The Education ‘Experts’ Are Failing Our Kids and Our Nation

From public school K-12 and through college, the education swamp is failing our kids. In every conceivable way. And they keep making it worse, doubling down on the very policies and concepts that have created this academic, economic, and moral nightmare for students — and our nation.

Test scores keep falling nationally, and even worse in Pennsylvania, and never has more money been spent federally or locally on schools.

It’s almost criminal.

If Congress or an investigative journalist uncovered that the Chinese, Russians, or Middle Eastern terrorist-operatives had secretly taken over our education system — the teachers’ unions, the school boards’ associations, the librarians’ associations, the school accrediting associations, the college boards, and the banks that fund college tuition loans — the last 30 years might suddenly make sense. At least we’d understand that making our students less intelligent, less confident, less prepared for the job market, less trusting of their parents, and less committed to our nation was intentional.

Here’s the latest insanity. “Adaptive testing” in the SATs.

In simple terms, the SAT has multiple sections and students take it online. The SAT’s AI-style computer system now monitors how students are scoring in Section 1. If a given student is doing well, the next section is intentionally designed to get more difficult. However, if another student is doing poorly, the next section is intentionally designed to get easier.  When the test is done, presto: you get your score. And nobody is the wiser—whether your test was “difficult” or not.

See, everybody gets a participation trophy. And everybody gets to go to college — ready or not! (And they get to paper over the failure of K-12 public schools — removing pressure for them to change.)

If these “educators” managed track and field competitions, the hurdles would get higher for some runners and lower for others as the race was being run. This way it’s “fair” to everyone, and no one is “sad.” And everyone gets a medal.

The changes in the SAT are just the latest bizarre, anti-commonsense, misguided morality that has been afflicting public (and some private) K-12 schools and college education for decades — from social promotions and eliminating honors classes, to college classes on “How to Plan a Protest.” Too many “experts” running our public schools and colleges — or managing them, accrediting them, or administering the admissions test — are working in a coordinated effort to teach our kids less, require them to know less, make them more anxious, have them feel divided in the classroom and trust their parents less. And to waste our money along the way.

If they could demonstrate coordination from K to college, federal prosecutors could bring RICO criminal charges against thousands of “educators” in the education swamp for running an organized crime syndicate — intentionally doing harm to our children while profiting off our tax dollars.

From the people who locked our kids out of school for as many as eighteen months, and who kept them masked and sitting apart when they returned, we now see the mindset that violates common sense. Sadly, the problem is deeper.

These are not isolated, well-intentioned decisions gone wrong. These are intentional, planned policies that any group of parents, any group of people waiting for hoagies at Wawa would tell you are wrong. And, after a decade of stagnant-to-falling test scores, lower proficiency rates and rising anxieties, any thoughtful group of adults would stop what they were doing. Instead, they double-down.

It’s a mindset that discourages excellence and removes accountability. They instituted policies that eliminated “tracks,” honors classes and grades. They’ve allowed homework to be turned in “whenever the child is ready,” if it’s assigned at all.

They’ve devalued reading, writing, math, science and problem solving and instead focus on teaching kids to become social justice warriors. They don’t focus on Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson — let alone Shakespeare; instead, they focus on books explaining oral sex, 100+ genders, or a melting planet. Teachers shifted the focus from teaching students to think critically and debate and instead lecture them on the teacher’s values (almost always left-wing).

Years and years of a de-emphasis on academics and accountability leads to falling test scores and now SAT exams designed to allow unprepared students to appear to be prepared. Colleges are happy to fill their seats—and they can brag about their wonderful (fake) SAT scores in their promotional materials.

But we all lose. Our students know less, and our economy and way of life suffer. Billions are wasted and, worse, our children are set on a path to fail, as is our nation.

Neither China, nor Japan, South Korea, India, nor any nation with commonsense is consciously lowering standards while bubble-wrapping their kids and giving everybody a trophy (degree) and saddling them with debt learning little of value for the workforce.

It must end.

We must demand change in our local school boards and in our legislators. And alumni and parents must hold colleges accountable — as many have begun to do to stop anti-Semitism.

And, yes, Pennsylvania children — and America’s children — need education choice. No poor or working-class family should be forced to send their child to a local school that is failing academically — especially those that are de-emphasizing academics or lowering standards.

We wouldn’t allow China or the Iranians to do this to our kids. Why do we allow the education swamp to do it to our kids, with our own money?!

Guy Ciarrocchi is a Senior Fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation. He writes for Broad + Liberty and RealClear Pennsylvania. Follow Guy at @PaSuburbsGuy.