Austin Scholar #152: America’s students are failing
& here’s how we can save them
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
America’s students are failing – here’s how we can save them
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been thinking about…
This past Thursday, I went to Sahil Bloom’s San Francisco book launch of The Five Types of Wealth. I remember scrolling on X years ago and reading one of Sahil Bloom’s first threads on different types of wealth and thinking, wow, this guy has some great ideas. And now he’s invited me to his book launch about that very topic. I highly recommend checking out The Five Types of Wealth. It is, as Mel Robbins says, a “call to action” to think about the way you’re interacting with and thinking about your time, social life, mental and physical wellbeing, and financial state.
In other news, as Stanford gets rainier and colder, I’ve found myself missing home more and more. This year really has been a roller coaster – just a week ago, I was loving everything about being here, and now all I want is home. My goal for this week is to try and have fun in the rain – maybe leave earlier for classes to walk and twirl my umbrella instead of battling the rain drops hitting my eyes as I bike. Small changes in perspective can have a huge impact.
America’s students are failing – here’s how we can save them
I’ve found that most people ignore how bad America’s test results are – or they’re just numb to them.
But if you realized how dire the situation actually is, you wouldn’t.
One third of eighth graders in this country can’t even read at a basic level. That means they can’t answer questions like this:
One in three of our eighth graders don’t know the definition of “fascinating.”
Math is even worse.
40% of our eighth grade students can’t do math at a basic level. That means 40% of students going into high school cannot answer this question:
Or this one:
This is completely unacceptable.
The problem isn't that kids are failing to answer questions on a test. It's that they don't have the skills to solve real-world problems. Can you imagine trying to live your life but being unable to calculate a tip at a restaurant, follow a budget, or understand a graph in the news?
These gaps in basic skills aren’t just academic – they’re life-altering.
And as much as they need it, our country isn't going to hold back 40% of our eighth graders, so how are these students expected to succeed in high school?
They can’t.
Too many schools aren’t telling you how bad it is. They’re just pushing students along, hoping their scores will get better over time. But they’re not getting better.
Parents and students are told things like “don’t worry, they’ll catch up.” But how? How do you expect a student who is already two, three, even four grade levels behind to magically catch up when they’re sitting in a classroom that isn’t doing any work to fill the gaps?
They can’t.
And instead of addressing the problem head-on, some people think AI will solve the problem for them. They assume their kids don’t need to know the basics because “AI will do it for them.” But the opposite is true.
If your child doesn’t understand the basics, they won’t be able to think critically or solve complex problems. And those are the exact skills they’ll need to succeed in the future – especially in a world where AI is everywhere.
The pandemic forced schools to shut down, and for over a year, most students were learning online – and, in many cases, not learning at all. When they came back to the classroom, they weren’t just “a little” behind. They were two, three, sometimes even four grade levels behind.
The traditional classroom model wasn’t designed to handle this kind of learning loss. Teachers are expected to teach to a full classroom of students, all at different skill levels, with no way to individualize lessons.
Imagine being a sixth grader and sitting in a classroom where the teacher hands you a textbook and asks you to read a chapter – but you can’t, because your reading skills are still at a second-grade level. How are you supposed to learn anything when you can’t even understand the material?
You don’t.
And that’s what’s happening. Students aren’t catching up because the system isn’t built to help them catch up. It’s built to move forward, even if the kids aren’t ready.
That’s why these scores aren’t bouncing back. It’s not because kids aren’t capable of learning – it’s because they’re not being given the tools and support they need to succeed.
The only way to fix this crisis is to use online, adaptive, AI-powered apps that give each kid individualized lessons. These apps will be able to recognize that even though a students’ age is at a sixth grade-level, their knowledge grade might be at a second or third grade-level. Then, the student can work through the second and third grade lessons and content and move their way up to the sixth grade knowledge level.
The adaptivity and personalization ingrained in the apps allow students to learn at twice the speed they would in a standardized classroom (there’s no wasted time and they are always learning exactly what they need to be learning), so they’ll be able to catch up quickly.
Through online apps, we can fix this educational disaster. Because you know what? You deserve better. Your kid deserves better. We don’t need to doom entire generations to a life of not knowing how to read a graph or multiply numbers – our system is forcing it.
So sound the alarm bells. Treat the state of our educational system like the emergency it is. Advocate for a better solution.
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been thinking about…
This video is such a beautiful example of that high standards, high support mindset I talked about in my previous newsletter. When their daughter falls, the parents first offer support to ensure she’s okay (safety always comes first), but then reinforces the “high support” aspect by encouraging her to try again – not letting her quit just because she fell. It’s that encouragement and expectation that allows their daughter to succeed.
The final part of the video is my favorite, though. After telling her that he’s proud of her, her dad asks her, “are you proud of yourself?” Building up your kid’s self-confidence – especially after a fall – can be extremely challenging, but here, the father is creating this sense of his daughter being able to support herself. Yes, he tells her that he’s proud, but more importantly wants her to tell herself that she’s proud of what she did. I loved this interaction and encourage you to try it out yourself.
It’s not just Alpha and 2 Hour Learning that prove that kids can learn at an unprecedented rate through online, AI-powered apps. Homeschooling parents across X are sharing their stories and the apps they use so their kids can, for example, finish all high school content by age thirteen. Absolutely remarkable. Think of all of the incredible things their kids will be able to learn – what projects or passions they’ll be able to explore – with all of that extra time. They don’t have to spend eight hours a day wasting their time in a sterile school building.
Online apps give your kid their childhood back.
I haven’t seen a single anti-Taylor Swift TikTok in a week. Why might this be significant? No, it’s not because I’ve curated an echo chamber For You page – before the GRAMMYs, so many of the prediction videos I watched were filled with snide remarks toward Taylor Swift and how rigged the award show would be if she won. And last year, the moment the GRAMMYs ended, my For You page had video after video of Taylor Swift haters complaining about her, insulting everything about her, wishing that Lana Del Rey won instead.
What was different this year?
She didn’t win anything.
Taylor Swift didn’t win a single GRAMMY and people are now saying, “she seems cool, maybe I should listen to her music!” and “Taylor was such a vibe at the GRAMMYs. I’d want to be friends with her.”
On the other hand, Beyoncé is getting absolutely slammed by millions of people because she won Album of the Year and people don’t think she deserved it – two years ago, many of those same people were incensed that Harry Styles’ Harry’s House beat Renaissance. Obviously I understand disagreeing with who won, especially in something as subjective as music, but the visceral hate from so many people toward each year’s winner is kind of shocking.
You’d think that winning a GRAMMY like Album of the Year would imply that an artist has good music and inspire people to listen to it, but in Taylor’s case, it almost seems to be the opposite.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I’ve done it too. When Billie Eilish won GRAMMY after GRAMMY every year, I found myself getting annoyed and wishing that someone else could win; this year, I was horribly sad for her that she lost.
This is so fascinating – if Billie had won anything this year, I know I would’ve been upset, no matter how much she deserved it. But because she lost, I wished that she won. So I’ve decided to work on it – truly try to be happy for the “winners” and try to learn from them instead of hate on them, and I encourage you to do this too when you notice yourself disliking something or someone because they’ve won.
Thanks for reading. Go crush the week! See y'all on Sunday.