As the academic year draws to a close, it is imperative to reflect on the state of our education system. Despite the influx of funding, student performance remains stagnant or declining, prompting the need for transformative reforms that prioritize school choice and empower families.
Our education system faces significant challenges, evident in plummeting math and ACT scores, indicating widespread deficiencies in core subjects. The unforgivable decision to close schools during the COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated these issues, depriving children of essential learning opportunities.
Reforming Education: Empowering Families through School Choice
However, the decline in educational performance predated the pandemic. One of the world's foremost education scholars, Eric Hanushek, recently noted that this decline has been ongoing for decades, despite quadrupling per-pupil spending since 1960 and doubling it since 1980.
Hanushek's research suggests that funding alone is insufficient to improve student learning; rather, it must be tied to rewarding performance. However, teacher unions adamantly oppose any objective performance measures.
Reforming Education: Empowering Families through School Choice
In recent years, schools have shifted their focus away from academic achievement, emphasizing social justice, climate change, and LGBTQ issues, at the expense of traditional subjects like math, reading, and science.
This misguided approach has resulted in a generation of students who are ill-equipped to succeed in college and the workforce. The lack of progress in our education system is a national crisis that requires urgent action.
Reforming Education: Empowering Families through School Choice
Thankfully, there is growing momentum for parental choice movement, with 13 states implementing programs that allow education dollars to follow children to charter schools, Catholic schools, or other alternative options.
This competition has the potential to incentivize public schools to improve their performance. However, the road ahead is fraught with challenges, as teacher unions fiercely oppose any reforms that would measure their performance.
The warning issued in 1983 that our schools were falling into a cesspool of mediocrity has become a grim reality. It is imperative that we enact meaningful reforms that empower families through school choice and prioritize accountability to ensure our children receive the quality education they deserve.
The time for action is now. We cannot afford to wait another 40 years for our education system to improve. The future of our nation depends on it.
