The House is on Fire. Whom do you call?

 The House is on fire.  Whom do you call?

The reading scores of US high school seniors are the lowest they have been in three decades according to the results of new federal testing.  Math scores aren’t that much better; they are the lowest they have been since 2005.  These are the results of the National Assessment of Education Progress or the NAEP.  These assessments are generally considered to be harder than the various state assessments and are the gold standard for reliability.

Based on the results, about one-third of the kids tested did not have basic reading skills. Basic reading is considered 5th grade.  These are HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS!  It was no better in math.  Nearly HALF of the kids scored below the basic level so that means they have not mastered skills like using percentages.

These results are a stark decline from recent years.  So, who or what is to blame?  As in most questions, depends on whom you ask.   Experts say that the year(s) of online teaching during COVID is at fault.  Yet the percentage of kids in the 90^th percentile (meaning they scored better than 90% of the kids taking the test) has not changed.  So why weren’t they impacted by online instruction? 

One explanation is that over the last decade, kids and adults just aren’t reading because faces are in screens.   Yet companies like Barnes & Noble are doing well and expanding.  For 2025, the sale of print books has gone down .9%, so less than 1%.  Other reasons offered are that red states are putting money into private school vouchers and public schools are losing out.  Blue states are focused on social supports like nutrition and counseling and not on academic improvement.  Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, says the scores are terrible and are the result of the Dept. of Education spending money that should be going to the states.  But, the Department of Education is sending its money to the states.

The achievement declines cut across all demographic divides of race, class and gender.  Our kids aren’t achieving at basic levels in math or reading.  What does that promise for the country’s workforce and the ability of citizen to make informed decisions?

Margaret Spelling, who served as education secretary under President George W. Bush and now leads the Bipartisan Policy Center, said declining achievement is “an economic emergency that threatens our work force and national competitiveness”.  She believes they are a reflection of Trump’s priorities.  “This is not the right moment to talks about closing the Department of Education.  When your house is on fire, you don’t talk about making renovations.”