{"id":395264,"date":"2025-08-15T11:34:01","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T09:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=395264"},"modified":"2025-08-15T11:34:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T09:34:03","slug":"wrong-los-angeles-times-declining-academic-rigor-is-responsible-for-falling-test-scores-not-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=395264","title":{"rendered":"Wrong, Los Angeles Times, Declining Academic Rigor Is Responsible for Falling Test Scores, Not Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Students<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Los Angeles Times<\/em> (LAT) recently published an article asserting that \u201crising heat is causing students to underperform across the globe.\u201d This is false. This is the kind of tidy, single\u2011cause climate narrative that papers love for two reasons. First, it absolves one of their favorite liberal institutions, the public school system, of responsibility for poor student performance. Second, it points to climate change as a convenient scapegoat for public schools\u2019 failure, no matter how ridiculous that connection sounds to any reasonable person. The LAT\u2019s claims don\u2019t square with history, which includes decades of education policy that have steadily watered down standards. It also ignores an easy solution to improve student comfort, air conditioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author of the LAT article, \u201cRising heat is causing students to underperform across the globe<\/a>,\u201d claims, \u201c[e]ven on days when temperatures were between 80 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the data show that students can experience heat stress, followed by a drop in cognitive performance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a sweeping generalization ignoring the fact that correlation is not proof of causation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basic historical perspective matters. <\/strong>The author of the LAT article ignored the fact that the 1930s were far hotter than at present\u2014yet no nationwide academic collapse followed. See the figure below from the EPA:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Line
Figure. Annual values of the U.S. Heat Wave Index, from 1895 to 2020 for the contiguous 48 states. The index defines a heat wave as a period lasting at least four days with an average temperature that would only be expected to occur once every 10 years, based on the historical record. Source: Environmental Protection Agency, \u201cClimate Change Indicators: Heat Waves,\u201d https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/climate-indicators\/climate-change-indicators-heat-waves<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As seen in the figure, the United States endured extraordinary heat waves in the 1930s, with many all\u2011time state heat records set during that decade still standing. Yet there\u2019s no evidence of a contemporaneous, heat\u2011driven academic nosedive following those years. In fact, during the 1930\u2019s, when there was no air conditioning at all, the number of people unable to read or write in any language, the illiteracy rate, was 4.3 percent<\/a> in the United States. By comparison, today\u2019s modern public school system<\/a> has resulted in approximately 21 percent of the adult population being functionally illiterate, meaning they struggle to perform basic reading tasks, lacking the basic reading skills to navigate everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If heat alone were an academic wrecking ball, the 1930s should have left a stark, indelible crater in student outcomes. They didn\u2019t. For context, see Climate at a Glance: U.S. Heat Waves<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, it\u2019s not clear that hot temperatures necessarily result in declining academic performance. Each year perennially hot India and Southeast Asian countries produce thousands of the world\u2019s top scientists, engineers, statisticians, computer scientists, and mathematicians. Heat evidently hasn\u2019t stunted those nations\u2019 children and teens\u2019 abilities to learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if heat matters at the margins, air conditioning (AC) neutralizes most of it\u2014and most schools in the United States have (or are adding) AC systems. According to this report<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1950s, the introduction of air conditioning into schools across the United States played a crucial role in transforming the educational landscape. This innovation not only made year-round learning possible but also enhanced student well-being, academic performance, and the overall quality of education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hot stuffy rooms may impact learning, but that\u2019s a building\u2011management problem, not \u201ca climate crisis.\u201d The strongest empirical study on \u201cheat and learning<\/a>\u201d found that air conditioning largely erases and impact heat might have on test scores. The authors explicitly conclude<\/a> that learning losses from hotter school days are mitigated by classroom AC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In practice, American districts have been steadily installing or upgrading AC. Examples range from Los Angeles Unified School District\u2019s (LAUSD) policy of AC in classrooms to continuing district\u2011level build\u2011outs: The website LAist reports<\/a> LAUSD\u2019s AC policy and challenges keeping aging units running. School districts in historically cooler locations, like in Denver<\/a>, are also rapidly installing air conditioning in those campuses currently lacking it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2020 GAO report<\/a> found that 41% of districts needed HVAC updates\u2014telling us many systems exist but are aging and need replacement, not that AC is absent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the LAT were serious about student performance related to temperatures a better headline for its article would have been, \u201cIncrease Air Conditioning in Schools to Boost Learning.\u201d Instead, we get climate alarm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real story of falling performance is three decades or more of \u201cdumbing down\u201d education. The uncomfortable truth is that U.S. schools have been lowering expectations, and inflating grades for years. Simultaneously, the education establishment has been radicalized, substituting controversial social programs and subjects while deemphasizing core disciplines, or worse, suggesting that math and science must be viewed through the lens of race or sex. Physical writing is now almost unknown and reading for pleasure, and the use of imagination it requires, has collapsed\u2014especially among teens\u2014replaced by the instant feed of video games and online media, which require no substantive imaginative thought. These trends pre\u2011date any recent heat uptick and track far better with long\u2011run test stagnation and decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some points on those issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) Grade inflation is real\u2014and long\u2011running<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ACT\u2019s multi\u2011state analyses document decades<\/strong> of grade inflation in high schools, not explained away by student or school characteristics. Their review: [Grade Inflation Continues to Grow in the Past Decade<\/em><\/a>]<\/em> shows sustained growth in GPAs unaccompanied by commensurate gains in external scoring measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2) Standards and accountability have been eased\u2014including eliminated exit exams<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

California suspended and then eliminated its high school exit exam via SB\u2011172<\/a>, severing the link between a diploma and minimum academic mastery. That\u2019s not climate; that\u2019s policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside this sits decades\u2011long debate over social promotion<\/strong><\/a> (passing students to the next grade absent mastery), documented in research and practitioner statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3) Deep reading is disappearing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal data show a decades\u2011long collapse in reading for pleasure<\/strong>, tightly associated with lower comprehension and vocabulary growth. The National Endowment for the Arts summarizes NAEP\u2019s long\u2011term trend survey findings<\/a>: from 2012\u20132023, the share of 13\u2011year\u2011olds reading \u201calmost every day\u201d fell sharply; their average reading score also declined<\/a> over that period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When students don\u2019t read deeply, they don\u2019t build the background knowledge and vocabulary that drive success in complex texts\u2014no matter the thermostat setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4) What the tests actually show over 30 years<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NAEP Long\u2011Term Trend<\/a> and main NAEP series\u2014our best consistent yardsticks\u2014report that U.S. reading and math scores have stagnated or drifted down<\/strong> in the 2010s\u20132020s after earlier gains in the 1990s\/2000s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of these educational assessments attribute long\u2011run U.S. underperformance to rising classroom temperatures.<\/em> They point to curriculum, instruction, standards, engagement, and literacy habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps, not coincidentally, the decline in test scores has also coincided with the introduction and sometimes forced integration of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Critical Race Theory, into schools. Often displacing historically core courses in history, civics, and other disciplines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LAT took a complex, decades\u2011in\u2011the\u2011making education problem and tried to pin it on the weather mislabeled as climate change. That\u2019s not journalism, rather it is narrative promotion. The record shows that in 1930s were hotter were hotter than today, and many countries around the world are hotter than the United States, and have been throughout history, yet high quality learning, with higher literacy rates, existed in those times and nations. The evidence also shows that to the extent that temperature does hamper learning, AC largely neutralizes heat\u2011classroom effects. Also, thirty years of softening standards, grade inflation, social promotion, and the decline of real reading line up far better with the test score arc. So, spare us the climate catechism\u2014instead, try write a headline and a story with intellectual honesty for a change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Times (LAT) recently published an article asserting that \u201crising heat is causing students to underperform across the globe.\u201d This is false. This is the kind of tidy, single\u2011cause climate narrative that papers love for two reasons. First, it absolves one of their favorite liberal institutions, the public school system, of responsibility for poor student performance. Second, it points to climate change as a convenient scapegoat for public schools\u2019 failure, no matter how ridiculous that connection sounds to any reasonable person. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":395271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691833842,691818056,691819499,691837298,691837299,691837300],"class_list":{"0":"post-395264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-1930s","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-heat-waves","11":"tag-los-angeles-times-lat","12":"tag-rising-heat","13":"tag-students","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/OIG.ZVWT7Z87ga1SE.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1EPe","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":424477,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=424477","url_meta":{"origin":395264,"position":0},"title":"Sorry, Los Angeles Times, Coastal Highway 1 Has Always Suffered from Weather, Not Climate","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"03\/02\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The Los Angeles Times (LAT) posted an article, \u201cCalifornia\u2019s iconic Highway 1 is fighting a losing battle against climate change. 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