What’s wrong with American schools? Lots!

Former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks often about how the health of American children has declined during his lifetime. Since Kennedy suspended his campaign last month and endorsed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, both he and Trump have stated that Kennedy will hold a prominent position in Trump’s administration if he wins – perhaps secretary of health and human services, or head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – tasked with improving American health.

Now if only we could find someone to tackle the declining quality of American education.

According to a December 2023 article in EducationWeek, U.S. teens scored 13 points lower on the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment than their peers did on the 2018 PISA. The United States ranks 10th in math internationally, with fewer than 10% of American students testing at an “advanced” level. More than a third of U.S. students did not even meet basic achievement levels in math. And in schools where most of the students live in poverty, the scores were abysmal: 50 points below the U.S. average (not the overall average) in math, 48 points below the U.S. average in reading, and 53 points below the U.S. average in science. Half of American high schools no longer even offer courses in calculus or computer science.

Violence in our schools is another terrible problem. Public schools that responded to a 2021-22 survey collected by the National Center for Education Statistics disclosed 857,000 violent incidents in that one academic year. A quick internet search produces countless videos of shocking attacks captured on cellphone cameras at American schools.

Then there are the students who don’t show up at all. Recent data from the Department of Education reveals that nearly 30% of American students in kindergarten through 12th grade were “chronically absent” (missing more than 10% of the school year) in both the 2022-23 and 2021-22 school years. This is a 13% increase from 2019 (pre-pandemic) – which suggests that the damage done by COVID-19 lockdowns is not limited to the loss of educational content during the school closures themselves.

Defenders of the U.S. educational system often point to our colleges and universities as proof of the excellence of the American educational system. But this misses at least two important points. First, although less than 6% of all U.S. college and university students are foreign, fully 56% of students enrolled in science or engineering programs are foreign-born (in some programs, the number is over 80%); the numbers of foreign students in bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. programs in STEM fields has doubled since 1993. Second, more than two-thirds of Americans do not have college degrees; for the majority of our citizens, therefore, it’s the quality of our K-12 educational system that matters.

Declining performance. Shrinking numbers of Americans qualified to enter technical fields. Violence. Truancy. Faced with these trends, one would think that school boards and K-12 administrators would be frantically working to improve the quality and rigor of public education, and to strengthen the preparedness of all students, including and especially those facing the greatest obstacles to achievement.

Instead, educators are busy eliminating the proof of underlying problems. For example, public and private high schools are offering fewer Advanced Placement college preparatory courses. Why? Because activists claim that racial disparities in enrollment and performance in those courses make them discriminatory.

The state of Oregon has gone even further. In 2023, its Department of Education eliminated the requirements that students graduating from high school had to be able to “read and comprehend a variety of text, write clearly and accurately,” and “apply mathematics in a variety of settings.” Advocates for the change successfully argued that these most basic of educational standards were “racially biased” and “inequitable.”

It isn’t just minority or poor students who are negatively affected by misguided decisions like this; Only 43% of Oregon’s 2022 high school graduates were proficient in English, and only 30% were proficient in math. But it’s easier to praise yourself for pursuing “equity” by eliminating standards than it is to ask why some students aren’t meeting them and address the causes of those deficiencies.

Teachers and administrators are also focusing much of their attention on helping schoolchildren “explore” their gender identities, hiding gender “transitions” from their parents, and exposing them to vulgar and explicit sexual content in the curriculum, in clubs and other extracurricular activities, and in a ready supply of library books. Social media is filled with videos of irate parents at school board meetings across the country, objecting to intrusive and explicit homework assignments and library books so graphic that their content cannot be read into the meeting record.

This obsession with children’s sexuality is grossly inappropriate. It is made even more bizarre and inexplicable when one considers how poorly schools are performing their primary functions.

The proper role of the educational system is to ensure that students are proficient speakers and readers of English, capable of doing basic math and possessing at least a rudimentary understanding of science. Without these skills, they cannot hope to be productive and well-informed citizens who are able to support themselves. If our schools cannot successfully execute their most basic and fundamental responsibilities, they have no reason to exist.