#when you stop teaching phonics and only rely on teaching kids sight words

[menlove]

lots of talk rn about how fucked up the US education system is rn (like "8th graders not knowing the first 7 letters of the alphabet regardless of income/ability" fucked up) w lots of reasons given like covid, lack of parent engagement, "kids these days being lazy", etc. and while i definitely think at least the first two have impact on the situation

mostly i'm just like....... all of these things people are pointing out is problems that low SES teachers & students have been pointing out for decades. these are problems that students have been struggling with for decades in low SES schools. and now that it's applying to rich white kids too people are talking about it. but it has always been a fundamental flaw and issue in our schooling system. and the biggest issue here is, imo, that we are living in late stage capitalism & our school system was NOT built to handle a single thing going on rn. just like it wasn't built for lower-class students to thrive. the problem is now most households and schools are facing the same issues these lower SES households and schools have always faced.

but it's just a little wild bc for years the concerns and problems that teachers and students in lower SES schools have brought up have been routinely ignored and brushed aside and these students just got pushed along and the schools kept getting less funding and no one bothered to try and fix it so now we have a crisis bc it's happening everywhere