The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has released national scores for 2024. Those scores continue to be on the decline. In fact, they are at record lows.
The majority of students who took the NAEP were not proficient in reading or math. Only 35% of seniors were proficient in reading, and just 22% were proficient in math. These new graduates are educationally handicapped as they take off on their postsecondary paths. How are they supposed to be successful in college? Clearly, something has got to change because our kids aren’t being educated.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon had plenty to say about these abysmal numbers. In a post on X, she wrote, “Today’s [NAEP] 12th grade math and reading and 8th grade science scores confirm a devastating trend: American students are testing at historic lows. Nearly HALF of America’s high school seniors are testing at below basic levels in math and reading. The status quo is failing our students.”
McMahon went on to explain that billions of taxpayer dollars have been thrown at public education, yet there is no improvement in student achievement. Her pitch, as well as President Donald Trump’s, is to send that money to the states and allow them to be responsible for their own students’ success.
“Clearly, success is not about how much money we spend, but who spends it,” she added. “That’s why President Trump and I are committed to reversing course and returning control of education to the states so local communities with parents in the driver’s seat can better innovate, adapt, and tailor education to their students’ needs.”
It’s not just because of COVID, either, though lockdowns definitely further stymied their progress. National Center for Education Statistics Acting Commissioner Matthew Soldner explained, “The drop in overall scores coincides with significant declines in achievement among our lowest-performing students, continuing a downward trend that began even before the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The Wall Street Journal reports, “Only about a third of high school seniors are prepared for college in either reading or math, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Colleges are adding introductory courses to teach what students should have learned in high school. Even Harvard teaches basic algebra.”
In other words, colleges are now expected to pick up the slack and fill in the gaps. This makes postsecondary education take longer to complete and more expensive. It also takes away from the richness of college courses because professors and students are hampered.
The Wall Street Journal editors warn, “All of this ought to be a five-alarm fire about America’s future. A country that fails to educate half of its own children while also banning immigrants is destined for decline.” While I agree that this should be a five-alarm fire, the added commentary about “banning immigrants” is plain silly. Is the Journal suggesting we pad the NAEP scores by importing more educated kids from abroad? Or that illegal immigrant children would add or subtract significantly to the NAEP scores? Either way, shouldn’t the focus be on American children and how we are failing them?
And we are failing them. Students have major problems standing in the way of a decent education. For students who don’t read for pleasure, their minds have been taken over by invasive and pervasive technology, from smartphones to AI. Teachers are being told to teach subjects like gender studies and Critical Race Theory, neither of which improves other skills that students need to know. Teachers are dealing with overcrowded classrooms and unaddressed student misbehavior. Students have been taught to consider education as trivial instead of something exciting to pursue. They take its availability and value for granted, and now we are seeing the rotten fruits.
The answer to solving this decline in student progress isn’t to throw more money at it, further dumb down the curriculum, or blame COVID. We need to take education down to the granular level — the student — and start rebuilding from there. Because this one-size-fits-all model is simply not working.
