One teacher is sounding the alarm on how schools are passing students to the next grade even when they’re still operating years behind where they’re supposed to be.
We all know that kids were educationally and developmentally delayed during the COVID-19 lockdowns, which were totally unnecessary to save children’s lives and only brought them all kinds of harm. But one teacher explained in a video that Libs of TikTok shared on X (formerly Twitter) that the delay is far worse than many educators want to admit.
The teacher said he teaches 7th grade, but his students currently operate on a 4th-grade level. He said that part of the problem is that schools just keep passing children to the next grade, regardless of whether they really qualify to pass or not. I personally have had teachers mention the same issue to me. Children are actually failing, and too many are barely literate. Yet the teachers—or the administrators—just keep passing the kids along to the next grade, not wanting to deal with the drama and difficulty of making them take a grade over and actually learn something.
The teacher began in the video, “Let’s take a moment to discuss, let’s take a moment to debrief, let’s take a moment to unpack. So I’m not really understanding why they’re not telling y’all — like, we all know that the world is behind, like, you know, globally… you know, because of the pandemic and stuff, but I don’t understand why they’re not stressing to y’all how bad it is.” He went on to explain just how bad it is:
Like, I’m not even trying to be funny, but these kids are — I’m going to just say this. I teach 7th Grade, they’re still performing on the 4th Grade level. I don’t care how you flip it, turn it, swing it…they’re still performing on a 4th Grade level.
Ain’t nobody talking about how they just keep moving — passing them on. They just keep passing ’em on, passing ’em on, passing ’em on…I could put as many zeros in his grade as I want to, they’re going to move that child to the 8th Grade next year. But ain’t nobody talking about that. Why are they not talking about that? Why [are] they not telling y’all your child — and why don’t y’all know that your kids is not performing on their grade level?
He then defended himself against the charge that he as the teacher must bear the blame for this. Undoubtedly, there are teachers failing their students, but some of them are trying to solve a situation that it could be too late to fix. “Let’s talk about it, let’s unpack, because y’all be quick to talk about, ‘oh, the teacher this, the teacher this… it’s your job, baby,’” the teacher said. “I just got here 30 days ago. She was performing on a 4th-grade level since 4th grade… ’You’re the teacher, you’re supposed to be—’ Again, she’s been on the 4th-grade level since the 4th grade. We’re in 7th grade now, so you let this child go three years, and you never knew that your child was still in the 4th grade?”
7th grade teacher claims most of his students are on 4th grade level, partially due to the pandemic, and nobody is doing anything about it.
Where are the parents? Why is the education system failing our kids? pic.twitter.com/bF4D3AniSh
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 4, 2023
Another thing I’ve had more than one teacher mention to me is that parents enable their children’s ignorance and underperformance. When teachers bring up the issue of educational delays or an unwillingness to do assignments, the parents attack the teachers. They demand good grades for their kids as a right! No wonder children underperform when their parents pay attention to their progress only long enough to tell them they should have A’s no matter what they do.
The teacher from the video again:
The 4th grade is being nice. I still have kids performing on the K[indergarten], 1, 2, and 3rd grade levels. I can probably count on one hand how many kids are actually performing on their grade level. So, just imagine—you don’t know that your child’s been on the 2nd grade level since the 2nd grade, and they’re now in the 7th or 8th grade?
He ended sarcastically, “Are you joking right now? And these are our future leaders, our future doctors, our future nurses, our future — please, please!” The reality is, of course, that rich people can still afford to send their kids to expensive private schools to become doctors and leaders. What we’re seeing here is a new and entirely un-American class system based on education, where only a small percentage of children receive a decent education, while the rest of our kids get passed on no matter how little they earned it.
Can you imagine the crisis society will be in when most of our workers and leaders are functionally illiterate, operating on an elementary school level even if they graduated high school or college? My generation is lazy and incompetent enough, but you ain’t seen nothing yet. Adults have failed children. From the lockdown policies to the decision to pass kids on despite their delays to woke indoctrination in schools, adults have set American kids up for failure.
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