Where All The Students Are Above Average

In the continued inflation of American education, it is now admitted that students are getting higher grades on their college entrance classes for less effort and knowledge.

Education Next: The Dumbing Down of Advanced Placement Tests

The College Board, the agency in charge of the AP program, admits its questions are easier and passing scores have been lowered on key tests like the English Language exam. They justify the easier tests as an adjustment to a less demanding curriculum in high school and lowered expectations by colleges and universities. In other words, AP is simply adapting to a broad decline in educational standards.

Or to simplify: Grade inflation comes to the AP college admission tests.

Meanwhile, education costs continue to outpace inflation with lesser results.

While prevailing wisdom is that throwing more money at a problem leads to better results, Mississippi now leads in reading scores with funding per pupil far below states with far higher per pupil spending. That is, of course, because the money spent per pupil wasn't actually reaching the pupils.

The increase in Mississippi were due not to more dollars thrown at the problem but to reforms that focused on real results.

It is more than past time to stop inflating grades and dumbing-down tests and instead focus on actual reforms in our public schools.  How about we stop just throwing money at administrators, bureaucrats, and teacher's unions and getting the same results and instead focus on reforms that work?

Maybe, as a modest suggestion, how about less DEI for kids and more learn to read for starters?

Clearly The Problem Is Not Spending Enough Money on Education

An interesting report out of Illinois.

In over 30 public schools, none, as in not one, zero, not a single kid, is reading at their appropriate grade level.

Note that the per pupil spending ranges in these 30 schools from an outlying low of $8,861 up to an astonishing $56,311, with an average of $21,000 per student among the 30 schools and this is the result you get. That kind of spending is on par with private school tuition at some of the best private schools -with unquestionably far worse results.

Similarly, in all of Maryland Public Schools, half of all the third graders were not reading at grade level.

In Detroit Public Schools, 88% of third graders were under grade level in reading.

It's as if public schools were not there to educate but instead fund the Teacher's and Administrator's Unions to funnel money back to the Democrats in return for more public money for higher salaries and benefits and then rinse and repeat.