Schools for Scandal

Contact Your Elected Officials

The latest bad education news comes to us courtesy of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The most recent exam was administered to high school seniors in early 2019, a full year before the COVID-19 lockdowns. The so-called โ€œNationโ€™s Report Cardโ€ reveals that just 37 percent of 12th-graders are proficient in reading and a pitiful 24 percent in math. In fact, the average reading score for grade 12 students was lower than in 1992.

Peggy Carr, a National Center for Education Statistics commissioner, tried to excuse the poor showing by explaining that due to lower dropout rates, a lot of students took the test who would not have done so a few years ago. Fair enough, but what about all the students who did drop out? Had they taken the test, the average score would have been even lower.

Not surprisingly, all the usual suspects are blaming the seniorsโ€™ abysmal performance on the fact that the U.S. has defunded education. And front-and-center is Usual Suspect #1 โ€“ American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten who groused in a press release about โ€œtwo decades of austerityโ€ and โ€œcompetition.โ€ She also went off on avowed enemy Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who Weingarten claims is โ€œhellbent on siphoning public money to expand private school vouchers.โ€

About austerity, Weingarten is wrong. Dead wrong. The following chart from the U.S. Department of Education shows just how off the mark she is.

So, adjusting for inflation, perโ€โ€‹pupil public spending grew 39 percent between 1991-1992 and 2016-2017. And as Cato Institute scholar Neal McCluskey points out, โ€œโ€ฆspending between 2016โ€“17 and the 2019 NAEP administration probably continued to grow as the economy improved.โ€

If Weingarten thinks there is a lack of money in education now, wait till she sees the fallout from the COVID-19 related school closures that she and other unionistas have been demanding. With many private schools having opened up, and home schooling going viral, there is no telling how many families will permanently ditch their traditional zip-code mandated school. Not only that, but due to the coronavirus and ensuing panic, many job losses will result in a shrinking tax base. As such, schools need to be ready for less funding, perhaps a lot less.

But the blow can be softened if certain reforms are implemented. To improve education and, at the same time, lower costs, collective bargaining and employee benefits should be renegotiated and capital projects should be put on hold. Step-and-ladder pay schedules, and give-away-the-farm teacher pensions must be done away with. We need to put an end to union mandated rules that elevate seniority above quality in hiring, firing, placement, and promotion of teachers, and eliminate tenure or permanence which pretty much guarantees a teacher lifetime employment no matter how incompetent they may be. Most importantly, we must start funding parents โ€“ those who have the best interests of their children at heart โ€“ instead of pouring money into the bureaucracy, whose main raison dโ€™รชtre is to keep itself up and running.

And finally, a few words on Weingartenโ€™s comment about competition. Despite her lament, competition works quite well. Researcher Greg Forster looked at 34 studies on the effects of school choice on public schools. He found that in 32 of them, school choice improves academic outcomes in public schools affected by the program, while one finds no visible difference and one finds a negative impact

Our education system is failing too many students, and that failure is not due to a lack of money. Until we realize that, and make some major changes, 13 years of public schooling may not get you very far in life at all.

Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network โ€“ 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.

By Larry Sand

The Thinking Conservative
The Thinking Conservativehttps://www.thethinkingconservative.com/
The goal of THE THINKING CONSERVATIVE is to help us educate ourselves on conservative topics of importance to our freedom and our pursuit of happiness. We do this by sharing conservative opinions on all kinds of subjects, from all types of people, and all kinds of media, in a way that will challenge our perceptions and help us to make educated choices.

Why the Trump Administration is Sitting on the Epstein Files

President Trump, AG Bondi, and FBI Dir. Patel have the advantage over us in that they see the big overall picture when it comes to the Epstein List.

Trumpโ€™s โ€œMajor Statementโ€ On Russia Is A Clumsy Attempt To Thread The Needle

The โ€œmajor statementโ€ on Russia Trump hyped up turned out to be an attempt to thread the needle between escalating US involvement in Ukrainian and walking away from it.

AI Takes Customer Service from Doublespeak to Triplespeak

Corporations are replacing customer service agents with AI agents. Here's a real-life example of attempting to use AI to have my internet restored.

The Left’s Descent into Extremismย ย 

The political left, from mainstream Dems to radical Antifa, have embraced extremism, alienating swaths of the public and undermining their own influence.

Roger Stone Speaks About Trump at Turning Point USA

Longtime Donald Trump friend, Roger Stone, gave a speech at the 2025 TPUSA convention offering his take on the recent Epstein List controversy.

Border Czar Says Physical Appearance โ€˜Canโ€™t Be the Sole Reasonโ€™ to Detain Someone

Border czar Homan said comments were โ€œtaken out of contextโ€ and federal immigration enforcement agents can't detain people based on physical appearances alone.

Capacity of US Coal-Fired Power Plants to Fall Over 15 Percent by 2028

Total operating capacity of coal-fired power plants in US is set to drop to 145 GW by end of 2028, a 15% decline from the 172 GW in operation as of May.

Violence Against ICE Escalates Across America

ICE officers face increased confrontation on the street, which crosses the line between free speech and physical violence.

International Buyers Purchased $56 Billion Worth of US Homes in 1 Year

Foreign buyers purchased $56 billion worth of existing homes in the US between April 2024 and March 2025, up by 33.2% from the previous 12 months.

CMS Eyes 3.8 Percent Pay Hike for Doctors, Medicare Cost Cuts, and Chronic Care Expansion

Trump admin plan will save billions on wasteful spending, boost rates for doctors, and modernizing Medicare services, said HHS Sec. RFK, Jr.

DOGE Announces Billions of Dollars in Federal Contracts Terminated

In post on X on July 12, DOGE, stated that โ€œover the last week, agencies terminated 230 wasteful contracts,โ€ resulting in savings of $407 million.

Trump to Announce $70 Billion Energy and Innovation Investment in Pittsburgh

President Trump is meeting with business leaders to discuss how best to meet the energy and computing needs of the future.

Attorney General Pam Bondi Dismisses Justice Departmentโ€™s Top Ethics Lawyer

AG Pam Bondi terminated the head of the DOJโ€™s ethics division, according to a letter posted to social media by the fired official.
spot_img

Related Articles