Of all the ailments afflicting our public schools, few are worse than the dumbing down of students. This casts a pall on the country’s future, and this ominous cloud is cast by design.

That’s why you can look at pretty much any state in the country, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress results are similar — and too often dismal.

The NAEP is a national test, taken by 4th, 8th, and 11th graders in all 50 states.

For those keen to improve our public schools, the general drift is unmistakable and not a little worrisome: About half the nation’s children are not at “grade level” in language and math.

It’s even worse in states subjugated by so-called teachers unions. A few examples will suffice: Nothing but goose eggs in reading at 32 Illinois schools, according to a 2022 report from the Illinois State Board of Education.

Unions and their political allies have persistently raised per-pupil spending in Illinois by claiming to rescue low-income students. Using their “poor minorities” talking points, they’ve raised annual spending to astronomical numbers; some districts spend over $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, or even $50,000 per pupil. Yet, not a single student — zero — tested at grade level in reading in 32 schools.

Similarly, not a single student tested proficient in math in 67 Illinois schools.

The late economist Walter Williams, while a professor at George Mason University, studied 39 high schools in Baltimore, whose schools ranked third in per-pupil spending nationally.

As quoted by economist Thomas Sowell in Charter Schools and Their Enemies, Williams reported that in 13 of those 39 high schools, not a single student scored proficient in math. In six other high schools, just 1% tested proficient in math. Citywide, only 15% passed the state’s English test.

How can we get such dismal results while spending such large amounts of money? The answer: Failure is the goal, and Americans have fallen prey to a shakedown of our educational system.

For decades, unions have worked relentlessly to convince Americans that we need trillions poured into our schools. They’ve used our tax dollars to destroy our children: indoctrinate them, sexualize them turn them against parents, demoralize them, dumb them down, and replace learning fundamentals with communist propaganda.

We’ve been exploited, folks — cleverly manipulated into supporting the demise of our children and country.

Now unions are openly dragging our children to leftist political rallies, during the school day, instead of teaching them civics and American history. In fact, their communist agenda has so infiltrated every aspect of our schools that we’re even dumbing down the dumbing down!

School systems revised “grade level” downward, meaning a student reading at grade level in 8th grade today isn’t reading as well as an 8th-grader at grade level 10 years ago. And this downward trend has been going on for decades. Unions have dumbed us down so thoroughly that most college-educated Americans would have a hard time passing the 1895 8th-grade exit exam.

Many colleges scrapped the ACT and SAT as requirements for admission, and scores on those tests have been falling for years. Ironically, ACT’s vast survey of results from 2010 to 2022 also found that grade inflation accelerated as aptitudes declined.

Janet Godwin, ACT’s CEO, reported that by 2022, 89% of American high school students received an A or a B in math, English, social studies, and science. Indeed, more than four in five students (80%) felt they were “very” or “mostly” academically prepared for college.

Pfffft… Not even close. Using benchmarks for English composition, algebra, social sciences, and biology, the ACT found only 21% met all benchmarks, and a whopping 43% met none.

The ACT study found in 2019-2020 — before a damaging lockdown made things even worse — 65.4% of first-year undergrads signed up for remedial math, and 42.1% for reading and writing. Just four years earlier, those numbers were 14% and 8.8%, respectively.

So, we have children who think they’re educated when they’re not — perfect targets for clever propagandists disguised as teachers.

Thanks to legislators aided by formidable unions, the ailments afflicting schools are numerous and ominous. Most adults who attended public schools are familiar with drugs , gangs, and bullies, the ubiquitous evils that stymied many an academic pursuit for untold millions. But most don’t realize these nightmares began after unions took control of our schools, and now unions command curricula that stress anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, racism, class warfare, transgenderism, and the LGBT cult — in other words, communism.

Also, thanks to unions, most of this must be taught under threat of law, and teachers who refuse to cooperate get squashed.

So, our children are failing by design; it’s intentional. Communists masquerading as “teachers unions” have actively abused generations of children and taxpayers, to the detriment of us all.

Written by Rebecca Friedrichs and Roger Ruvolo for the Washington Times ~ March 20, 2024

~ Authors ~
Rebecca Friedrichs is the founder of For Kids and Country, the author of Standing Up to Goliath, and a 28-year public school teacher who was lead plaintiff in Friedrichs v. CTA. Roger Ruvolo is a longtime newspaper editor and a contributor to For Kids & Country.