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Thursday, May 23, 2024

Basic education in America is falling short of what is needed


May 21, 2024

In the last few years there has been much criticism of both public education and higher education. Stories abound regarding the changing of education into indoctrination in many public schools and school systems, and colleges and universities.

It got so bad that when parents attended school board meetings to express their concern and displeasure, they were sometimes hassled by security and police personnel. And the U.S. Department of Justice even went so far as to label some of them as “domestic terrorists.”

While these unauthorized and often secret changes in the curriculum are dishonest, some of them are truly dangerous. Some schools or teachers not only keep parents from knowing that their children are interested in changing genders, for example, some of them are actively encouraging it.

Colleges and universities are suspected of teaching students not how to think, but they instead are pushing political points of view about what to think on important issues.

Another side of the education situation is what is happening to the actual level of education taking place. On this topic, The Daily Signal, a digital news platform of The Heritage Foundation, has recently published some statistics that truly ought to alarm every American, and especially those in the school systems dealt with in the story.

The Signal story discusses the spending on education in Connecticut, Idaho, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Utah, Vermont, and Washington, DC, along with their level of performance as measured by the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

The state which spent the most in “current expenditures” in FY2022 was New York, laying out $29,284 per pupil.

The Signal noted that “[c]urrent expenditures comprise expenditures for the day-to-day operation of schools and school districts for public elementary and secondary education, including expenditures for staff salaries and benefits, supplies, and purchased services,” according to the NCES. “General administration expenditures and school administration expenditures are also included in current expenditures,” it added.

According to the NAEP, New York had only 28 percent of eighth grade students scoring proficient or better in mathematics, and just 32 percent were proficient or better in reading.

Spending a little less money than New York was Washington, D.C., at $28,128 in current expenditures per pupil. But proficiency did not measure up. For mathematics, only 16 percent were proficient or better, and only 22 percent made the grade in reading.

Showing better proficiency than New York or D.C. was New Jersey, where per-pupil spending was $25,550. Mathematics = 33 percent, reading = 42 percent.

Vermont and Connecticut followed, with spending of $25,073, and $23,868, respectively. Vermont: mathematics = 27 percent, reading = 34 percent. Connecticut: mathematics = 30 percent, reading = 35 percent.

In the per-pupil rankings, three other New England states followed. Massachusetts spent $22,778; Rhode Island spent $20,498; and New Hampshire spent $20,424. Massachusetts: mathematics = 35 percent, reading = 40 percent. Rhode Island: mathematics = 24 percent, and reading = 31 percent. And, New Hampshire: mathematics = 29 percent, reading = 33 percent.

Utah and Idaho spent significantly less per-pupil, but didn’t do worse in ratings and in some cases were better than the higher-spending systems.

Utah spent just $9,496 per-pupil: mathematics = 35 percent, reading = 36 percent. Idaho spent $9,662 per-pupil and scored 32 percent in both math and reading.

The Signal also published some data on Catholic schools, at which parents pay tuition for their children to attend, in addition to the taxes they pay that support public education. “The average tuition at Catholic elementary schools in 2023, according to U.S. News and World Report, was $4,840. The average tuition at Catholic high schools was $11,240,” the story said.

And, it added that “students at Catholic schools score better on these NAEP tests than students at public schools.”

It should be noted that the FY2022 data was affected to some degree by the COVID virus and its effects on school operations. However, the 2022 numbers were not very much lower than the previous survey data from FY2019.

The Signal story did not cover all states, and we may assume that some states did much better than those listed. However, any school system that produces proficiency for fewer than 50 percent of students, has a serious problem.

And these low scores are not limited to these particular states and D.C. The NAEP Report Card for 2022 in reading shows that “the average reading score for eighth-grade students was 3 points lower than 2019. Average scores are reported on the NAEP reading scale that ranges from 0 to 500.”  The score for 2019 was 263, and for 2022 was 260. And only two states had higher scores in reading in 2022 than they had in 2019.

NCES data shows rising scores in both math and reading starting in FY1990/1991 on a 500-point scale. Reading scores rose from 211 to 221 in FY2012 before dropping to 215 in FY2022. Math scores rose from about 235 to 241, then dropped to 234 in FY2022.

Our country’s future depends on younger generations that can function at a high level. The information provided indicates that we will not meet that need.

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