Why are students coming to class missing basic foundational skills?

“I have had so many orientation students argue with me that they don’t have to take a certain requirement bc they took it in high school.”source ↗

“Then I get students complaining to me that their AP Credits or dual credits have not been posted to their accounts and when I ask them when they submitted, they do not know and that someone submitted it for them???”source ↗

“Im a career advisor at a higher education healthcare school for people GRADUATING WITH AN ASSOCIATES DEGREE in things like "medical billing and coding, medical admin assistant, medical office billing specialist" and they, after 2 years of online classes for an AS, can not work their email.”source ↗

“I had one show up the first day of classes and was like “yeah idk where this class is held. Can you help me find the room?” Long story short, he never applied, never registered but found the class schedule online and thought he could just show up.”source ↗

“Every fall, I get a new batch of kids and half of them still in pull-ups at 5, never held a book, can’t write their name, don’t know their name, don’t know colors or shapes, and have zero ability to sit for more than 30 seconds. And somehow that’s my problem.”source ↗

“Their last essay of the semester was due last night, and I'm still dealing with kids who "didn't know" it was due on Canvas, "don't know how" to upload a word doc or PDF to Canvas, "forgot" their work cited page, etc.”source ↗

“I've genuinely got to a point where only 5 of my 24 3rd graders can follow worksheets my 3rd graders did seamlessly a couple of years ago.”source ↗

“Simple, fill-in-the-gap exercises are met with countless "I don't get it", "what do I have to do?".”source ↗

“I don't really know what's happening in middle school or elementary schools in my area, or if anyone else is struggling with this, but it is the 3rd week of school and my freshman are already far behind.”source ↗

“Anyone else experiencing this? I'm tired. I have 11 8th period and for some reason 9 have a question at the same time. I also have 25 7th period and that is a different hell.”source ↗

“She was never taught how to manage her workload or the concept of turning in work on time.”source ↗

“Her highest grade is a 50%. This is all because she won't turn in her work.”source ↗

“I've got a high school freshman who can't read or do basic math.”source ↗

“Just posted grades for the quarter and one thing that stood out was a severe amount of low grades.”source ↗

“At least 25/30 in each class. I constantly have students asking me why there was stuff they hadn’t seen on tests and quizzes. Then I ask if they did the homework. They say yes.”source ↗

“Its either not turned in or blatantly written from AI.”source ↗

“I love math and can’t do anything interesting in my classroom because most of them are 1-4 years behind. Shit Ive got kids who cant add or subtract single digit numbers.”source ↗

“I think im going to go back and get my bachelors in mathematics in addition to my ed math, get my masters or doctorate and then work a proper job where i won’t be spending 12 hours a day working for shit pay, and be dealing with parents who just now decided they care.”source ↗

“One kid out of the entire class completed the assignment correctly (ironically one of my language disordered kids).”source ↗

“Half of the class was engaged in unproductive behaviors (asking for pass to leave class, playing with their fidgets, playing games on Chromebook). The other half tried to do the assignment but did it ALL WRONG.”source ↗

“Hardly any of the students have written a complete sentence without egregious spelling or grammatical errors.”source ↗

“I’m not sure how to better convey the material during my recitations, or if they even care to learn.”source ↗

“I teach freshmen. This is the first year I’ve seen noticeable improvement in their existing knowledge and skills coming in to the year (the last few years, I have had to reteach grammar and writing skills all the way back to 4-5th grade skills, but this year I barely had to do any review at all.”source ↗

“I feel like in the last few years, my school has seen a plethora of kids coming into the school system for the first time in several years, or ever. Lots of them are very, very low.”source ↗

“They literally need to be told how to do every single thing: put your name on the paper, push your chair in, follow the class routine when you come in.”source ↗

“This group is killing me and I'm losing patience fast.”source ↗

“I’m at a loss with my students. How did executive functioning get so bad?”source ↗

“Today I had a student ask me “after I’m done with number one, do I move on to number 2?” I didn’t even know what to say to them.”source ↗

“I have multiple students who seem incapable of doing any work unless I’m sitting down helping them.”source ↗

“Once I wrote “term” and told the kids multiple times if they write “term” instead of the term they will fail. I had many who failed.”source ↗

“I cant tell you how frustrated I am knowing this- even though it has nothing to do with my department or my work, I am genuinely mad at the system and how it has failed.”source ↗

“Gave a test today and allowed them to use their notes. The study guide I gave them was identical to the test. (Edit meant test) Many did worse than 10/15”source ↗

“I give them sentence starters to help with written responses. They just copy the sentence starter but then don’t finish the sentence and somehow think they have provided a reasonable answer to the prompt.”source ↗

“I feel like everyday I read a new post about kids these days being completely unable to do even the most basic tasks.”source ↗

“Elementary schools keep sending us 7th graders who read at a 3-5th grade level and do math at 2-4th grade level. There’s only so much we can do to catch them up.”source ↗

“Most are basically illiterate and have been playing video games for years with no regulations.”source ↗

“For years, schools have heavily leaned into social promotion, passing students along to the next grade despite missing skills or unfinished work”source ↗

“How am I expected to teach grade level content to kids who are on a 2nd grade math level?? They’re all failing btw and it’s the beginning of the year.”source ↗

“We work on GRADE LEVEL material now. We have seen a huge increase in behaviors.”source ↗

“for my regulars, I need to model EVERYTHING for them.”source ↗

“I find out half of them are on the wrong page.”source ↗

“I never realized how much of my mental capacity each day was spend doing all the little things for them.”source ↗

“turns out you can’t do your best work when you’re exhausted and depleted — who knew!”source ↗

“I am teaching students that are two grades below, and I’m expected to pass them onto the next grade, knowing that even with differentiation and equity for students who have IEP‘s or 504, there are students who are naughty equipped in their skill, set to be mastering the next grades standards because they have yet to achieve mastery or even close to mastery of the current grade level standards by the end of the year.”source ↗

“districts across the US are pushing us to pass the students despite data analysis showing that further support is needed.”source ↗

“Yes. I’m shocked how low they are academically, and immature.”source ↗

“That’s why my high schoolers think they don’t actually need to learn any math I teach (geometry and precalc) because they can just take a picture of whatever problem they have and chat gpt with solve it.”source ↗

“I told a 9th grader yesterday that 'idk' isn't an answer 'and neither is I don't know.'”source ↗

“I had to come home and make a stiff drink after school yesterday (HS Science Teacher) after I did a stations activity to make different observations of various things and working with vocab.”source ↗

“I had all-too-many kids just randomly picking things. And then when I had them explain where on their chart, they would point to the thing not even in the same row or same column and be like "because it's right there!".”source ↗

“I'm a HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHER. I'm not an elementary school teacher. Like WTF is going on?!??!”source ↗

“Year 10. There's a girl in there who has never caused me a single problem. Neat book, sits at the front, nods along. I'd have told you she was fine.”source ↗

“And then it clicked that she's been doing this for months, and I've been marking her book thinking she's fine because the book is neat and she never asks for help.”source ↗

“It's the quiet ones who've worked out how to look like they're following that get missed, and they're the ones who've been lost the longest.”source ↗

“Anyone else got a kid they missed for way too long?”source ↗

“As such, we end up with TONS of kids in CP precalc who really shouldn't be there, or should be in a core level course like they were for geo and alg 2.”source ↗

“This results in lots of students dropping the course and changing schedules all throughout the first quarter, which is total chaos.”source ↗

“They looked at me like I had 3 heads when I talked about estimating and rounding and "friendly numbers".”source ↗

“They say the midpoint between 300 and 400 is 305.”source ↗

“I dont know what to do.”source ↗

“I feel like a failure because this is the first year where I've had so many kids just not understand.”source ↗

“All of my classes are fairly low performing and students are all understanding materials at different paces.”source ↗

“My 8th grade class tests between 2nd-7th grade in math skills so it is hard to teach 8th grade level content when they don’t even have their times tables down.”source ↗

“I also don’t feel supported by the middle school principal.”source ↗

“The problem is that the scope and scale of the ineptitude is out of control to the point it's going to hurt kids who are high achievers.”source ↗

“I work with kids like this and they are sinking in general education classes and I’m sinking trying to bridge the gap but it gets wider every day.”source ↗

“It’s so frustrating to be looked at by the students like I’m out of line and having no support from the other staff for setting simple expectations.”source ↗

“They have so many gaps in their knowledge that almost everything has to be explicitly taught to them.”source ↗

“I have students in my 3rd level class who haven’t passed a semester since the first year in my program. It is really frustrating.”source ↗

“I teach high school and this year we got quite a few homeschoolers as incoming 9th graders. I'm in special education so I often get pulled in but we can't do much because proving they need specially designed instruction at this point is really difficult due to lack of public school attendance.”source ↗

“I taught the kids now in 4th grade who would have been preschoolers during covid. They were a little more helpless than I think they should be, but it was the parents that made it harder.”source ↗

“I am at a loss how to try to teach someone to teach who has no background knowledge of the education field…any advice would be greatly appreciated.”source ↗

“How do other teachers know when they’ve done all they reasonably can in the classroom? What do you do when a student needs much more basic instruction than you have the time, training, or resources to provide?”source ↗

“Some of my students are reading around a first grade level, but I’m still expected to teach grade level material.”source ↗

“Eventually I get to a point where I don’t know how to break it down any further without just giving them the answer or doing the thinking for them.”source ↗

“The couple at the base of a lot of them is that they can’t creatively problem solve and they can’t do things without a step by step instruction.”source ↗

“I'm out here trying to figure out how to help a 15 year old learn science when the textbook is written at a middle school lexile level. This book is not accessible to him, but the credit is required to graduate.”source ↗

“If it makes you feel any better every batch of students I get year after year don’t know any math facts at all- not even addition and subtraction! They’re high schoolers!”source ↗

“I have a former student that needs to pass their EOC Biology test to graduate.”source ↗

“I did remediation last year, and I feel like the students hated it and didn’t learn.”source ↗

“I’m scared because we have a good relationship, and I will take it personal if they don’t pass.”source ↗

“He told me he didn’t need to improve his reading because he could ask his phone anything he wanted to know.”source ↗

“I just feel like I’m not doing my job if I have to leave so many students behind.”source ↗

“One of my biggest frustrations is our curriculum and how little flexibility we have with it. It is VERY fast-paced, and we are expected to follow it closely.”source ↗

“The problem is that I feel like the curriculum sometimes skips over foundational skills my students actually need.”source ↗

“How am I supposed to faithfully follow the curriculum when my students don’t have the prerequisite skills necessary to complete what the curriculum is asking them to do?”source ↗

“Now I teach students who don’t know what dinosaurs are. They’ve never even seen pictures of the Eiffel Tower or the Great Pyramids, much less can they identify where in the world they’re located. They can’t follow even the most basic storyline.”source ↗

“I had 15-year-olds write a single paragraph today based on an article they read... Needless to say, it was a pretty depressing day.”source ↗

“I think it’s less like helpless infants and more like teachers here are exhausted trying to get the parents to give a fuck.”source ↗

“The parent registered with the 20yo brother’s number so that we can’t call them.”source ↗

“Almost everyone has an IEP now. The emotional competencies are soooo low.”source ↗

“Just took a job last week at an international school teaching 8th through 12th grade math.”source ↗

“The kids I'm teaching are utterly helpless in math.”source ↗

“Given the amount of time I'm at this school, is it worth it to temporarily stop teaching the curriculum and go back to basics with teaching vocabulary, problem solving strategies, how to have math talks, etc.?”source ↗

“The students who are in 10th grade this year felt the most impacted to me, both academically and socially.”source ↗

“These kids cannot read, problem solve, listen or think for themselves and it is so depressing.”source ↗

“When I give instructions, immediately they’re all raising their hands and it drives me nuts.”source ↗

“When I ask them questions, or tell them to figure something out I am met with blank stares and then they give up and will keep asking me to tell them the answer.”source ↗

“After ages of forcing them to just try it the best they can do is just word slop/gibberish.”source ↗

“I am so depressed and angered to see this. It takes so much energy to do the most basic goofy little games.”source ↗

“Anyways, the parents all want to ask me how their kid is doing, and all that stuff. How do I tell them without losing my job that they need to parent their kid???”source ↗

“my daughter (13) has a total of 19 missing assignments across multiple classes.”source ↗

“once she falls behind she starts to feel overwhelmed and won't do any new assignments.”source ↗

“She's had her cell phone and all electronics taken away for weeks at this point and it just doesn't matter to her.”source ↗

“I'm at my wit's end here.”source ↗