angle here? I'm the only one talking about grade inflation here (well, one other person mentioned it, but surely not to be "anti-woke").

> but haven't ever been moving particularly fast either

Would it be false that education quality is declining even if it is doing so slowly?

> Teachers have always had funny ideas, and haven't broken kids yet

That "yet" is doing a lot of work, and ignoring the present article. A slow-moving train wreck is still a train wreck.

> A slow-moving train wreck is still a train wreck.

It's. Not. A. Train. Wreck.

There is a high signal NOW, due (very obviously) to a well-understood and well-characterized effect visible up and down social metrics in all societies where they have been measured.

What I'm saying is that pretending to ignore this very obvious hypothesis in order to push a personal theory about "grade inflation" or whatever and demanding the rest of us freak out about the implied "train wreck" is just bad logic.

Usually that kind of argument is the result of ideological bent, not considered thought.

When I brought up grade inflation, I meant it as a factor of a different kind than { COVID, phones, generative AI, ... }. Grade inflation is the reason why the decline is deceptive.

> > What aside from grade inflation explains why those students in the UCSD report had high grades but had to take remedial math class?

> > Also, what even is the ideological angle here? I'm the only one talking about grade inflation here (well, one other person mentioned it, but surely not to be "anti-woke").

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