Short answer: America doesn't have an education system. We have an indoctrination system. And the data keeps showing it.
John wrote about the abysmal results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores when first published in September. The New York Times did as well, noting that test scores for 12th graders had plummeted to decades-long lows in both reading and math. One-third of America's next high-school graduates did not have basic reading skills, and nearly half of them didn't have enough math to figure out percentages in real-world applications:
The results, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, long regarded as the nation’s most reliable, gold-standard exam, showed that about a third of the 12th-graders who were tested last year did not have basic reading skills.
It was a sign that, among other skills, they may not be able to determine the purpose of a political speech. In math, nearly half of the test takers scored below the basic level, meaning they may not have mastered skills like using percentages to solve real-world problems.
The test scores are the first of their kind to be released since the Covid-19 pandemic upended education. They are yet another sign that adolescents are struggling in the wake of the virus, when schools were closed for months or more.
We'll get to the pandemic in a moment. On Friday, the NYT followed up with a "student opinion" section feature meant to encourage younger readers to engage with the material. Does anyone grasp irony at the Gray Lady?
New national testing data, reported in September, shows that the reading skills of American high school seniors are the worst they have been in three decades. A third of the 12th graders who were tested did not have basic reading skills. ...
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
What is your reaction to the news that the reading skills of American high school seniors are the worst they have been in three decades? Does it reflect what you’ve seen or experienced in school?
Ahem. Did the NYT have a reading comprehension issue itself? The data shows that more students than ever can't read the entire article and answer questions about it. That's the point of the articles to which the NYT links and the conclusion of the data they report. Furthermore, the only way they'd be able to have a perspective on three decades of declines from "what you've seen or experienced in school" would be if they'd been held back about 25 times in high school.
Did the pandemic create this situation? Absolutely not. The article goes on to explain that the declines have occurred over a long period of time, and "began several years before the pandemic." These mainly focus on "screen time" for students and adults outside of the classroom, but that doesn't explain the impact of classroom time itself. Education mainly takes place in classrooms, especially for lower-income students, where declines in performance have been more significant and for longer periods of time. That is entirely on the mandatory public educational systems, where curricula focus on woke progressive social justice issues rather than core education on reading, mathematics, and critical thinking rather than critical theory.
However, the pandemic did have an impact. Why? Because in much of the country, schools closed and remained shut for months or even more than a year, despite plenty of data showing that schools and children were not vectors for COVID-19 transmission. So why were schools shut down for months or more, especially in Democrat-run jurisdictions? The education establishment demanded it, especially teachers' unions like AFT and activists like Randi Weingarten.
The very establishment that supposedly serves students actively damaged them in the pandemic for no good reason. But then again, this same establishment has essentially gutted the entire idea of education and replaced it with a system of indoctrination. The people running it don't want people who can think for themselves or reason over the meaning of political speeches. They want to churn out cult members for the far Left that can be easily stampeded into action over the progressive elite's agenda.
That's why the educational establishment still defends its near-monopoly over education despite all of the evidence of its abject failure. The NYT clucked its tongue at the "MAGA" response in September:
Among Republican policymakers, much of the energy in education policy has shifted away from raising test scores, and toward providing parents with private-school vouchers. Many elected Democrats have focused more on social supports for students, like nutrition and mental health counseling, than on academic rigor.
States and school districts have worked to improve early reading instruction and provide broader access to advanced math. But at least so far, those changes have not resulted in national achievement gains.
Emphasis mine. That is why Republicans are pushing for school choice -- in order to break the monopoly of the cult of progressivism on American education. It's far past time to completely rethink an "education" system that doesn't even educate people to read or do math any longer. How many more Americans will we lose to the cult before we say enough?
