Public schools are languishing in a political dead zone

Stumping for president a quarter-century ago, George W. Bush posed the immortal question, “Is our children learning?” Although his bad grammar elicited much condescending mirth, Bush at least seemed passionate about improving public schools.

Today’s national leaders, not so much.

Despite mounting evidence that our K-12 students are sliding backward, school reform barely registered in last year’s presidential election. Instead, Republicans fixated on ridding schools of “wokeness,” while Democrats lined up behind teachers’ unions defending the status quo.

Since the bipartisan coalition for school reform unraveled about a decade ago, the issue seems to have fallen into a political dead zone in Washington. Among our top leaders, there is no vision or leadership for setting higher standards for our schools and students.

The latest test results from the National Assessment for Education Progress spawned an alarming headline: Less than one-third of U.S. eighth graders can read at grade level. The share of fourth graders falling below the “basic” level of literacy has risen dramatically, to 40 percent.

Math scores were flat for eighth graders and slightly up for fourth graders, but this owed mainly to improvements among high performers. In fact, all the results showed a widening gap between top students and low performers, especially to the disadvantage of Black, Hispanic and disabled students in lower income brackets.

There has been no learning recovery from the COVID pandemic. Test scores are below pre-pandemic levels in all grades and subjects, despite the Biden administration’s infusion of $180 billion in federal pandemic relief.

“Looking at this data, it’s clear that we’re in enormous risk of losing an entire generation of learners unless we show some focus and leadership,” said Jane Swift, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts.

U.S. students also turn in less than stellar results on international comparisons of learning. On the most recent PISA assessments of 81 countries, they ranked 16th in science, ninth in reading and 34th in math. The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study found that U.S. fourth graders scored 18 points lower in math since 2019, and that eighth graders lost 27 points.

We’ve arrived at another “Nation at Risk” or Sputnik moment. Only this time, U.S. political and business leaders aren’t stepping forward to galvanize national action to fix chronically underperforming public schools.

Instead, President Trump is joining red-state Republicans in giving parents financial enticements to abandon them.

Three years ago, no state had a universal school voucher program. Now 13 of them offer universal or near-universal subsidies for private schools through cash vouchers or tax credits in the form of Education Savings Accounts.

But Republican privatizers are meeting stiff resistance from an unexpected quarter — fellow Republicans. Last November, for example, every state ballot initiative supporting “private school choice” was shot down.

In Kentucky, which Trump won handily, voters rejected a universal voucher initiative by a whopping 30-point margin. In Nebraska, vouchers lost by nearly 15 points. Coloradans voted down a similar constitutional amendment, albeit by just 1.4 points.

Many rural Republicans are fond of their public schools, which are hubs of community life and sports, as well as major employers. They don’t have many private schools and resent paying higher taxes to pay for vouchers that mainly benefit suburban and city dwellers.

Suburban voters also worry about the high costs of vouchers. In Florida — where even well-off families qualify for taxpayer-funded grants worth $8,000 to pay private school tuition — the tab is estimated to reach $3.4 billion this year.

Nonetheless, Trump has issued an executive order encouraging federal agencies to shift money from federal block grants intended for public schools to children attending private and religious schools.

Under Biden, Washington Democrats walked away from the Clinton-Obama push to raise academic standards, expand public school choice, shift decisions from central bureaucrats to school leaders and shut down schools that fail their students.

Some Democratic governors are filling the leadership vacuum.

Colorado’s Jared Polis has made education his top priority as chair of the National Governors Association. His Let’s Get Ready initiative emphasizes early literacy and numeracy, more challenging curricula, AI-enhanced learning as well as more work-based learning and apprenticeship opportunities for high school students.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein are leading the charge against Republican efforts to divert education dollars to private schools.

“We should not be taking money from our public school kids to pay for wealthy parents sending their kids to unaccountable private schools, to the tune of $7.5 billion over the next decade,” Stein told his Republican legislature last week.

Rahm Emanuel is a national Democratic figure challenging his party to lead on education. The former White House aide, U.S. representative, Chicago mayor and diplomat recently chided Washington politicians for letting cultural battles over race, gender and transsexuality distract from schools’ academic mission.

“I am done with the discussion of locker rooms; I am done with the discussion of bathrooms, and we better start having a conversation about the classroom.”

What Democrats need are moonshot goals Americans can rally around. For example, Robin Lake, director of the Center for Reinventing Public Education, calls for a national campaign for universal literacy by the fourth grade and math competency by the eighth grade.

And at a time when some states are lowering their standards to mask declines in student achievement, strong national leadership is imperative to narrow the growing achievement gap between rich and poor students.

Trump and many Republicans are giving up on public schools. By making them better, Democrats can become the party of education again.

Will Marshall is the founder and president of Progressive Policy Institute.

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