(1) rote memorization is not an indicator of intelligence or skill.
(2) specialty datapoints regarding farm life are no longer required
(3) English grammar teaching is in a sad state. (A known aspect of today's public schools)
For a fair comparison, one should review the 8th grade requirements in a variety of today's schools (I did so once in a cursory fashion). In my opinion, today's students have to take in at least as much information, some of it also specialized, and spit it out.
Arguably today's requirements are not as focused on exact knowledge as late 1800s requirements. I leave that to the philosopher of education to evaluate for better/worse.
What should also be considered is not just the test itself, but how tests were graded - was passing the top 90%? 60%? How lenient were teachers? An issue today is some teachers giving "free As". Did that exist in 1890?
What can also be considered is the difference between Kanas 8th grade and Boston 8th grade. Was there one? What about different schools?
There is not a simple analysis here. There must needs be a careful data-driven reflection examining the subtleties of the educational system before someone pushes out the generalization - "today's students are all worse and we are all stupid". I see many examples of smart people. Admittedly, they anecdotally seem to have "beat the system" most of the time, so, well - there's another facet to the analysis.
Note - I hear occasionally about Dewey & early 1900s educators setting up US education to optimize for factory workers and a compliant populace. Does anyone have any factual data/bibliographic sources asserting/refuting that?
Comments
I've seen another variant on this test -
What it boils down to is that:
(1) rote memorization is not an indicator of intelligence or skill.
(2) specialty datapoints regarding farm life are no longer required
(3) English grammar teaching is in a sad state. (A known aspect of today's public schools)
For a fair comparison, one should review the 8th grade requirements in a variety of today's schools (I did so once in a cursory fashion). In my opinion, today's students have to take in at least as much information, some of it also specialized, and spit it out.
Arguably today's requirements are not as focused on exact knowledge as late 1800s requirements. I leave that to the philosopher of education to evaluate for better/worse.
What should also be considered is not just the test itself, but how tests were graded - was passing the top 90%? 60%? How lenient were teachers? An issue today is some teachers giving "free As". Did that exist in 1890?
What can also be considered is the difference between Kanas 8th grade and Boston 8th grade. Was there one? What about different schools?
There is not a simple analysis here. There must needs be a careful data-driven reflection examining the subtleties of the educational system before someone pushes out the generalization - "today's students are all worse and we are all stupid". I see many examples of smart people. Admittedly, they anecdotally seem to have "beat the system" most of the time, so, well - there's another facet to the analysis.
Note - I hear occasionally about Dewey & early 1900s educators setting up US education to optimize for factory workers and a compliant populace. Does anyone have any factual data/bibliographic sources asserting/refuting that?