Will US Education Keep Up?

There’s been a lot of conversation lately about education and what our children are learning…. Or not learning.

The North Carolina Legislature passed a Parent’s Bill of Rights to require schools to contact parents regarding transgender issues and students wanting to be addressed by different pronouns. Parents should never be left out when these conversations are happening.

Some are wondering why we have such low test scores and reports of students not having basic reading and math skills. Why aren’t we focusing on teaching them? After all, the mission of the school is to teach and learn.

Jason Riley recently wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal about this issue, and I found it very interesting.

Learning achievement levels have been declining for decades. This is nothing new but it continues to get worse. And the achievement gap between white students and black students is disturbing.

The U.S. Education Department reported that, in New York, the average reading score gap between black students and white students is nearly 30 points. The report claimed that the “performance gap was not significantly different than in 1998.

The solutions that are being proposed are disturbing as well. The progressive left’s response is to attack meritocracy instead of focusing on improving outcomes. The goal is to eliminate all programs for exceptional students. Gifted and talented programs should be eliminated, and there should be no high school entrance exams and no use of the SAT in college admissions.

One of my favorite economists was Dr. Walter Williams and he studied and wrote about the education system often. He was a noted professor at Stanford. He was forever pointing out that his colleagues in academia were holding their black students to a lower standard. “There was no more effective way to mislead black students and discredit whatever legitimate achievement they might make than giving them phony grades and ultimately fraudulent diplomas,” he said.

Riley points out in the article that medical students, in all 50 states, must pass a licensure exam before they can practice. It’s a 3 part exam and the first step is taken at the second year of medical school. The test is highly predictive of your performance going forward in medicine. Three years ago, the country’s leading medical groups voted to scrap numerical scores and only report pass/fail. Where is the incentive to perform at a high level?

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, an academic physician, wrote a book titled, “Take Two Aspirin and Call Me by my Pronouns.” He points out that pressure on medical schools to relax admission standards to have more diversity has led to lowering licensing requirements.

Black doctors are more likely than white doctors to serve in underserved areas. We know that these low-income neighborhoods also have the worst health outcomes. That’s even more reason to make sure that we have the best trained, best educated doctors in the areas with the greatest need.

Mr. Riley points out, in his article, that addressing the achievement gap in K12- would be helpful toward solving the one in medical school.

Other troubling statistics are consistent.

The math and reading performance of 13-year-olds in the United States has hit the lowest level in decades, according to test scores released today from the National Assessment of Educational Progress,

The last time math performance was this low for 13-year-olds was in 1990. In reading, 2004.

Our educational performance has been in a steep decline for a long time. The pandemic surely didn’t help.

We must find a better way to improve scores and make certain that our children are learning in a global world. They will not be competing for careers only against their fellow students here but around the world.

I wonder if other countries are lowering performance standards as we are. I bet NOT.