Nolte: 12th Grade Reading and Math Scores Hit 20-Year Low

The reading and math scores for American 12^th graders have hit a 20-year low, according to a study from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).

In the area of reading, these are the worst scores in the history of the study, which launched in 1992.

The study also showed that eighth graders lost a lot of ground in science and that the gender gap between boys and girls in science, technology, engineering, and math returned after nearly being equal in 2019. Girls are falling behind.

Per NBC, the “assessments were the first since the pandemic for eighth graders in science and 12th graders in reading and math.”

“Scores for our lowest-performing students are at historic lows,” Matthew Soldner of the National Center for Education Statistics told NBC. “These results should galvanize all of us to take concerted and focused action to accelerate student learning.”

“While the pandemic had an outsize impact on student achievement,” adds the news report, “experts said falling scores are part of a longer arc in education that cannot be attributed solely to COVID-19, school closures, and related issues such as heightened absenteeism.”

Also blamed are “increased screen time, shortened attention spans and a decline in reading longer-form writing both in and out of school,” along with “a shift in how English and language arts are taught in schools, with an emphasis on short texts and book excerpts[.]”

One teacher said that 20 years ago, students were assigned 20 books a year. Now it’s closer to three.

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President Trump’s education secretary, Linda McMahon, told NBC that “Despite spending billions annually on numerous K-12 programs, the achievement gap is widening, and more high school seniors are performing below the basic benchmark in math and reading than ever before.” She said this is why the administration wants the states to have more control over education dollars.

Money is definitely not the problem. Americans spend more per pupil than most developed countries and score lower than many. If you can’t educate a kid with an average of $18,086 per pupil in taxpayer money, you won’t be able to educate them with twice or three times that amount. The system is broken.

The problem, of course, is that the totally unnecessary COVID school closings demanded by the corrupt teachers’ unions did irreparable damage to an entire generation of kids. Then there is the overall problem with a disastrous government-run school system that works for rich kids and school employees but not so much for the rest.

Public schools have become bloated jobs’ program relentlessly defeated from instituting any improvement by corrupt, leftist public unions (that should be outlawed) that block incentives like merit pay for teachers. Then there’s the utterly destructive federal Department of Education (DOE) that stupidly promotes one-size-fits-all mandates on a vast, pluralistic country where such an approach will always fail. Thankfully, Trump is looking to gut the DOE.

We also see too many schools worried about teaching everything but the very skills required to become a functional adult: reading, writing, arithmetic, civics, and critical thinking. Instead, a crazed, left-wing cult of social engineers has taken over too many school districts where indoctrinating with “social justice” takes priority over everything else.

Unless you are lucky enough to live in a decent school district, until the public school system is destroyed and rebuilt in an image that cares more about students than narcissistic teachers, the answer is homeschooling. The other answer is vouchers, so anyone, especially poor kids stuck in Democrat-run-disaster schools, can attend a private school.

Democrats talk about “equity,” but if “equity” means removing children from the left’s demonic influence by sending them to a private school, Democrats show their true colors.

John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.