'These results are sobering': US high-school seniors' reading and math scores plummet

[Lithos]

15. It's not specifcally Social Media, it's not AI doing this

As the article notes, the decline started in 2015, using indicators from before then. There are many factors, not one issue.

IMHO, it boils down to two things:

1) The huge economic gap between the haves and have-nots. In Austin, most of the failing schools are clustered in the less economically advantaged areas. People who have to work two jobs, or suffer jobs requiring long overtime, often do not have time to spend with their kids or invest in their education.

2) The huge underfunding of schools by the Federal and State governments, which often masks this behind "test-based" outcomes. States like Texas and Florida would rather fund billionaires than fund the state's future.

COVID accelerated this, for sure, as it made jobs more unstable and added a huge burden to the schools, which had to shore up their infrastructure.

Screen time is something under the control of the parents. The reason it is so prevalent is that parents would rather use it as an artificial babysitter. Point 1 above made it worse.

AI was first widely used in 2022. It is not a problem, as education issues existed well before then. However, AI definitely exposes the difficulties of "test-based" thinking, where answers are more important than processes. AI and other algorithms have many answers- but you can't judge whether they are right unless you know the process. Cue up the appeal of the bigoted far-right influencers.