Monday, April 14, 2025

The Briefing with Albert Mohler

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

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4.8 • 7.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

Part I (00:13 - 12:08)
You Can’t Just Blame the Pandemic: America’s School Crisis Started Long Ago, and It’s Predictably Getting Worse

Part II (12:08 - 16:28)
Failing Schools: New Study Shows the Pandemic Rocked States Under Democrat Influence Harder Than Republican States

The pandemic hit pupils hardest in America’s Democrat-leaning states by The Economist

Part III (16:28 - 18:43)
To Help Students or Please Teachers Unions? Politicians Often Appear to Cater to Teaching Establishment Rather Than Good of Students

Josh Shapiro Keeps Betraying Poor Pennsylvania Children by The Wall Street Journal (Rachel Langan)

Part IV (18:43 - 26:14)
‘Til Mindfulness Do You Part? The New Age Wellness Industry is Targeting Marriage

Starting a New Life Together, With Wellness Top of Mind by The New York Times (Sarah Lyon)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Monday, April 14, 2025.
0:07.7	I'm Albert Motler, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.
0:13.6	Well, it's Monday, and so for millions, that means back to work and back to school,
0:17.6	and at school I want us to think about on this Monday.
0:20.5	And that is because as
0:21.9	information continues to come in post-COVID, what we're looking at is a further collapse in the
0:28.2	achievement scores and test scores of America's elementary and particularly middle school and
0:33.3	high school students. The information is just not good, And that's an understatement, if anything.
0:39.9	And remember the fact that we already had schools in trouble long before COVID. And then along came
0:44.8	COVID. And so there was about a two-year interregnum, no doubt about that. But on the other side of
0:49.6	COVID, in some cases, the numbers just aren't getting better and in other cases are getting worse.
0:55.4	Now, there is a pattern that persists through all of this, and that is that high achieving
0:58.8	students continue to be high achievers. It is also true that when you look at the other end of
1:05.7	the spectrum in terms of those who are showing low achievement, it is also a rather constant presence. But what's
1:12.7	different is the fact that over time, the two numbers are diverging even further. And so we're
1:19.2	also looking at the fact that there are a lot of people, a lot of children, a lot of students in
1:23.0	the middle who are also demonstrating that the setback from COVID, it's not a sufficient explanation for the
1:29.4	lack of performance in terms of standardized testing. So, for example, the New York Times recently
1:34.7	ran a headline, the pandemic is not the only reason U.S. students are losing ground. So listen to this.
1:41.4	Quote, there once was a time when America's lowest performing students were improving just as much as the country's top students. Despite their low scores, these students at the bottom made slow but steady gains on national tests for much of the 2000s. It was one sign that the U.S. education system was working, perhaps not spectacularly, but at least enough to help struggling students keep pace with
2:01.8	the gains of the most privileged and successful." End quote. But now we are told, and this sentence
2:07.3	is really telling, quote, today the country's lowest scoring students are in a free fall, end quote.
	...

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