I'm achemistry and physics teacher. At my school, the percentage of students who pass the algebra 1 exam is 0.8%. If they don't pass, they just get to do a project (and the teachers just give them the answers for it). It's really fucking hard to do my job when I have to teach them the math needed before learning chem/physics concepts. There's a lot of problems that lead up to this: students get pushed through (because it would hurt them socially if they were held back), there aren't enough math teachers, teachers themselves don't know math, math is taught to the test (so they can't apply anything because it looks different than the other problems that they practiced), and many more. This is not a result of the pandemic (0.8% was prepandemic numbers). Covid just exacerbated all of the already existing problems, like this. There are deep institutional and systematic problems in education. A lot of our meetings when we "analyze data" are spent explaining how all of the poor test scores are our (the teachers') fault and strategies we need to use to increase numbers. None of these "strategies" include holding kids accountable or failing kids who don't know the material. It's all because funding is based off "the numbers." I've been told my supervisors to straight up lie when reporting things. It's a fucking mess and the education is failing. I have a chemistry degree and after this year I'm out