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In a memorable April 1995 video, Apple founder Steve Jobs declared, “The unions are the worst thing that ever happened to education because it’s not a meritocracy. It turns into a bureaucracy, which is exactly what has happened. The teachers can’t teach, and administrators run the place, and nobody can be fired. It’s terrible….”
Then in January 2006, John Stossel’s eye-opening documentary, Stupid in America, was aired. The investigative ABC show was billed as “a nasty title for a program about public education, but some nasty things are going on in America’s public schools, and it’s about time we face up to it…The longer kids stay in American schools, the worse they do in international competition. They do worse than kids from poorer countries that spend much less money on education, ranking behind not only Belgium but also Poland, the Czech Republic, and South Korea…This should come as no surprise if you remember that public education in the United States is a government monopoly. Don’t like your public school? Tough. The school is terrible? Tough. Your taxes fund that school regardless of whether it’s good or bad. That’s why government monopolies routinely fail their customers. Union-dominated monopolies are even worse.”
Sadly, since Jobs’ comments and Stossel’s documentary, public school performance has not improved. The latest example of our descent is shown by the scores on the most recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), an assessment administered to 650,000 4th and 8th graders in 64 countries.
The 2023 test, the results of which were released on December 4, revealed that average U.S. math scores declined sharply between 2019 and 2023, falling 18 points for 4th graders and 27 points for 8th graders. Internationally, this puts the U.S., a purported world leader, at 22nd of 63 education systems for 4th-grade math and 20th of 45 education systems for 8th-grade math.
Additionally, average U.S. math scores for both 4th and 8th graders reverted to performance levels of 1995, the first year the TIMSS assessment was administered, meaning any progress made since Steve Jobs’ damning comments has been erased.
Peggy Carr, National Center for Education Statistics Commissioner, summed up the dreary results, asserting that the phenomenon is particularly troubling because the U.S. is an outlier compared to other countries. She added that among 29 education systems that participated in both the 2011 and 2019 iterations of TIMSS, the U.S. was the only one that saw widening score gaps between top and bottom-scoring students in both subjects and both grade levels.
The TIMMS results are hardly unique. The 2022 NAEP, or “Nation’s Report Card,” showed that nationwide, 29% of the nation’s 8th graders are proficient in reading, while just 26% are proficient in math.
The NAEP in 2022 also disclosed that just 13% of 8th graders met proficiency standards for U.S. history, meaning they could explain major themes, periods, events, people, ideas, and turning points in the country’s history. Additionally, about 20% of students scored at or above the proficient level in civics. Both scores represent all-time lows on these two tests.
Sadly, many parents are fooled by their kids’ lack of knowledge as teachers frequently resort to grade inflation. In fact, a recent study from the Equitable Grading Project of about 33,000 middle school and high school grades found that almost 60% of students’ grades did not match their course knowledge according to standardized tests. The mismatches were highest among Black and Hispanic students and those from families who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
Those with a vested interest in government-run schools invariably blame underfunding for abysmal education results. But reality tells a different story.
According to Just Facts, which is dedicated to researching verifiable data about public policy issues, the U.S. spent $1.2 trillion on education in 2022. The bulk of the outlay, $834 billion, went to elementary and secondary education, while $226 billion was disbursed to higher education, and $121 billion went to libraries and other forms of education.
This total breaks down to $8,993 for every household in the U.S., 4.6% of the U.S. gross domestic product, and 14% of the government’s current expenditures. It’s important to note that these figures don’t include land purchases for schools and other facilities, as well as some of the costs of durable items like buildings and computers. The unfunded liabilities of post-employment non-pension benefits (like health insurance) are also not included.
Just Facts also finds that “the average inflation-adjusted cost of private K–12 schools in the 2019–20 school year was $9,709 per student. In contrast, the cost for public schools was $17,013 per student—or 75% more than private schools.”
What can we do about this deplorable state of affairs?
“Dismantling the Department of Education won’t make any measurable difference in educational outcomes,” writes Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. “If you want real transformation, fight the elected school boards, defang the unions, and create alternatives to the ed schools.”
Petrill is correct, but more than anything, parents need to take charge. If your state has a private choice program, see if there is a school that is a better fit for your child. Or maybe there is a high-performing local charter school that does a better job than your zip code-mandated public school.
Another option for parents is to provide education for their kids in the same way they provide food, clothing, and shelter, and indeed, homeschooling rates continue to rise. Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute, declares that there are currently about 3.2 million students educated at home in grades K-12 in the U.S. (roughly 6% of school-age children), compared to 2.5 million in spring 2019.
Ronald Reagan once famously quipped, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.’”
Too many children are educationally shortchanged these days, and to turn things around, we must stop looking to the government—especially where its employees are unionized—for solutions.
* * *
Larry Sand, a retired 28-year classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.
This problem is a mirror to our societal degradation.
The first item not mentioned is that there are some people that are less intelligent than others. It was decided by our betters in 1970 that if the black children in the south were bussed to 2 hours to schools and sat next to white children, their intelligence and education would rise. Oops! (and morally superior Boston was the only place where riots and murders took place in protest)
The next item was that women were pushed into the job market to fill in previously male occupations. This pulled the high intelligence educated female out of the education profession where they had successfully changed the world.
Next was the reduction in entrance standards for college. Partly because of college greed and partly because of the need to fill teacher positions since left empty by the women’s movement.
The lack of men in the black household that resulted from the welfare laws completed the recipe for our disaster.
The situation is the result of your friendly socialist reject in charge of your schools. Quit whining, you slept through it!
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
“… They do worse than kids from poorer countries that spend much less money on education, ranking behind not only Belgium but also Poland, the Czech Republic, and South Korea…”
Remember those old “Polish jokes?” Well, at this rate, Polish people ought to be telling American jokes!
I have maintained for years that the Federal Government has only done two things correctly in the last many decades: Prosecuted WWI and WWII. Can’t think of another…sad…
DEI in education doesn’t work. You can’t cure stupid.
Another huge factor is the “feel good” mentality. We’re not supposed to fail students anymore for fear of traumatizing them. It’s so bad that a school board in B.C. (Canada) no longer ascribe numerical values to results – instead of getting a D, students get “Emerging” – the whole grading system is based on some idiotic, meaningless qualifiers.
I maintain any union’s primary objective is to maintain and grow for it’s own benefit. The public sector, especially, should not be in bed with this horde of self-serving leeches that exist to take over and control any entity that “employs” them. I’m not saying every union worker bee holds this mindset but it is the agenda of the higher-ups who run the show. It’s socialism by another name. And, as we know, socialism can not maintain itself. It needs a productive society (capitalism) to provide the fuel (money) to keep it alive. The public schools are proof the union is less concerned about the “product” they turn out than keeping hold of a captured system for their own well being.