Comment by NickC25

fellow Fairfield County native here. Likely around the same age as you. I went to a great public school (I was a terrible student, crippling ADHD but that's another story for another day) in the southern half of the county. I'll let you guess which one. Also spent a few years in another of the top districts (west of the capital, again, easy to guess ;P) before making the move south.

It's NOT the schools. They are well funded and as you say, pretty helpless because teachers, even younger ones, just aren't able to deal with kids whose parents shoved a smartphone into their hands at age 3.

It's NOT the parents - in order to keep up with the jonses in those towns, you have to work like a dog and most likely, both parents are in high stress demanding environments in order to make enough to live there. I was fortunate that my dad did quite well for our family, but there's no way I could raise a kid in that environment.

It's the fucking devices, and the drive to put tech everywhere in the classroom. When I was a kid we had a single Mac in the classroom (besides the teacher's computer), mainly to dick around with Oregon Trail, Math Blaster, or some typing app. We wanted to play games? We went outside and played sports, or stayed inside and played games like scrabble or chess.

In high school we had to do genuine research 15-20+ page papers as early as Sophomore year. There was zero Wikipedia, much less ChatGPT or Claude.

Of course, a book, which requires attention, effort, and has no distractions, is not going to capture the attention and imagination of someone who has had the world and all of its distractions at their fingertips since they gained consciousness, and weren't made to socialize without devices.

And no, we cannot allow people to pass to the next grade without mastering the skills required of their current grade. This needs to be completely iron clad and not up for debate. I was nearly held back 3-4 times. I am an idiot. I was miles ahead of where elementary school and middle school kids are today. I don't care if a wealthy Ivy grad and his management consultant wife donate a bunch of money to make sure their kid can pass - if their kid can't read or write, their kid can't pass.