Decline in education

One thing I have noticed as a parent on the education side that I did not notice as a student, is the information blackout you have on your kids strengths and weaknesses. My district does a lot of testing and we get the results on paper, but it's always a number and maybe a percentile but it doesn't actually explain anything. If you ask the teacher what your child got wrong, they often only have general ideas because the teachers aren't able to see the questions the system is asking (it's proprietary information to the company the district pays for the system.) We get a lot of data, it just doesn't appear particularly useful in addressing issues with kids learning. The curriculums also change constantly over the years, before my time, but Tom Lehrers "New Math" is relevant even today. I am guessing the intention is good, but I think having concepts like "nonsense words" as a graded concept is the epitome of this in reading. I'd like to think I know how to read, but I have no idea what a "nonsense word" is or how my kid is getting this category wrong consistently on these tests. I don't understand why we change how we teach basic reading or math every decade or so.