High School Test Scores Are Plummeting, and Not Just Because of the Pandemic English, reading, math and science are so 2005. Robert Spencer
The numbers are as shocking as they are undeniable: American high school students are more ignorant and ill-equipped than they have been in decades or more; in fact, it’s likely that their abilities are at their lowest level ever. The Washington Free Beacon reported Thursday that “average scores on the ACT [American College Testing] college admissions test dropped to their lowest in 30 years, revealing more evidence of the pandemic’s alarming impact on American education.” But it’s not just the pandemic. This is the result of the wokeification of the American public school system. Far too many teachers are spending their time filling their students’ heads with trans and Critical Race Theory nonsense instead of giving them an education. It’s dereliction of duty on a grand scale.
The Free Beacon added that “the average composite score for the class of 2022 was a 19.8 out of 36, according to a report released Wednesday, falling under 20 points for the first time since 1991. This year’s graduates endured the effects of the pandemic for three of their four high school years.”
The pandemic wasn’t even close to being the only thing they endured. In Georgia, PJM’s Chris Queen reported in August, “Gwinnett Schools are now adding gender propaganda to the mix with what one group calls ‘inappropriate gender lessons’ on school-issued Chromebooks that parents can’t access when logging into their children’s accounts on other devices.” In San Juan Hills High School in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., teacher Danielle “Flint” Serio has an entire “queer library” in her classroom. And down the road at Madison High School in San Diego, a teacher has defined “fascist” with words including “Trump,” “white,” “Christian,” and “heterosexual.” The Republican Party, this sage wrote on his classroom whiteboard, “is a fascist organization that no longer fits the category of a conventional Democratic Party.” In a rural, conservative school district in Minnesota, the ninth-grade curriculum includes a book that features explicit rape scenes.
The same kind of indoctrination is taking place in public schools all over the country. And so it is no coincidence at all that “of the ACT-tested graduates, 42 percent failed to meet any of the four ACT College Readiness Benchmarks (English, reading, math, science). Last year, 38 percent of students did not meet any of the benchmarks.” English, reading, math and science? Come on, man! That’s so 2005. Students today have to learn about far more important matters, such as how they can change sexes, and how they’re inherently racist (if they’re white) or perpetual victims (if they’re black). They have to learn about how the Founding Fathers were racist slave owners who deserve only to be execrated and despised.
That’s a lot to pack into one school day. It simply leaves no time for students to devote any attention to learning to think critically, or to express themselves effectively, or to solve challenging problems. What our schools are turning out today are indoctrinated, unthinking lemmings who will accept what they’re told and act accordingly, and simply aren’t equipped to do much of anything else.
ACT CEO Janet Godwin said this about the catastrophic decline in test scores: “The magnitude of the declines this year is particularly alarming. We see rapidly growing numbers of seniors leaving high school without meeting college-readiness benchmarks in any of the subjects we measure.” The Associated Press, however, looks at the decline and sees (surprise!) racism: “The results offer a lens into systemic inequities in education, in place well before the pandemic shuttered schools and colleges temporarily waived testing requirements. For example, students without access to rigorous high school curriculum suffered more setbacks during pandemic disruptions, Babington said. Those students are from rural areas, come from low-income families and are often students of color.”
The reality, however, is that it’s precisely this obsession with race, and all the rest of the Left’s agenda, taking precedence in schools over what they should be teaching about that has caused this problem for students of all races. The public educational system has become a system of far-Left indoctrination, a scandal which is failing an entire generation of young Americans. But any politician who considers tackling this problem has to reckon with taking on the teachers’ unions, and most haven’t yet shown the courage to do that.
And so our nation’s schools are turning out a generation of indoctrinated imbeciles. In fact, that appears to be the goal.
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