October 27, 2022

The National Association of Educational Progress (NAEP) report is out and it’s a bombshell. America’s 4th and 8th grade scores in reading and math were the largest drops ever recorded since the first NAEP report went nationwide in 1992.

NAEP places all the blame for the destructive results (especially in our most vulnerable populations), on the draconian lock-down and lock-out policies that kept children out of school and in their rooms. Minnesota students were confined to distance learning longer than many states and suffered some of the steepest declines in reading and math.

Distance learning exposed curriculum saturated in Critical Race Theory, Comprehensive Sex Education, Social Emotional Learning, trashy porn novels, and libraries filled with pornographic books have created an almost impossible environment for a child to get a real education. The NAEP report is a direct reflection of how the Teacher’s Unions, well-funded special interest political nonprofits, and government bureaucrats are crippling American students and failing their parents.

Many districts will have referendums on the ballot this fall. Do your research. Per pupil funding in most districts far exceeds the cost of many private and parochial educational options as well as homeschooling. Money is not the problem. It is rarely the problem. Genuine education has been systematically undermined in our nation.

Perhaps one of the most egregious examples of money not being tied to results is this recent example out of Baltimore.

Project Baltimore reported on Tiffany France’s son. “In four years at Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Design, he passed three classes and earned a grade point average of 0.13. Yet his transcripts show his class rank is 62 of 120, meaning 58 students, just in his grade, have a 0.13 GPA or lower.” At the time of the story, it was reported that the school was receiving $17,000 of state and federal funding per student!

The 2022 edition of the nation’s report card is based on test results from more than 220,000 eighth- and fourth-grade students in all 50 states attending more than 5,000 public and private schools across the country. Students took the NAEP tests between January and March of 2022.

The following are excerpts from The74 by Kevin Mahnken, October 24, 2022

Nation’s Report Card Shows Largest Drops Ever Recorded in 4th and 8th Grade Math

National testing data released this morning reveals severe damage inflicted on student math and reading performance, reaffirming COVID-19’s ongoing educational toll. Even as some states have shown evidence of academic recovery this year, federal officials cautioned that learning lost to the pandemic will not be easily restored.

Eighth-grade math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called the “Nation’s Report Card,” fell by a jarring eight points since the test was last administered in 2019, while fourth-grade scores dropped by five points; both are the largest math declines ever recorded on the test. (emphasis added) In reading, both fourth- and eighth-grade scores fell by three points, leaving them statistically unchanged since 1992, when NAEP was first rolled out.

“Normally for a NAEP assessment … we’re talking about significant differences of two or three points,” Carr said on a Friday call with reporters. “So, an eight-point decline that we’re seeing in the math data is stark. It is troubling. It is significant.”

A look at the results in their entirety show just how significant. There were no statistically significant gains in math, for either fourth or eighth graders, in any state in 2022. Instead, fourth-grade scores dropped significantly in 43 jurisdictions (either the 50 states, the District of Columbia, or schools operated by the Department of Defense Education Activity) while remaining statistically unchanged in 10. Eighth-grade math fell in 51 jurisdictions while holding steady in just two, Utah and the DoDEA schools. The average eighth-grade score has not only fallen since 2019 — it is significantly lower than when the test was administered in 2003. (emphasis added)

Translated into the exam’s performance levels, a massive downward shift can be seen. In 2019, 34% of fourth graders and 27% of eighth graders scored below the “NAEP Basic” level in reading — the most rudimentary threshold of English mastery classified by the test. In 2022, those groups had grown to 37% of fourth graders and 30% of eighth graders, respectively. The below-basic classification also swelled in math, from 19% of fourth graders and 31% of eighth graders in 2019 to 25% of fourth graders and 38% of eighth graders in 2022. (emphasis added)

Chart in PDF[Notice Minnesota’s results compared to her neighboring states.]

Beneath the headline numbers, differing effects among student groups also made an impact on longstanding achievement gaps. For example, gaps in fourth-grade math performance between white and African American students, white and Hispanic students, male and female students, and students with and without disabilities expanded. Conversely, gaps actually closed between many of the same groups in eighth-grade reading — including by a surprising seven points between English learners and native English speakers.

Julia Rafal-Baer is a K-12 education expert who serves on the National Assessment Governing Board, a nonpartisan body that sets policy for NAEP. In a statement, she said the results demonstrated the existence of “an education crisis” that demanded new solutions.

Not surprisingly, all the blame is directed at Covid. But Covid exacerbated a massive education shift that has been in the works for years. The proposed solutions from the education establishment are to double down on race-based and identity-based classrooms, as evidenced in the proposed new teacher licensing standards and the pending identity-based social studies standards. ‘Equity,’, mandated equal outcomes by identity groups, is fueling an aggressive drive for Social Emotional Learning (SEL), ‘trauma-informed’ teaching,’ and ‘Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion.’ None of these can demonstrate improved academic learning. But, as we’ve observed, academics is not the goal. The goal is a culture-shift for social change.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, that brought us Common Core and the money behind the destructive social emotional learning, announced it will fund $1.1 billion in K-12 math initiatives over the next four years.

“In efforts to flip the bleak script, the Foundation’s strategy includes focusing on elementary and middle schools and funding teacher preparation, research, along with culturally, socially relevant curricula and materials. (emphasis added)

Having billionaire global corporate interests such as the Gates Foundation determine how and what our teachers teach completely overrides locally elected school boards and local parental input. Gates is buying his way and his agenda into our classrooms.

Bill Gates tells us his math is about equity and cultural relevancy! ‘Math Wars’ have been raging in education for over 20 years, whether to teach traditional math or the new ‘Equity Math.”

And Gates is funding teacher training! How many of today’s institutions of higher education teacher training programs embedded in CRT are also taking Gates money? It’s worth finding out, because, in education, many controversial fads are adopted because of the funds attached to them.

Will it take two decades to recover children’s learning deficits, as many claim? Not if education quickly disentangles itself from social activism, hyper-sexualization, equity and post-modernism, and recalibrates toward real science, phonics, math, history, and classical literature. If schools are serious about that, instead of being driven by leftist politics, the trend will be quickly reversed.

This is a window of time for real change. Covid lockdowns brought a seismic shift among parents who began to really SEE what their children were learning and what they were being exposed to. Many were awakened to their woke schools and are doing something about it. They are showing up at school board meetings, running for school board positions, exposing radical LGBTQ books, and forming powerful local and national groups all over the country. Home schooling has exploded. Never have we seen a better opportunity to push hard for real school reform and choice.

The future of our nation depends upon a well-educated populace that is grounded in the truth.