by Paul Angel, Managing Editor at American Free Press
About 10 years ago, I adopted an Australian cattle dog.
Rosie was slated for a trip to the gas chamber because nobody wanted her; too much work. Cattle dogs, as some of you know, can be quite a handful. But I saw some potential there, and she took a shine to me, so I took a chance on her.
Like most cattle dogs, Rosie is stubborn, so I took her to a local pet store for training. She passed with flying colors. She could sit, lie down, stay and speak (in dog language). She got her
doggie diploma with a big gold seal. But one thing she never could learn to do was speak in English or perform basic mathematical functions, though she does know the difference between
one squirrel and two. In short, she knows about as much about math and English as some kids attending public school in the U.S. (See pages 12-13.)
Sadly, in some school districts in America, exactly 0% of students are proficient in English and mathematics, just like Rosie. And, even with her limited English and math skills, if Rosie replaced the teachers in those schools, she, too, could expect to see 0% of her students graduating with a proficiency in English and math. In short, my dog could do as good a job as some innercity schools are doing teaching students, and Rosie doesn’t require a minimum
wage. Some school districts could save a lot of money having dogs teach English and math and end up with the same results. It’s sad, but true.
So what is going on here? How come so many kids in America are failing so badly? Honestly, it can’t all be the fault of the teachers. The vast majority are hardworking, caring and nurturing people who went into the profession of teaching because they love it, and they love kids, too.
In the suburbs, things are a little better, but the statistics say that, even in a better environment, way too many American kids are doing miserably.
According to the website “Public School Review,” the U.S. national proficiency average for math is 38%. The state or territory of the United States with the highest math proficiency rate is actually the U.S. Virgin Islands, with a score of 85%. In the 50 states, Maine and Iowa have the highest math proficiency with 81% and 64%. respectively. The lowest math proficiency ranking is, surprisingly, the state of Maryland, with an overall rate of 19%. That percentage is brought down dramatically by the abysmal scores in Baltimore City, with some school districts boasting a
0% math proficiency.
As far as reading and English go, it’s a little better. Again, according to “Public School Review,” the national average for reading/language arts proficiency in the United States is 46%.
Maine again gets a good score, as it did in mathematics, with a proficiency ranking of 85%, while Oklahoma is down at the bottom with a reading proficiency of just 25%. In other words,
about half of high school graduates would find it hard to read this column. In Virginia, 71% of kids demonstrate a proficiency in reading/English, Iowa comes in at 68%, and New York at 63%.
The rest of the states lag far behind—except the U.S. Virgin Islands at 64%.
As most of the students in the U.S. Virgin Islands are black (76%), one has to wonder why their mainland counterparts are doing so poorly. Obviously there is a difference in something—
culture, environment, diet, school administration—something. Most likely it’s that “woke” liberals haven’t gotten their hands on Virgin Islands schools yet. Ever since liberals gained control of public schools in America, test scores for blacks have continually dropped—lower than at any point since the Jim Crow era when they actually received a decent education in all black schools and black families boasted a lower divorce rate than whites.
As for their “brown” counterparts, students of Indian (India, not Native Americans) descent are thriving, as are Asian children. This pretty much makes the point that the problem may not be
the schools themselves. Many Hispanic kids in America are not doing so well, either. But a large percentage of them have an excuse: They didn’t speak English when they got here and many may have attended inferior (or no) schools, depending on which part of Latin America they hail from. The problem with that excuse is that many Asian students arrive with no more knowledge of English than do Hispanics, yet they seem to thrive.
So there is much more going on here to explain the failure of U.S. school kids than simply country of origin, school district, race, environment, the skills of teachers, banishing God from schools, IQ, etc, etc. I mean, you don’t have to be a brain surgeon to graduate from the
U.S. public school system with a basic proficiency in math and English these days. The resources available to all students are significant enough for us to believe that U.S. school kids should be proficient in math and English at a 60% rate at least—an average “D” grade.
And money isn’t the answer, either, as those Baltimore City schools I mentioned doing so poorly spend more per student than almost any other school system in America.
I don’t have the answer. All I know is that the U.S. public school system has been failing for a variety of reasons that seem to have coalesced in a perfect storm of utter failure. And blaming all
this on the Covid lockdowns isn’t fair. The test scores of U.S. school children have been dropping for decades. The lockdowns only made things worse.
So what is the answer? Charter schools? Homeschooling? Church schools? More familial participation? Higher expectations? Better teachers? More concentration on the old basic skills
and less on gender identification? Social media and cell phone restriction? Whatever it is, we better get the problem fixed, or America will continue to devolve into a nation of semi-illiterates
who can’t perform basic mathematical functions. And that bodes very poorly for the future of this nation, which is going to be relying on these young people to solve the problems our politicians
are unable or unwilling to tackle.
Sorry, but Rosie can’t teach math and solve all those problems, too. ★
Paul Angel, Managing Editor