Reading and math scores are abysmal across the country, as national testing results keep documenting. Illiteracy rates are rising: The number of 16- to 24-year-olds reading at the lowest literacy levels increased from 16% in 2017 to 25% in 2023, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
In some inner-city schools, less than half of the kids are reading or doing math at grade-level proficiency. Many high school grads can’t read their diplomas.
As an economist, I would submit that this is our greatest crisis. It puts the future of American prosperity in grave danger. Also, the learning gap widens income and wealth disparities.
The apparent solution among the education establishment is not to challenge kids to stretch their minds and hit the books, but rather to dumb down the curriculum so everyone passes. I call this the “make everyone below average” solution.
Some schools are no longer requiring kids in English class to read cover to cover the classic books that students have been reading for decades. Perhaps the students don’t have the attention spans. Perhaps their reading skills aren’t up to par. Perhaps they are too busy texting or playing video games on their cellphones.
A case in point is what has happened at Alice Deal Middle School in Washington, D.C. This is one of the best public schools in the city, with reading proficiency rates at 80%, or double the D.C. District’s abysmal 38% average.
Alice Deal has decided to remove all full-length novels from their eighth-grade English curriculum. The educrats behind this strategy claim that moving from full-length books to section readings will better prepare students for high school.
Huh? How is it better for reading proficiency and knowledge-gathering for a student to read sections of “Huckleberry Finn” or “To Kill a Mockingbird” but not the whole book? Would anyone watch only a few scenes of the movie?
It’s almost as if the school is instructing the 13-year-olds to read the CliffsNotes version of “The Scarlet Letter” or “A Man for All Seasons.” That used to be considered a form of cheating. But now it’s the schools that are cheating the kids.
If it is true that reading a full-length novel is now too heavy a lift for a sixth, seventh or eighth grader, Houston, we have a problem. If the kids in the top public schools can’t be expected to read a full-length book, it’s scary to think about the reading levels at the bad schools.
We solved the problem of illiteracy nearly 100 years ago. Now the problem is back.
This is yet another sad example of subjecting our children to the tyranny of low expectations. It is sadly symbolic of all that is wrong with government-run schools.
Ironically, it is coming at a time when poor states like Louisiana and Mississippi have returned to the basics — like good old-fashioned phonics — and have seen miraculous jumps in their reading scores. They are now beating out higher-income blue states.
Raise the bar, don’t lower it. We can do this. We all remember with fondness reading our favorite books — like “The Outsiders.” The joy of reading comes from reading a great book and learning its life message.
Kids are now being robbed of that joy.
Washington, D.C., will reap the illiteracy it sows, and my only hope is that other schools don’t participate in this dumbing down of America’s children.
Stephen Moore is a former Trump senior economic adviser and the cofounder of Unleash Prosperity, which advocates for education freedom for all children.
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The dumbing down of America is the first step to controlling entire generations. Reading was at one time fundamental, but imagine this group voting on issues that would determine the very existence of our way of life. People who cannot comprehend instruction, laws or everyday activities are ripe for exploitation. Schools are a disgrace, but look no further that those in charge, and we allow them to get away with it. Kids aren’t stupid, but we don’t let them drive the bus. If they can’t read, they can’t pass.
The “dumbing down” of America is a horrible thing. It started with the generation who felt their kids could do now wrong and didn’t allow teachers to discipline their little darlings in the classroom. Then is stretched into kids sports which were suppose to be fun and teach kids how to get along in a team. The parents then wanted no real losers and winners…everybody got a trophy, That morphed into not giving grades in some public schools because the parents didn’t want their kids to be looked at as “not bright?. All of this led to students who didn’t have to excel to get a reward. Yes, this led to a bunch of kids who were pushed along and then got to college and had to take remedial classes. Lazy parents who took no part in their kids schooling are partly to blame and so are the teachers who failed to stand their ground when it came to discipline. The really good teachers just got other jobs in private schools or left the profession. There is a lot of people to blame and a lot of it in the last 15 years has been the teachers’ unions.
When I was in grammar school in the 1960’s in Calif. they decided to remove Phonics instruction for about ten years as an “experiment,” My teachers (who were taught Phonics) were stupid and cruel. When I could not spell a word they told me to go “look it up,” and impossible task without Phonics. I wound up being held back a grade because of this. I finally did learn to read and have four published books, one by Doubleday in New York. However, as of this writing I can read well but I can hardly spell worth a darn. On my to do list: Study Phonics next year. Public school is evil and the way to an enslaved society.
How can schools and teachers put up with continuing to lower the bars for a good education?
Rediculous!
This started in the 1960’s, it was tied to other movements. People were told that the “immediate gratification” of their children not being left back and graduating high school would be offset by future children being given more and more of a “pass”, while not being prepared for success. It’s been happening for a long time and it was originally tied to racial “equality”. That “equality” has only left more children uneducated and ill prepared for just about anything. The “No Child Left Behind” Act, has accomplished the opposite, it’s left many children behind. Schools just promoted everyone, mainly so they didn’t look like racists. SMH. Of course, thanks to liberal policies, many of those unprepared kids do have HS diplomas, the problem is that many of the “graduates” can’t read them.
Reading is the first and last step in a good education, wit it, a student can function well in the sciences and math. No child should leave kindergarten, unable to read the basic words and put together short sentences. Reading comprehension is also taught in private schools or Christian schools. There is no excuse/reason why a young child cannot get the basics of reading.
I remember that question from good 40 years ago the answer is still the same as then.
Not only have schools dumbed down the existing curriculum but need to reinstate handwriting too. What these kids today call handwriting, Egyptians called hieroglyphics. I don’t understand how/why parents condone substandard education for their own kids. Hard to put the blame on only one thing…….it takes a village to protest and change education now or kids today will have to rely solely on AI to function. Hope the grid infrastructure can handle it.
All true, Mr. Moore. As a retired teacher I can attest to your analysis.
Growing up in Chicago and graduating St.Matthias and Gordon Technical High School, you had to read to pass. They flunked you in those days and you attended summer school. I was lucky enough that those two things were not part of my life. Bad grades were humiliating and then you had to face your parents. The teachers were respected and some of those teachers I was afraid of. Why can’t our teachers teach? Something is definitely wrong. Some parents are not involved which is heartbreaking. There is no excuse why kids can’t read.
It should be NO surprise to anyone with at least two working brain cells to why so many kids today (and for the past 25 years) can’t read, can’t write, can’t do basic math, can’t think for themselves or process directions, and kids that have little or no confidence or have and show little or no respect for others, and who have low self-esteem, or have discipline issues, etc…. WHY?
It can be answered and all summed up with the three ‘Ls’ – Lowlife Liberal Losers. And who fall into this despicable group? Teachers, Administrators, teacher unions, school boards, State legislators, and politicians) who have taken over our public education system with radical leftwing perversion, and turned a once solid and successful EDUCATION system into a Socialist and Communist INDOCTRINATION system in grades K-12 and beyond.
Also contributing to this disaster is FAILED PARENTING. Parents that are destructive ENABLERS, who take no interest in their out-of-control spoiled brat. Parents Failing at home to discipline and hold little Johnny or Susie accountable for their actions. Yet these same failing parents threaten to sue if their ‘little Johnny’ fails and is held back in spite of the facts that he hasn’t turned in one homework assignment, has failed every test, has excessive unexcused absences, and is a trouble-making, defiant little brat.
In summary, EVERYTHING a LIBERAL touches or is involved in will ALWAYS end in ruin. If they’re a radical leftwing liberal, it will fail much faster, with more devastating results, pain and suffering.
Private schools, Christian schools and home schooling. My grandson didn’t do good in a public school setting, My wife agreed to home school him. After his “graduation”, he enrolled in a community college for some trade classes and scored higher on this entrance exams than most of the public school graduates.
Everything that is wrong with his country is courtesy of the Democrat party. They are the party of Satan. If it’s a bad idea they came up with it if it used to be good they touched it and destroyed it. I don’t know who they’re going to blame and who they’re going to hate once Donald Trump dies because he will, and then the Democrats have to find somebody else to vent on. Their hatred of Donald Trump is beyond insane
This might be what happens when teachers join H U G E unions. For a fact, when I was a kid (and no, I am not telling a Grampaw story), our teachers taught us how to read and write, and even taught some of us arithmetic. In my case not a LOT of arithmetic, as it was all “Greek” to me. But it seems now, teaching basic understanding is a long lost art. Just WHY can’t kids read? They have to know something…look at all those stupid cell phones in their paws. Aren’t there books in schools anymore?
Making students into drones is the goal of the prussian school system which was advocated beginning in the late 1800’s and supported by President Wilson.
They’ve been at it a long time. If they can’t read well, do math very well, know true history, and have fun with science, then they are more easily controlled. Isn’t control what every Dumbdowncrat wants?
The Big Problem, NEA!
Kind of reminds me of “1984” by Aldous Huxley.
I was shocked when a friend said that they wrote a greeting in a birthday card to their grand child who is a freshman in high school only to find out they couldn’t read cursive. It’s worse than we think.
Absolutely right-on! But NOW, their Teachers can’t even read – because there’s been a whole GENERATION of ‘bad teaching’ going on at schools! We NEED to get back to the BASICS. And we’ve WASTED at least 30 YEARS to see this was happening to our Kids! And another problem is that schools no longer ‘get control’ of out-of-control kids who create havoc in classrooms – when that NEVER used to be the case! We have to get back to when kids were spanked by Principals for ‘bad behavior’ in classrooms. It was a GREAT incentive to ‘not want to be sent there’ for Kids! Kids thrive on ‘incentives’. Now it’s all backwards – to see ‘how bad’ you can be, instead of pride in ‘being Good’ and ‘doing Well’ at School. NOW, America is being sidelined by 3rd world impoverished countries in ‘Education Achievement’. And all we can think of to DO is to ‘lower the expectations’??? Our kids aren’t the only ones who are ‘dumbed-down’ today. What a legacy we are leaving for them… Forget being Woke! We need to WAKE UP!
The only solution really is to keep phones out of the hands of children. Only when parents see how destructive this technology is, will kids have any chance at a “normal” full life. Phones have wrecked the last generation, we know it has, yet we haven’t the will to fix it. It’s a shame.
So, education in our country has been turned over to the women, and they have failed miserably. Why does no one say this ?
ah yes Mississippi.where everyone is on welfare.