When Schools Try to Cover Up Their Failures

Social promotion and efforts to ban standardized tests are ways of shielding adults from accountability

By Jason L. Riley. Excerpts:

"Among 13-year-olds in nearly every demographic group, test scores in math and reading were flat (since 2022). And most youngsters continue to lack proficiency in both subjects."

there is "pressure on teachers to pass students regardless of classroom performance or even attendance"

"The result is a school system full of children unable to perform academically at even the most basic level."

"many teachers said that they were discouraged or forbidden by their principals from flunking students, or that they have given out failing grades that were overridden. Others said failing students was permitted if justified, but the administrative burden to rationalize failure, even for students who did not show up to school, is onerous or impossible.”"

"An Education Department study in 2024 found that 1 in 4 young adults are functionally illiterate, even though more than half received high-school diplomas."

"many of today’s high-school grads function at or below a middle-school level of education. Eliminating standardized tests wouldn’t change that reality"

"it isn’t expensive to teach children reading and arithmetic, something that was done competently for many decades on budgets much smaller than what educators have at their disposal today." 

"empirical studies have shown that smaller class sizes have minimal effect on student learning. Countries that consistently outperform the U.S. on international tests, including Japan and South Korea, have larger classes on average. So do many high-performing charter schools."

"the best-performing students in the U.S. tend to be of South Asian and East Asian heritage. They are among the groups least likely to be taught by someone who looks like them."