One of the many advantages enjoyed by President Donald Trump’s second administration is that it is naturally compared to the administration it replaced. Former President Joe Biden’s manifold failures set up his successor for perceived success across the board.
That is certainly the case on the issue of education.
Results from the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, known as the nation’s report card, reveal a federal education system in free fall. Released Wednesday, the report shows reading scores for fourth and eighth graders plummeting to ever-greater depths and the gap between the highest- and lowest-achieving students widening despite years of focus on “equity.” In math, minuscule gains were made, but scores remain much lower than pre-pandemic levels.
The report’s lowlights include:
- Four-in-10 fourth graders now have “below basic” reading skills, meaning they cannot sequence events from a story or describe the effects of a character’s actions.
- One-in-three eighth graders is also “below basic,” meaning they cannot determine the main idea of a text or identify arguments.
- The lowest-performing fourth and eighth graders posted their worst reading scores seen in more than 30 years.
- In eighth grade math, the distance between the highest- and lowest-performing students is the largest in the history of the test.
It’s painful to understand that these results are occurring in the richest and most powerful country in the world. But decades of dysfunction and ideological infestation in education have brought the system to the brink of collapse.
Sweeping and serious reforms are urgently needed and should be instituted with confidence and determination. Trump appears from his first two weeks in office to be loaded for bear and to want to deliver big changes in the nation’s education system.
In some senses, he has already begun. His executive orders aimed at eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the federal government mean that lavish spending on woke priorities that are simply worthless but damaging will come to a blessed end. According to the Department of Government Efficiency, the Department of Education spent more than a billion dollars on DEI during the Biden administration’s four years of misrule. This waste produced no tangible benefit to students of any race or class. They continued to fare less and less well. This can be no surprise given that the whole underlying principle of DEI is to provide excuses for failure.
Trump repeatedly promised while campaigning to dismantle the Department of Education. He may not have the congressional votes to do that even if he has the intention, but his actions must continue to disempower the corrupt federal bureaucracy and transfer responsibility for education to the states. Local control over education spurs innovation and experimentation, boosts parental involvement, and makes school systems more accountable.
Trump has expressed strong support for the school choice movement. This would, broadly speaking, let public funds follow students to the schools they choose, whether public, private, or a homeschooling program. School choice is vital for students trapped in failing schools and for parents who want to educate their children according to their own values.
Trump has said he wants to transform federal education funding into block grants to states. This would allow more money to flow to charter schools, into vouchers, or to other school choice initiatives.
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The NAEP results show that the “once-size-fits-all” approach to education has failed children of every color and class. There’s no need to wait for further confirmation of this well-established fact.
The time for bold education reform is now.
