By BRENDAN CLAREY | THE CENTER SQUARE
According to a federal survey of school leaders, 40% of students in the nation’s public schools were behind grade level in one or more subjects at the beginning of the school year.
The National Center for Education Statistics announced its findings this week that the percentage of students school leaders estimated to be behind where they should be was down 7% from the 2022-23 school year but still 8% higher than before the pandemic.
School leaders told the federal education statistics agency in October that over a third of students were behind entering the 2024-25 school year. NCES data shows students are farther behind than before state and local governments closed schools during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Before the pandemic, school leaders estimated that 32% of students were behind grade level in at least one area. In 2021-22, it rose to 45%, and in the 2022-23 school year, it reached 47%.
The data shows school leaders were more likely to say students from low-income families and in schools where the population was 76% or more students of color were behind, with 52% of students estimated to be behind where they should be.
School leaders located in cities and at schools with fewer than 300 students reported that 48% of students were lagging academically.
The data follows with broader student academic achievement data and other metrics that show the effects of the pandemic closures were not equitable to minority students, who suffered more significant declines in academic achievement.
The survey also found that students were more likely to be estimated to be behind in specific subject areas studied.
“Ninety-eight percent of public schools reported that at least some students were behind grade level in mathematics and English or language arts,” the NCES said in its findings.
School leaders said 76% of students were behind in the sciences, and 55% were behind in social studies.
This story initially published at Chalkboard News, a K-12 news site that, like The Center Square, is also published by Franklin News Foundation.
I’m not sure I believe it. Maybe in low income areas it may be true, but certainly not nationwide.
Oh it’s true. Alaska public schools I’m the bottom 5 in the nation, while Alaska Charter Schools are listed in the top 5 in the nation. Why is that?
Crappy alaskan parents. Babies are born the same.
That makes no sense. There are many engaged parents, whose kids are in public school and many still can’t read or do math like their private school or home school counterparts. The logical conclusion is public schools are crappy!
Probably some are, but if a parent is involved in their child’s education and they know they are struggling, they, along with the school develop a plan, and if that means homeschooling or schooling at home after school, then that’s what parents do. They don’t say my hands are washed clean of this. Because I pay my tax dollars to you People, and it’s your responsibility Now, not mine, i’m just a parent by god.
The problem isn’t struggling students, the problem is schools giving kids good grades and promoting them even when they have NOT mastered the material. I know of 5th graders, who got As and Bs in math but could not add or subtract without counting on their fingers, let alone multiply. This is clearly demonstrated in the standardized testing results we see every year.
Most parents make the assumption that good grades indicate mastery of the material. Ironically when parents discover the disparity, teachers insist that parents should not complain since their students still made good grades. That’s when parents pull their kids out of the public system.
The common core curriculum does not allow for any variance in teaching to accommodate the learning of a particular grade level or classroom. It is like the “system” is the most important thing not the student.
40% nationwide is what the report is. Think about the inner city schools at zero to single digit competency. I find this not only believable but probably on the low end.
As someone who has several loved ones working in the Alaska school system statewide, I can absolutely believe it. I also work with children to teens in my job and can tell you that their level of general knowledge is extremely lacking.
At least 45% of our Property Taxes goes to ASD.
Yet, this is the performance we ‘Taxpayers’ get!
Maybe(?), it’s time to trim the ASD budget by 25%?
Maybe(?), parents should seek alternative choices?
Maybe(?), it’s time for school choice w/ tax dollars allocated per student?
I agree. It’s time to try something different. Something that doesn’t simply throw even more money at the problem and hope for a different result.
Public schools – 3 administrators for every 1 teacher.
Private schools – 1 administrator for every 3 teachers.
Public schools – 40% to 60% more personnel than Private schools.
Compare the test scores – private school kids are actually functionally literate.
Anyone in the private sector that hires these Anchorage “school” kids knows the majority of them ARE NOT functionally literate in rudimentary math, reading comprehension, and basic verbal English skills.
Epic FAILURE Anchorage.
Again….
Any I was in had 2 admin for about 20 certified staff and 15 classified.
Too bad more people are unable to home school. Then the public school Ponzi scheme might collapse. It’s outgrown it usefulness.
Thank you Dr. Fauci.
And no one should contradict him, because, of course, he represents “science”.
Well H*ll. Just throw more money at the problem.. It has worked so well in the past.
Throwing money isn’t the solution, providing the time as a parent to help Educate your students is the solution. Crack open a book with your kid instead of watching jeopardy. Ask the teacher to send home homework. The you Help the student with nightly.
The condition of our youth is far worse than large numbers being “behind grade level” in several critical subjects due the standards used are so low to begin with.
We must end the monopoly that public schools have over education public funding, which entraps all students whose families are unable to afford private schooling.
We need a competitive education industry.
Arguably it is not all the fault of the School system and teachers; lackadaisical and/or uninvolved parents share much of the blame. And yet, it still goes back to the educational institution which many decades ago convinced parents that the public school would take care of all the needs of their children: knowledge, health, food, transportation and enculturation. Most students in private and charter schools, and of course homes schoolers, don’t have these “advantages” and most are thriving in spite of that.
Ha!!! 100% agree. Been preaching that myself on here to deaf ears. Folks want to hate, so teachers are an easy pick.
It’s a combination of way too many administrators and teachers indoctrination of their political views in the classroom. I agree that parental involvement is also in the mix.
I never once saw that.
Well, then I guess it was never happening under the watchful eyes of people like yourself. I hear about it all the time from other parents and from first person accounts from friends of my son who go to public high school. Haven’t you been “retired” for awhile now? When was the last time you were in a major urban or suburban public school, Greg?
Retired 4 years. Never. I taught in the bush.
Sorry Greg parents and taxpayers have legitimate concerns. That’s NOT hate! Yes parents should be more involved, but as Steve Peterson above pointed out, the administrative state of the school district has long attempted to branch out into areas that do not concern them at all. I recall a banking option, a community clinic, psychology and social services, free lunches for all regardless of income, free taxi rides for students to and from school etc.
Instead of spending tax dollars on actual teaching, they are wasted on these special project and social engineering. The real fact is that teachers are the visible entity of the district and so the greatest bargaining chip every time some bond or BSA increase does not go through. None of the administrators ever get fired, just teachers, janitors or school secretaries…..
I saw principals fired. Teachers too.
Teachers bring the hate onto themselves with their continued demands for MORE resources in order to provide even LESS performance. If you just listen to their u ion shills, they deserved he everything we have,in order to never set foot in front of students. Oh, and ZERO accountability or standards for performance. And throw in public celebrations where that are lauded as “heroes” merely for occasionally showing up to drown students in indoctrination against the parents
american IQ has been declining by one point every ten years since 1970. SAT scores peaked in 1972, today schools have multiple valedictorians with over 4.0, nothing to worry about.
Shepards have told sheep to fear the wolf, Shepards eat the lambs and sheep. they stole the social security funds starting in 1982, promised to pay us back.
sheep need to control the wolves.
Hey Alaska, we’re not a far behind as we think you are! Actually, we can consider ourselves leaders. /S
Most of it was because the “WOKE” garbage was forced upon the schools,children AND it side tracked the education downturn at the “heels” of the shut-down from the Covid years..Children didn’t have a chance to recover before the WOKE garbage was forced upon them. With the “proganda”, if you don’t accept this “WOKE” garbage, You’re not apart of society or school culture.
“40% of students are behind grade level in one or more subjects”. What’s is even more disturbing is that these grade level standards are nothing to write home about.
Parents please do yourselves your kids and humanity a favor and get your kids into anything but the Anchorage school district. We are losing the future and our future leaders to this basket weaving ideology. We need some smart people.
THE PRIVATIZATION SCAM:
FIRST, CONSERVATIVE LAWMAKERS STARVE PUBLIC SERVICES UNTIL THEY BREAK.
THEY LET DYSFUNCTION
FESTER, WHIPPING UP PUBLIC ANGER SO YOU’LL BLAME “BIG GOVERNMENT.” THEN, RIGHT ON CUE, THEY OFFER THE
“FIX”: SELLING OFF
EVERYTHING TO PRIVATE INTERESTS.
Skepticism towards public services is deeply embedded in American political culture.
Across much of the world, however, government-run utilities and institutions function well. In places like Norway or Canada, public healthcare systems efficiently provide affordable care; in Finland, robust public education serves as a model for the globe. These examples are not anomalies, but rather demonstrations of what can be achieved when the public good takes precedence over private profits.
In the United States, we must recognize that the failure of public systems is often engineered, not inevitable. Republican strategists, employing a cynical long-term strategy, have systematically undermined public institutions for decades. They enact tax cuts that starve these services of essential resources, impose arbitrary austerity measures, and then point to the resulting dysfunction as evidence of government’s inherent ineptitude.
Predictably, after years of strategic neglect and erosion, the public grows disillusioned. They begin to associate the very idea of “public services” with frustration, inefficiency, and waste.
This ideological conditioning, carefully cultivated and nurtured by powerful interests, clears the path for the final step: wholesale privatization.
By the time the public is sufficiently disenchanted, the narrative has been set. The answer, it’s claimed, is not to invest in and improve these institutions, but rather to hand them over to private sector entities-often the same corporations that have bankrolled the dismantling effort.
The American distaste for public services is not a natural outgrowth of cultural preference or national character; it is, instead, the product of deliberate planning. The end goal is to transform citizens-who might otherwise demand accountable and efficient public services-into mere consumers, navigating a privatized landscape where everything, from healthcare to education, is a commodity rather than a right.
Those places you listed pay far less for public education.
Sheri,
Your convoluted logic is derived from attending public schools.
“CONSERVATIVE LAWMAKERS STARVE PUBLIC SERVICES UNTIL THEY BREAK.”
In most states, and certainly here in Alaska, there is no such thing as “conservative” lawmakers. Our states’ pathetic collection of lawmakers are owned by state labor unions and continue to over fund and prioritize public services until our state budget chokes, which the same is happening on the federal side of spending.
Educational opportunity is theoretically a right of each child, but the reality is individual and family rights have long been surrendered by a passive, ignorant and lazy public to the now all powerful administrative state.
The exorbitantly expensive yet pathetic and dysfunctional public education system that is available to our youth, is solely focused on the benefits, salaries and retirements for administrators and unionized so called “teachers” and the profitability for service/supply contractors that maintain and supply these public institutions. Period.
Whereas private educational institutions rely on competitively providing the best service, in this case an actual education to the child, for the least cost.
There is no accountability from the public educational monopoly to parents, as it is a self perpetuating system. Whereas private institutions must be accountable to parents, or they fail and are replaced by institutions that are.
What utter claptrap!
The public education establishment’s issues are self-inflicted. Their main focus is on unions, radical academics and other special interest groups seeking social experimentation, demanding more and more of taxpayers funds to do so, while miserably failing the one task, we supposedly pay them for: Educating the next leaders of this country!
Public educations institution routinely ignore or denigrate the demands or even simple inquiries from the very citizens they are supposed to serve, instead pushing agendas not conducive to a harmonious society. There is no accountability, especially when bonds fail and somehow the ASD “finds” a couple million dollars under the proverbial couch cushions to do as they wish anyway. There is considerable pettiness from their leaders (Remember the dis-invite of Dr. Ben Carson?) They resist outcome/result based remuneration to reward excellence and improve the outcomes for students. Why should anyone support such a system?
I applaud parents for taking the initiative to provide their kids with a good education in seeking other venues.
As for Finland, it has a small homogeneous population of less than 6 million people, less individuals than live in NYC. Their programs do not translate and one size never fits anyone.
Taxpayer, your comments make perfect sense.
As for Finland, in the last generation they have produced leaders who are imbeciles, just as we have. Which indicates they also have turned their backs on education in favor of memorizing politically correct narratives.
Sheri,
Time for another booster shot.
Finland and Norway?
Have you looked at our demographics?
Lower standards academically, ethically, and morally is acceptable in our schools for the children.
This is plantation politics by the democrats to try and insure a socio-economic demo to vote for them.
Plantation owners couldn’t lock up and the chain the slaves so they…..
#1 – did not educate them so they were easier to control (public schools)
#2 – divide and break up their families (welfare)
#3 – have them believe someone else was in control of their lives (aka systemic racism)
Bear Valley Elementary Anchorage, 382 students, cost $12,945 per student, Avg 2024 Test Scores 93.9% (A). If your child attends this school you and your child are winners.
Kaxdigoowuheen (Riverbend) Elementary, Juneau, 262 Students, cost $21,108 per student, Avg 2024 Test Scores 20.7% (F- – -). If your child attends this school, you and your child are losers.
How is the teacher union thing working out for you? Test your children. See if they can hand-write thoughts with proper grammar, add a column of 3 and 4-digit numbers by hand, calculate the volume of a cube. If they can’t, you’re getting ripped off. Solution in one word: vouchers.
Thank the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers for this. Their only interest is protecting pensions, increasing pay and protecting jobs of marginal teachers. Don’t get me wrong, we have some great teachers, but just like jobs in the private sector, when we have teachers who are not toeing the mark and have students failing at a rate like this, they need to be fired. If only all teachers were like Mr. Roses in 7th grade…
Change their gender and they will all rise to educational excellence. How can anybody consider eliminating the Dept. of Education with numbers like these!
When I a person of color attended public education in Alaska I as a person of color consistently scored in the top twentieth percentile for the nation in all the subjects. This was not a fluke. I had a great memory and was very studious. Be careful with negative stereotypes. People are individuals unless you highly prize racial discrimination as Alaska highly prizes it as public policy especially within the bouffant confines of “public” remote participation. I refuse to call it work because it is not. It is a ruse post Covid and near to hearts of Alaskan Karens.
What color are you? I’m kind of pinkish tan.
Once Trump is in office and places Alaska in charge of making the tough decision’s are we ready? Do we have the leadership in place to make this happen? I recommend having standards and enforcing them. No child left behind has allowed teachers to be politicians and just keep passing the child to the next level. It’s too easy, far less responsibilities and little to no conflict with parents.
I would like to add that education only starts at school, it happens at home! It’s time parents take away electronics and get involved!
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