We should hold students to higher expectations and give them the support they need, and we need to give teachers the resources to do their job well…
— from an article on education policy by Jared Solomon and Mark White in Governing magazine, February 12, 2025.
Jared Solomon is a Democratic member of the Maryland House of Delegates. He began his career as a high school social studies teacher. Mark White is a Republican member of the Tennessee House of Representatives. He started out as a middle school science teacher. Both are members of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for the Nation’s Report Card.
Their joint article published on Governing.com yesterday was titled:
Don’t Let Partisan Politics Stop Us from Helping Children Excel in School
Meanwhile, some of us may have noticed the partisan politics that has infected almost every aspect of American life in 2025.
Especially, perhaps, where the nation’s schools are concerned.
The Governing magazine article began like this:
The latest Nation’s Report Card will surely cause hand-wringing and probably finger-pointing, but none of that will help our kids. We have to take a unified approach to turn things around…
They’re here referencing the The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — also known as the “Nation’s Report Card” — which is an ongoing attempt by the federal government’s Department of Education, to assess the performance of American elementary and secondary schools. According to the U.S. Department of Education “NAEP has provided meaningful results to improve education policy and practice since 1969. Results are available for the nation, states, and 27 urban districts.”
Various tests are administered at various grade levels, in various years. Many of the test have not been administered since 2010. The most regular testing happens for “reading” and “mathematics”, and those tests were given in 2022 and 2024.
The results of the latest 2024 “report card” are mixed. Or unavailable. The math scores for Colorado’s 4th grade public school students, for instance, were not significantly different from 2022, nor from the rest of the U.S.
When I tried to access the 8th grade math scores at the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) website , I got this message:
NOTICE: NCES.ED.GOV Is Temporarily Down
Dear users,
Due to a technical issue, nces.ed.gov is currently down. We greatly appreciate your patience as we get this system running again. Please check back shortly.
Not sure if that means anything important.
As many of our readers are no doubt aware, President Donald Trump has nominated Linda McMahon — former professional wrestler and founder, with her husband Vince McMahon, of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. — to head the U.S. Department of Education. Her confirmation hearing is schedule for today, February 13.
Trump apparently hopes Ms. McMahon will “put herself out of a job.”
Presumably, Ms. McMahon will have the opportunity to put numerous school teachers out of a job, as well. All in the interests of better education for our children.
Also, we will presumably no longer be interested in a national report card.
Here are a few results of the recent “reading” and “math” report cards for U.S. public schools, from the NCES website. The dark blue circles indicate “improvement” (even though NCES told us the growth might not be “significant”) and the light blue circles indicate a drop in scores. The gray diamonds mean, “no change”.
“Reading” scores don’t look so good, particularly among “average” and “below average” readers.
It appears that 4th grade civics and 12th grade civics have not been assessed since 2010. In grade 8, civics is trending poorly.
Maybe civics is not longer educationally important. Especially if we’re going to have a professional wrestler running the Department of Education?
When I was attending public school in the late 1950s and early 1960s, our school had a simplified, three-step grading system. “E” meant “Excellent”. “S” meant “Satisfactory”. And “N” meant “Needs More”.
“Needs More of What” was not exactly clear.
“Needs More Effort”? “Needs More Personal Attention”? “Needs More Investment in Teacher Salaries”?
In the video clip shared above, featuring our President, he notes that “We’re ranked Number 40 out of 40 schools, right? We’re ranked Number One in cost per pupil.”
I’m pretty sure he meant, “Number 40 out of 40 countries“.
But, as usual, he was failing his math test. Those are just made-up numbers.
We’ll discuss “cost per pupil” later. First, a look at educational outcomes.
According to US News & World Report, the U.S. education system ranks Number One in the world.
Presumably, our President doesn’t subscribe to US News & World Report. (I don’t either.)
The nearest I can come to education data for “40 countries” would be the 37 countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that participate in the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, conducted every three years in reading, math and science for 15-year-old students. The most recent results are from 2022.
In no PISA category does the U.S. rank last. Rather, the U.S. scored above average among OECD countries in reading and science.
PISA also includes scores for 44 non-OECD countries participating in the testing program. Looking at all of the 81 countries in the reading test dataset, including non-OECD countries, the U.S. ranked 9th.
Again, looking at all 81 countries, the U.S. ranked 16th in science.
The math score for the U.S. was ‘below average’, putting us at 34th place. You might say, our grade was “N”.
From the Governing magazine article by Jared Solomon and Mark White:
We come from a red state and a blue state, and we belong to different political parties. As state legislators, we disagree on plenty of policies, like vouchers. But we both started our careers as classroom teachers, and there are many things we agree on, starting with our shared belief that all children need an excellent education that lifts them and prepares them for a promise-filled future…
Here in Pagosa Springs — a red corner of a blue state — do we generally agree with those statements? Do we want all students to get an excellent education?
Read Part Two, tomorrow…