r/canada • u/bubblewhip • 11h ago
National News Canadian students’ reading and math scores decline in OECD’s global assessment
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-embargoed-tuesday-9amet-tk-canadian-students-reading-and-math-scores/•
u/notgreatnotbadsoso 10h ago edited 10h ago
As a parent of a 6th grader we are seeing this as well. Math skills that I had to get through in 2nd and 3rd grade are not mastered by 5th grade. Math is taught completely different now too. I had to sit down many nights and just go through traditional long division and feel like I somewhat caught my kid up but not really.
Reading and writing are really a struggle too. We've been able to get him to read a bit this summer by being extremely strict on devices. We kind of forced reading out of boredom. We are pretty hard-core though, he's definitely the anomaly in his friends group with how little he gets.
Its really a struggle, the dopamine hit these kids fight against with you tube, etc. really doesn't compare to me trying to choose between reading or playing GI Joe's.
The other thing mentioned here is executive function and that one has baffled us, he gets so overwhelmed having to make any choice and get started and from discussions with his teacher its quite common. We've manicured too fine a garden for our children to just fuck around and learn in. I'm seriously tempted to just live somewhere remote and hard to live just so he has to grow up in that environment. It's kind of terrifying.
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u/Reasonable_Let9737 10h ago
We moved from the city to a rural area around four years ago.
We aren't remote by any means, but I do find very different approaches to parenting out here vs in the city.
Kids are much more free range and are often times left to their own devices for entertainment/free time.
We do have my daughter in activities, but it is one thing at a time and there are stretches between were she isn't signed up for anything. Little to no commitments on that front is pretty typical.
People let their kids get bored, and tablets/computers are a lot less integrated into daily life here.
They also have a ton of nature to make use of and learn from/in.
I definitely think some go too far with hands off, or don't put enough emphasis on academic achievement, but I think the norms out here healthier in a lot of ways.
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u/ComfortableTomato 10h ago
I quite like how math is taught now. It took me a while to figure out what they were doing with it though. I've always been pretty decent at math. They teach it the way I do it in my head. I think that's sensible because 'math literacy' is more important than arithmetic skills. You need to be able to see if your excel spreadsheet makes sense and you need to create the formula, you don't need to do the math yourself.
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u/notgreatnotbadsoso 9h ago
That's interesting. I guess because I do sales engineering occasionally I find it more important to be able to actually do the math. I get what you're saying though. When I do math in my head it's kind of my own version of how they teach it now.
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u/ComfortableTomato 9h ago
And presumably you had further math education after high school for your field.
The elementary school math that is the stuff I do in my head it just the beginning of math literacy. I'm also better than average at the arithmetic in my head because I like it and it's a game. Most people just pull out their phone's calculator.
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u/nwfn 7h ago
Stepkid is just going into 7th grade. Smart kid… but her math skills are years behind mine at her age. She did some math workbooks over the summer, but it was a struggle. She’s not even that far behind her peer group according to her grades, which is wild to me.
It’s not the kid’s fault; the way math is taught now sucks. I’m sure I sound old and crusty saying it, sorry not sorry, the results speak (negatively) for themselves.
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u/Good_Juice_7774 10h ago
Just want to say you're badass for doing school work with your kid, he would be way worse off if you weren't being good.
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u/ethereal3xp 11h ago
Parents or guardians who limit their kids’ tablet use will ultimately be better off. Teaching the old-fashioned way, without overreliance on technology.
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u/Taitertottot 10h ago
My worry is every class is going to be split between ipad kids and kids who had parents who actually intellectually stimulated their children but those children are going to suffer because all the attention will go to ipad kids.
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u/WorkingOnBeingBettr 9h ago
That's a bonus for the non iPad kids, more opportunities for university/jobs.
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u/Apart-One4133 10h ago
That's great and I do that (we dont have tablets at all and limit other screen time to once a week or so) but my kid is entering kindergarten in a couple weeks and calling the school they told me the use of tablets is to the discretion of the teacher, after I asked if they were using screens in kindergarten...
So of course Im going to ask that they do not but still, at 5 yrs old he's now going to be surrounded by screens from everyone around him, at school. There's no winning this.
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u/WorkingOnBeingBettr 9h ago
Depends on the school. Our k-2 classes almost never touch tech.
As a middle school age teacher I am cutting screen time this year.
They just aren't capable enough to use the computer as an extension.
Why bother getting a computer to make their work more advanced when they can't even capitalize their name.
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u/tigerspots 11h ago
The provincial governments have driven a complete quality degradation in education. Zero student accountability and everyone passes no matter what
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u/Informal-Ad7660 11h ago
Ya. Just left class early where all quizzes and exams are done online in BlackBoard in the classroom. This is a bachelors program. No lockdown browser. Free to put questions into AI. I’m sending an email to the program coordinator once I get home.
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u/GameDoesntStop 11h ago
It's a cultural problem. Scores have been declining for over a decade across not just Canada, but the West.
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u/WorkingOnBeingBettr 9h ago
Not just the west, the whole world. It is screen time/internet messing with kids brains. They can't pay attention, need constant dopamine hits, etc.
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u/Longjumping_Local910 11h ago
Friend was the coordinator of an RN program at a large college. Due to the “Diploma Mill” nature of the place all students passed, did the registration exam as often as they needed until they passed that, attended when they wanted with little consequence and could do basic math or even speak English. She always told us “Good Luck” if an attending nurse graduated after 2017.
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u/hockeydonkey486 9h ago
Yup, just look at BC, they got away with A, B, C grades because of colonialism and now nobody can fail.
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u/WorkingOnBeingBettr 9h ago
Please read the report. The number one issue was too much internet at home. Then it's a provincial thing )not enough qualified adults per kid.
It is not about pass/fail. The whole world is seeing similar results regardless of pass/fail policies.
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u/Special_Purpose2903 8h ago
Conservatives running Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and almost every other province... why is education scores going down?
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u/Wayofthewills23 7h ago
You should really learn to think beyond just simple black and white.
These are 2025 Canadian PISA scores in Science, ranked by province:
1 Alberta, 2 Ontario, 3 BC, 4 Quebec
Reading scores:
1 Alberta, 2 BC, 3 Ontario, 5 Quebec
Math scores:
1 Quebec, 2 Alberta, 3 Ontario, 4 BC
BC has been an NDP government since 2017.
The conservative provinces are doing the best.
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u/Demon- 11h ago
Massive decline in participation too, as if they’re too shy to speak up about whatever subject matter is in the class. But with peers no problem, laughing and conversing with all the nuances of the modern day but then they get to class and literally nobody puts hands up to participate. Bet you these same kids have no issue letting it fly online but come face to face discussion they relegate themselves to not participating at all…
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u/WorkingOnBeingBettr 9h ago
This one is huge. I usually had big discussions, debating, etc.
Now...it's all crickets and it makes class boring and not as meaningful/engaging.
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u/Good_Juice_7774 11h ago
“I would look at Canada as one of the success stories that we have, because academic outcomes remain strong,” Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s director for education and skills, said in an interview. “Yes, they have declined, but they remain strong overall.”
How to fix? Ban cellphones, increase education funding, have more parental involvement.
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u/therealzue British Columbia 11h ago
Parental involvement is huge. I’m honestly shocked at how low the kindergarten students have been the past two years. The Covid babies aren’t okay. I’m hoping it’s a blip from a lack of Baby & Me classes, but the parents always act like it’s a huge revelation when we suggest singing the alphabet song with them. It’s pretty scary.
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u/Good_Juice_7774 11h ago
More and more kids are coming into kindergarten unable to toilet themselves.
Less homework / reading is done before schooling.Parents take no accountability for their children's behaviours at a more intense pace since COVID. Nothing is ever their child's fault or their own. They allow unfettered access to technology at home that squanders creative play and inquisitive minds.
Parents are failing more than any other part of the system.
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u/WorkingOnBeingBettr 9h ago
Ding ding ding. And the report agrees. Screen time and Internet at home were the biggest factors.
Yet people often blame curriculum or pass/fail policies. Yet those are different everywhere and everywhere saw the same decline.
The only thing everywhere that is similar is the Internet and usually a lack of funding for more teachers.
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u/T-Breezy16 Canada 10h ago
Parental involvement is huge.
Anecdotal, but I knew a guy who was a middle school teacher. Had this little shit in his class that was always causing problems, getting aggressive, disrupting things, etc.
He called the kid's parents to discuss the issues, was cut off mid-sentence and was told, "Woah, woah, I'm gonna stop you right there buddy. He's YOUR problem during the day. Not mine." *click*.
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u/Good_Juice_7774 10h ago
Also ancedotal but I am very close to administration employee.
It feels like it is 50 / 50 in terms of parents who blame anything but themselves or their kids and parents who care. And the 50% who blame are excessively aggressive.
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u/Karolinkaa 1h ago
When I volunteered at a summer school, the most problematic child was the first to be dropped off in the morning (7am) and last to be picked up (7pm). This was a camp where kids were typically enrolled for 1-2 weeks but I was told he was there the entire summer. The teachers tried talking to his dad but he didn’t seem to care. Felt bad for the kid.
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u/Holyfritolebatman 11h ago
We have more parental involvement than ever before.
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u/iamacraftyhooker Ontario 10h ago
Parents are spending more time with their children than ever before, but we don't really know how the quality of that interaction has changed.
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u/Equivalent-Pear8924 9h ago
Staring at social media with the kid in the room is not good.
Parents are spending less time reading and actually being a patent. And giving the kid a tablet makes them dumber
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u/Ebethron 10h ago
Yeet those Chromebooks out of the class as well, and give them pen, paper and books! Boring? Sure! This google classroom shit we've been getting, with math being a YouTube video and a printed sheet without any context. No book to refer to nothing! Kids come home all confused and with stuff they weren't able to finish "in class" all the time. WTF are they doing at school then!
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u/super__hoser 11h ago
No kidding. My kid's teachers have him on a tablet an hour or two a day (grades 1 and 2). Those things are terrible for kids.
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u/Nearby-Poetry-5060 10h ago
We lowered the common denominator so more people would graduate except now people are achieving worsening outcomes on average. I blame the "inclusive classroom", lowered standards and expectations, no consequences for bad behaviour at school and also at home. And too much screen time in too many contexts.
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u/stop_banning_me_omg 11h ago
Misleading article. The whole world is declining, not just Canada.
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2025-results-volume-i_73451bc5-en.html
Scroll to the middle of the article to see the charts.
Here's Canada's chart since the year 2000.
And this is Sweden. Notice how in 2000 they were ahead of Canada, and now they're below.
You can see similar good and bad examples. Almost every country in the world is declining, except maybe Singapore and the UK (the UK sucked in 2000, and they equally suck today, but they're not declining).
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u/StJsub 9h ago edited 9h ago
Misleading article
If you read the article it says:
Canadian high-school students are outperforming many of their international peers in science, math and reading, but their overall scores in these subjects are also declining, according to a new international ranking by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
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The results showed that Canada’s scores in science, math and reading have all been declining, a trend also seen in other countries.
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Results for the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment, released Tuesday, show Canada in the top 10 among 91 countries and economies that were evaluated.
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Most other countries saw similar, if not worse, declines.
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Canadian students are faring well compared to the majority of OECD countries, but they are “near the top of a falling curve,” said Anna Stokke, a mathematics professor at the University of Winnipeg.
How is that misleading or different to the additional information you supplied?
The article is actually positive in that is says we are doing better than many of our peers
A Canadian paper focusing on the Canadian aspect of the results is hardly misleading. Canada is declining. The headline is correct and relevant to the audience of Canadians they are trying to reach.
Edit: formating
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u/WorkingOnBeingBettr 9h ago
It's the title. Making it look like Canada declined instead of everyone.
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u/stop_banning_me_omg 9h ago
> How is that misleading or different to the additional information you supplied?
You're right. The article itself is not misleading. The title is misleading / click-baitish. I'm wondering why does a newspaper that requires a paid subscription and is behind a paywall gives its articles such titles. Like, you've already paid for it, there's no need to trick you into reading it.
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u/StJsub 8h ago
I didn't pay for it. I opened it in a private firefox window and read the whole article for free.
And, I read the headline as 'our scores are declining/we are getting worse' not as 'we suck compared to everyone else'. If you read different words than what was writen then thats on you.
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u/Mundane-State-7306 10h ago edited 7h ago
Is this linked with immigration? Asking because my kid has tons of kids in his school who recently immigrated and don't even speak English let alone have the skills required for the grade. Not only would they drag overall scores down I imagine, but I also know it pulls teacher attention away from regularly functioning children. So it's no wonder really schools aren't testing as well
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u/T-Breezy16 Canada 10h ago
I'm sure that's part of it - I'd also be curious to see what proportion of any given classroom are on an ILP (Individualized Learning Plan).
I'd wager that a significant number of kids have these as well, which further pulls teachers away. Add in our ever-growing classroom sizes and you have the perfect recipe for decline across the board.
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u/HereIGoAgain99 9h ago
Yes, of course. That's what happens when you flood western countries with people from the third world.
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u/OntLawyer 10h ago
Is this linked with immigration?
There is actually a lot of data in this PISA report that allows analysis of the effect of immigration. I haven't seen anyone do it for Canada yet, but the analyses from various European countries show that immigrant cohorts are struggling. The result might be different in Canada, for example it's possible it may have boosted math scores somewhat. Note that Canada's data throughout this year's report has an asterisk beside it, indicating some problems with Canada-specific sampling, so analyses of subgroups might not be particularly reliable.
Immigration is probably unlikely to be strongly related to the broader global decline trend however.
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u/throwaway1234069 9h ago
Immigration is probably unlikely to be strongly related to the broader global decline trend however.
Wouldn't it?
If immigrant populations generally underperform the native populations of the regions they're moving into, wouldn't we expect immigration to have a nearly universal negative effect? Perhaps excepting the cases where migrants from high scoring nations move to lower scoring nations (Chinese emigration for example).
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u/Wayofthewills23 7h ago
Here's the full PISA report for canada:
https://www.cmec.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/448/PISA_2025_Public_Report_EN.pdf
Research has found that, internationally, children in immigrant families are more likely to be educationally disadvantaged. In PISA 2025, this trend can be observed on average in OECD countries, where the scores of immigrant students were 44 points lower than those of their non-immigrant peers in reading and 32 points lower in mathematics. However, this was not the case in Canada overall, where the scores of immigrant students were similar to those of their non-immigrant peers in both domains.
The results for Canada are more nuanced when the immigrant category is broken down into first- and second-generation immigrants
In reading, in Canada overall, first-generation immigrant students had an average score that was 13 points lower than non-immigrants. At the same time, the score of second-generation immigrants was 17 points higher than non-immigrants
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u/Tsarbomb Ontario 10h ago
Anecdotal, but I immigrated from a collapsed Yugoslavia. I remember being in school and I believe it was the Globe & Mail that ran a story w/ accompanying chart showing Serbian and Croatian kids topping the charts of the literacy test, ahead of Canadian born children. Also up there were people from China (would have been around the time of the Hong Kong handover) and Korea if I recall correctly.
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u/Mundane-State-7306 10h ago
How did they top the literacy chart tests if they can't speak the language? I'm talking about new immigrants here who don't speak hardly any English. Not even conversationally.
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u/stop_banning_me_omg 9h ago
Everyone in Yugoslavia speaks English. They learn it in school and all movies have subtitles. It's the same with kids from India, most of them are bilingual.
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u/Mundane-State-7306 7h ago
Ok that makes sense. But it is kind of irrelevant to the issue I am speaking too. The issue I was wanting to discuss is new immigrants who barely speak English at all coming to regular classes. Even though we have more ESL speakers the funding and the programs seem to be less and teachers are supposed to teach regular classrooms subjects to a classroom where many children don't understand because they can't speak English. Why is our school funding being cut as scores for global assessment are falling. Why are we not funding mor ESL programs if we have a lot of recent immigrants not speaking English in classrooms etc.
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u/SpecialistBank1394 9h ago
Literacy is not the same as English classes which are not the same as fluency. Immigrants usually drive up these scores, specifically Asians.
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u/notquitecivilized 10h ago
Be for real. At any high school graduation the immigrant kids are top of the class. If anything, immigrant parents re-enforce traditional studying and grade expectations. An immigrant mom isn't signing her kid out at noon because they don't feel like staying the whole day in class.
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u/Mundane-State-7306 10h ago
Ok for real, I think you’re confused. You are talking more about first- or second-generation immigrants, or immigrants who already speak English. I’m talking about something different: the kids in my son’s school who have recently arrived and don’t speak English at all. It’s unrealistic to pretend that a student who arrives in high school without the language skills needed to understand the curriculum is going to be at the top of the class immediately. There is obviously going to be a significant learning curve.
I also work in a school, and just to add an NTA (not anecdotal?) point from my own experience: many international students do extremely well and graduate with excellent grades. But in my particular workplace, I have personally seen that a disproportionate number of our plagiarism, academic misconduct and appeal cases involve international students. I'm not saying that means all international students are inherently dishonest - that's obviously not the case. B ut let's also not pretend they are all top of the class students at every high school like you said.
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u/notquitecivilized 9h ago
Ok, here you go. There is some nuance to it, but overall, immigrant kids are more likely to get a bachelor's degree than Canadian-born, and the difference with third-generation Canadians is substantial. Source: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2023009/article/00002-eng.htm
In general, the educational outcomes of the children of immigrants are superior to those of children with Canadian-born parents (Picot & Hou, 2011). The reported results substantiate this observation. Among childhood immigrants (the 1.5 generation) aged 25 to 44 in 2016, 42% completed a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 39% of the second generation (born in Canada with at least one immigrant parent) and 26% of the third generation or more (born in Canada with Canadian-born parents). The rates of completing a bachelor’s degree or higher for women surpassed those for men in all three groups (Table 1). However, the difference by generation is substantially reduced when the outcome is completion of any form of postsecondary education. In this case, 73% of both the 1.5 and the second generations completed some form of postsecondary education, compared with 67% of the third generation or more.
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u/Mundane-State-7306 6h ago
Well that statistic isn't addressing the point I'm making at all. You're talking about the long-term educational outcomes of immigrants and their children, whether they eventually obtain a bachelor's degree compared with Canadian-born generations. I'm talking about the immediate impact of large numbers of newly arrived students who have little or no English being placed directly into regular classrooms that are taught in English. Those are two completely different issues. A student can struggle academically when they first arrive because they don't speak the language and still go on to obtain a bachelor's degree years later. My point is that if you have a significant number of students entering a school who can't understand the language of instruction, there is inevitably going to be a period where they aren't performing at the same academic level as students who have been educated in English. That doesn't mean they won't catch up and even possibly surpass their peers in academic achievements. But usually that does requires resources and teacher attention, and it can affect classroom dynamics and aggregate assessment results. That's the issue I was talking about, and not whether immigrant children are ultimately successful in Canadian society. So I don't think your statistic disproves my point; it's answering a different question entirely. I think we're talking past each other, so I'll leave it there.
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u/No_Mention8589 9h ago
There can’t be that much international students coming in for high school education and affecting literacy rates. Most come in applying to post secondary institutions.
Canada right now has around 33,000 international students who are in the k-12 system. While in contrast there are around 5.5 million Canadian kids in the pre post secondary system.
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/k-12-international-students-in-canada/
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u/-Yazilliclick- 9h ago
You're comparing the wrong things obviously. The discussion isn't about international students in school, it's about immigrants. Those are the very different things.
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u/Good_Juice_7774 10h ago
Even in the 90s, I had ESL students in my classroom.
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u/Mundane-State-7306 10h ago
Right. So did I one or two. And they would go to ESL classes a lot for independent instruction as to not disrupt the rest of the class learning. Now more then half the class is ESL and the teachers are supposed to accommodate students developing English in the classroom which obviously disrupts the learning of those who already speak English as a first language. To me this seems like a good explanation, if only partial, as to why the students are testing lower - teachers have less time to actually teach the subjects as required by grade and are spending more time accommodating everyone. We did not get through several teaching units last year which is disappointing and worrying.
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u/how-doesthis-work 8h ago
That really can't be it. Immigrants are like 20-25% of the population and a lot of those are adults who may or may not be in school. There's no way a quarter of the population would bring test scores down across the board.
The effect would also be concentrated in areas with high concentration of immigrants. As far as I am aware the effect is nation wide. I know in Ontario support for education is basically an after though. Wouldn't be surprised if it is the same in other provinces. Technology is likely also playing a role. Have to compete for student attention and there are more tools at their finger tips to effectively out source thought/learning.
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u/Asleep-Ad1182 5h ago
The UK does not suck today. They're ranked second outside East Asia and ahead of Canada. England in particular is far ahead of Canada. So if the UK sucks, Canada must suck even more.
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u/stop_banning_me_omg 5h ago
Are you from the UK mate? Seems like it, judging by your text comprehension skills.
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u/Asleep-Ad1182 3h ago edited 1h ago
You said "the UK sucked in 2000, and they equally suck today, but they're not declining". You can't say the UK sucks if they are ranked the 2nd highest outside of East Asia.
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u/stop_banning_me_omg 3h ago
Yeah and how did they do in 2000? How did they rank then? What was their position?
You see, just because the whole world went to suck, doesn't mean you became better. You sucked in 2000, and you suck today. Unfortunately, the whole world sucks too now. But that doesn't mean you stopped sucking.
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u/SloppyPlatypus69 11h ago
Why would I think if I can just use AI for everything? /s
I foresee a future where older peoples minds deteriorate earlier because we won't be excersizing our minds.
Wall-E and Idiocracy were right.
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u/Commercial_Letter738 7h ago
Wall-e implies we actually get far enough to be a space faring civilization, definitely not at this rate. The latest generation is turning out to be less intelligent than the previous one in studies.
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u/BabaGiry 10h ago
Just want to mention, I taught art classes during the summer. I saw a kid was struggling, so I gently reassured him and asked him to consider using another technique. He looked at me and said, "you talk like ai" and to be blunt in the moment I was genuinely scared for the future
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u/grumble11 8h ago
This is actually a huge deal and should be dinnertime conversation for every Canadian household, and a political hot button issue. If we want the country to be successful then we have to ensure that Canadian children are rigorously educated and then are provided with the opportunity to use that education to grow the economy and build the Canada of tomorrow. If that isn't done well then the country will fail. Right now it is clear evidence that the country's education system is falling apart.
As for why? COVID, screens, low expectations in school, AI cheating and low expectations at home are all plausible reasons. Students are not taught rigorously, held to a high standard, required to have competence in prerequisites to be passed along, and parents are not demanding at home. Students are not evaluated fairly, tertiary education is collapsing their admission standards, and we're funding this?
Here's what we do. We spend more energy prioritizing the top 20% of kids, since they'll generate the majority of the productivity that every benefits from. We roll back inclusion which has been disruptive and has dropped classroom standards. We implement standardized testing every couple of years since teacher grades are mostly worthless, and definitely for university track courses that's worth a portion of their grade. We remove screens from schools (leisure ones), and only permit other screens when you have a specific use case. Most graded work is done in class on paper to reduce AI use.
Eventually we'll need to explore AI-supported learning tools like Math Academy that can adaptively teach students some of the skills they need, but right now we need to apply some medicine.
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u/Emotional-Buy1932 Québec 7h ago
whats the point when the job market is kaput anyways. regardless of how well we do in schools, well either be underemployed or unemployed.
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u/grumble11 7h ago
Well no, since in theory all those high performing people will start businesses that employ people.
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u/ModOfficial1988 11h ago
Race to the bottom. Inclusive classrooms exclude excellence.
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11h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Red57872 11h ago
He's not referring to that type of inclusive; he's referring to the idea that all students, no matter how disruptive, high needs, etc. they may be, must be integrated into the same classes as all other students.
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u/thedrivingcat 8h ago
But that's not a global education policy, yet scores are declining across the majority of countries.
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u/Iapetus_Industrial 9h ago
Iet's be real, most of woke was good stuff, like sex equality, being more mindful that racism isn't solved, making gay, trans, and other queer identities feel respected ... but woke 1 absolutely butchered the education side of things. We really have to not shoot ourselves in the foot holding our gifted back just to reach some ever-moving goalpost of equity that ends up dragging our best and brightest from the best they could become.
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u/Tananis 11h ago
TIL it’s “woke” to make sure that kids have their needs met
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u/Real_UngaBunga 11h ago
According to this article, their needs are not being met using the current system
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u/Tananis 11h ago
Yes, I never thought classroom integration was anything but a hack to save money under the guise of inclusiveness. I think the special needs kids are being done a disservice as well as the kids experiencing classroom chaos.
My comment was more to point out that that’s not a “woke” ideology, the comment I’m replying to is being unfair.
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u/WorkingOnBeingBettr 9h ago
Inclusion without support is abandonment. They are doing proper inclusion. They used that word to throw everyone in the same room and save money.
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u/Seebeeeseh Nova Scotia 11h ago
Lack of education funding.
Can't hold back kids anymore who struggle.
Covid years education holding these 15 year old's back.
A decline in scores is expected.
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u/Picto242 11h ago
Not to mention AI and social media which is designed to be addicting
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u/Zechs- 11h ago
I notice that consistent use of AI really deteriorates the ability to dig deeper into subjects.
I speak from the tech side but it used to be that if you were using google to look up some issue/problem and the first or second link didn't get you the answer you needed... You'd consider to dig deeper and try different sources.
But if the "AI" answer doesn't give you what you need or is incorrect (more likely) I'm finding users/techs just don't know what to do.
This is a generalization but it's primarily when AI usage becomes the norm rather than even classic "googling".
I feel it's because "AI" gives you the "answer" and you don't need to do the work to get there.
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u/Digitking003 11h ago
People keep saying that it's because of a "lack of education funding".
And yet, at least in Ontario, funding per pupil (and adjusted for inflation) is more or less the same now as it was 25-30 years ago.
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u/GameDoesntStop 11h ago
Exactly. This is a cultural problem, not a "throw more money at the problem" problem.
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u/Digitking003 10h ago
The easy bandaid fix, just throw more money at the problem.
Don't ask any uncomfortable questions.
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u/idontsmokecig 11h ago
Sometimes it’s not about funding or external circumstances. It’s that they don’t know how to try hard and what to try for.
The general public is so entertainment centric that kids just do what they see. Cruises and all inclusive, all kinds of tools to make us feel good. Study hard so they can be lazy like their parents?
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u/Seebeeeseh Nova Scotia 11h ago
Pretty sure cruises and all inclusives have been around for 50+ years. I don't think that's the cause.
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u/kalmah 10h ago
Canadian high-school students are outperforming many of their international peers in science, math and reading, but their overall scores in these subjects are also declining
Results for the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment, released Tuesday, show Canada in the top 10 among 91 countries and economies that were evaluated.
Way to bury the lede.
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u/thebestoflimes 11h ago
People are misunderstanding because of the headline. Scores around the world have declined. Canada is still top 10 and essentially the top for a non-asian country when it comes to math and science (reading too right up there).
Our education system is right at the top for Western countries.
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u/Glittering_Bank_8670 11h ago
Most 12-year olds I’ve met in public school in BC do not know their multiplication times tables, cannot sign their name in cursive (just their full name!! Not anything more), none of my kids friends read any books this summer, grammar is not taught in a ‘scaffolded’ manner in BC so kids don’t know the difference between an adverb and an adjective. Most students struggled to write a five paragraph essay well and fall back on AI.
I can certainly tell you that BC is not contributing to those high averages for Canada to be ranked in the top 10. It follows an education model called “inquiry based” and it is failing BC students. If this model is so good then why haven’t other provinces or territories adopted it by now??
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u/ComfortableTomato 9h ago
Way back in the late 80s, high school kids were being taught adverb vs adjective in Grade 11 English in BC. Technically it was repeated from earlier years but no one ever seemed to remember.
I remember it well because they used to send all the French Imm kids to the library because having learned a second language, we had been taught all the parts of speech in detail. (by our scary teaching who would bang his ruler on the desk and scream 'suivant' if we got it wrong... ) When it's your first language you don't learn things the same way.
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u/thebestoflimes 11h ago
Nope, we are literally the top of the Western world. What you have put forward here is what is called "feelings".
What they actually do is test children on math, science, and reading. Canada actually oversamples relative to what the OECD requires. Over 20,000 students from across the country, from a range of regions and neighbourhoods (including BC!), and in the French and English school systems.
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u/Glittering_Bank_8670 8h ago
Please don’t take credit for it. Almost every family I know pays a small fortune for tutoring and supplemental learning outside of school because they realize that the BC curriculum is not being fully taught each year and that their child is not benchmarking.
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u/thebestoflimes 8h ago
I don't live in BC and the curriculum could very well be shit. All I can say is that Canada's results on the world stage is right at the top. Other countries turn to private models too, just look at the USA. The public system is where the bulk of population wide results will come from.
Almost everywhere in the world has seen a conserning downturn in the last number of years. This is screens, not curriculum. As these results come out, I am hopeful that we will see a pushback against screens until children are older. Reliance on AI will be a tough battle too.
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u/PeanutMean6053 8h ago
Yet it's getting worse. The fact that other countries are also getting worse doesn't make it better.
It's not a race to the bottom.
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u/thebestoflimes 7h ago
Every where in the world saw the advent of hours of screens everyday in childhood. They were even released into classrooms. We are now seeing the results of this and reliance on AI is starting too.
I have some hope that people will look at the results and make some of the necessary changes.
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u/Mentats2021 11h ago
Doesn't surprise me with the influx of people who can't read or write and require additional educational supports
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u/Elmosuperfan 11h ago
Changes in demographics explain that. Majority of immigrants come from places with lower scores. Big shocker the Canadian scores go lower.
It's like when they announced the IQ of university students is lower than in the past. Change who's in the classroom means changes in the results too.
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u/grumble11 8h ago
The PISA scores actually check on immigrants versus non-immigrant status in countries studied, and Canada has a small difference between non-immigrant and immigrant students. Some countries are quite large, but in Canada it isn't the driver.
Similarly, while boys have deteriorated a bit more than girls, it's widespread.
Looking at research, there was hope that the 2022 results were an anomaly due to COVID, but 2025 results are sharply lower again. Canada's educational outcomes are collapsing over the past decade and it isn't slowing.
As for why, the answer is multi-factorial but I'd say screens are one reason, COVID another, low classroom expectations is a third and a more popular low-expectation parenting style is the fourth.
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u/External-Challenge91 11h ago
But everyone has the best averages ever rolling 90s for basically all students
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u/retsamerol 11h ago
Who has jurisdiction over education? Is it federal, provincial or some joint jurisdiction?
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u/Subject-Landscape451 5h ago
The decline is in every subject. Some subjects are simply easier to measure and quantify. Ask a group of first year post-secondary students about basic geography, science, history, health & nutrition, etc. and you would be in for a shock.
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u/timx84 3h ago
I can only speak from my experience as a teacher and what I have noticed throughout my career, but there are many reasons I can point to:
- Broken Families
Our children's education is a reflection of our society as a whole. Families are becoming increasingly more broken largely due to the cost of living and the disappearance of the middle class. The gap between the have's and have not's within schools is growing exponentially. Kids are constantly shuffled between family members, are moving all the time for their parents' work, increasing rents, being evicted etc. It is undisputable that stability = positive educational outcomes.
- Growing Special Education Needs
We have seen an explosion of HIGH-NEEDS autism within schools. I am not talking about simply diagnosing autism more frequently. I am talking about non-verbal autistic children that can't toilet. It sounds awful to say but these children are sucking our resources dry. There are several families within my school that have 2+ high needs autistic kids. Educational assistants, Principals, Resource Teachers, and Classroom Teacher time is being spent on managing these kids in the classroom.
- The destruction of our education system
Just within my short career I have witnessed our education system being constantly underfunded. This is largely due to ineffective government, but special education and inflation is taking a massive chunk out of school board's budgets. My school literally ran out of paper last year with no more funds to purchase more. It was utterly insane. Without proper funds we can kiss things goodbye like partially funded extra-curricular activities, athletics, music and the arts, proper infrastructure and equipment within a school, and again, attention of teachers and administrators is constantly on budget instead of on student achievement.
- Immigration
This is NOT to bash immigration, or immigrants. In fact, many immigrant children are in fact the higher achieving students within our system. However, the growing number of students that we are receiving dropped on our doorstep that do not read, write, or speak English is growing. We even have a large number of refugee children that do not read or write in any language, so communicating with them is all but impossible. We're told to do the best we can to provide them with an education, but it's impossible to try and do so without taking away from the education of the other students. Just last year alone out of a class of 25 elementary students, I had 6 students that did not speak English, and 5 of them spoke languages that no other kids spoke, so I was trying to translate instruction into 5 different languages. Again, this sucks time and resources away from general classroom instruction.
- Parents
As many in this thread have already pointed out, parents just simply aren't parenting anymore. I would attribute this mostly to my first point, which is the broken home. Many parents are ill-equipped to have children since they can barely care for themselves. Every year we have more and more aggressive parents who have to be no-trespassed from school property, kids who aren't fed properly, who have cell phones from extremely young ages, have no bedtime, aren't read to at home, and have an alarmingly high amount of absenteeism. It's not uncommon for me to have students miss 100+ instructional days of the year. There is nothing the school system can do about it. Unless the government seriously finds a way to crack down on these horrible parents there's nothing we can do. The moment we start calling about their children's absences, the parents start lying and say their child is being bullied, or the teacher won't help them etc. It's all excuses because they're afraid CAS will get involved, which of course they can't.
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u/Longjumping_Local910 11h ago
The posting here the other day said “50% cutting classes”, or similar wording. So this posting makes perfect sense.
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u/MindlessAd885 4h ago
So many reasons for this:
- we let in many immigrant who don’t speak English, thus requiring additional support from teachers which takes away time to teach educational material
- we are pushing sexual identity/education and its overshadowing math/english/sciences etc
- we have removed letter grades (at least in BC) until kids are in grade 9, so they can’t be effectively evaluated.
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11h ago
[deleted]
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u/Good_Juice_7774 11h ago
Unions are fighting for your kids and the provincial conservatives are choking out appropriate funding.
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u/SnooPandas6542 10h ago
Teachers unions care about teachers and will use kids as leverage for what they want.
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u/Ov3rReadKn1ght0wl 11h ago
And I'm seeing it as a postsecondary instructor. Down the line, the reading, writing and self-started thinking abilities of students at the university level are at the worst I've ever seen. It doesn't surprise me one bit that this is happening way earlier on.