E and I had a girls’ day out last weekend, grabbing our favorite lunch and hitting up all of our favorite stores. Until we got to the bookstore.

E looked at me and said, “I really don’t need to go in here, I have too many books I haven’t read yet.”

I thought about the pile of books next to my bed that I’d just dusted off and had to agree with her. This was the first time in my life I ever considered not going into a bookstore.

A few days later, a headline in the Atlantic caught my eye. “America is Sliding Toward Illiteracy.” I immediately felt guilty, and vowed to crack open those dusty books immediately, and to make sure that E got back on track with hers as well.

The article, while partially an opinion piece, did its homework, citing statistics about how from the turn of the century until about 2013, American students were steadily improving in math and reading tests.

The author points out that this is pre-COVID, and while concurrent with the pervasiveness of smartphones, that there may be other factors at play, chief among them the “lowering of expectations.”

While the author goes on to explore many different facets of education, from spending to national testing and standards to income brackets, I got really stuck on the “lowering of expectations” point.

The author references things like work being accepted after deadlines, being able to retake tests to get better grades, and redoing homework until it’s correct as contributing to “lowering of expectations.”

I gather that these lowered expectations were the educational equivalent of participation trophies. Everyone gets a good grade just for showing up. However, these grades don’t translate into actual learned skills that can then be evaluated with standardized testing.

The article also goes on to examine the relative success of the “No Child Left Behind” act, compared to the decline that coincided with the rollback of those requirements. But it also pointed out the draconian punishments doled out for those who couldn’t meet the standards, which frequently made it even harder for schools to catch up.

The lowered expectations wouldn’t stop rattling around in my brain, though. Coming on the heels of last week’s coaching debacles and running commentary on the state of kids these days, parents these days, and coaches these days. I feel like lowered expectations are becoming standard in every aspect of our lives.

Has the ultimate participation trophy become a high school, or worse, a college diploma? Having gotten almost two-thirds of the way through high school with my kids, I don’t feel that way about their education. Sure, I’ve seen teachers allow them to redo homework assignments, or correct mistakes on tests, but doesn’t that help them actually learn the material?

I worry more about a low grade that goes unexamined, assignments that remain incomplete, material that will forever remain unknown.

Also, who is determining what the minimum requirements are? Some of the standardized testing that my kids have taken stops at eighth grade if proficiency is demonstrated. So, why bother with another four years of learning more about a subject if they are deemed proficient at that point?

Newspapers are usually written at somewhere between a sixth and 10th grade reading level. If public school is expected to be attended for 12 years, why isn’t that grade the standard for publications?

As always, most of this starts in the home. One of the most valuable parenting lessons I picked up along the way was when I entered into a conversation about rewarding good grades.

A wise friend said there was no reward for them in her house; they were the expectation. Perfection is not the expectation, but working to the best of their abilities is.

It takes a certain amount of work on my part, routinely checking on their grades, reviewing their assignments, helping them plan their schedules around other commitments, and the expectation isn’t that they do this alone. They can expect that I will be there to help them in any way that I can.

Raising the expectations in our house has definitely helped my kids, both with their reading levels, and in life. “Great Expectations.” It was a good book, and they are an even better road map for our kids to follow.

Liz Pinkey’s column appears on Saturdays in the Times News