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EDUCATION

Danyela Souza Egorov New York Charter Schools Aren’t Stealing Public Schools’ Dollars Opponents make the allegation to block educational opportunity.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-charter-public-schools-funding

Earlier this month, more than 15,000 families from 200 charter schools across New York City marched on the Brooklyn Bridge to support charters. They asked, among other things, that the state lift its cap on the number of charter schools; that charters get equitable funding; and that charters be allowed to share space in existing public school facilities.

The families assembled represented the more than 150,000 New York students currently attending charter schools, as well as the many more on waiting lists. One of their chants—“Stop the no! Let charters grow!”—highlights how New York State has maintained a cap of 460 charter schools since 2015.

Elected officials often explain their reluctance to lift the cap by citing the persistent argument that charter schools take resources away from New York City public district schools. In 2023, State Senator Jabari Brisport, for example, opposed lifting the cap in exactly those terms: “Every time another (charter) opens, the funding gets shifted there,” he said. “And then the first thing that our public schools cut when they lose their funding is after-school and extracurriculars.” State Senator Cordell Cleare added, “This takes away from the public school students. It shows them inequity, it shows disparities, and it sends a message that we’ve given up on traditional public schools.”

The problem with this view is that the pie of public school dollars isn’t fixed—it keeps growing. Charters now enroll 15 percent of the city’s student population. Yet, this expansion has not negatively affected the New York City Department of Education (DOE) budget. Data from the city’s Independent Budget Office show that the DOE budget exceeded $20 billion in 1999 ($22 billion in inflation adjusted 2022 dollars), when the state’s first charter opened. Since then, despite significant enrollment declines, the DOE budget swelled to nearly $40 billion as of 2024—of which, only $3.17 billion constitutes charter school “tuition.”

Some officials, including Andrew Pallotta, president of New York State United Teachers, are recognizing this budget reality. As of early 2023, he had opposed lifting the charter cap in order to “limit the financial burden on the public school district.” This year, he shifted the focus of his opposition, attacking the “corporate charter school industry” and arguing that “many charters operate without meaningful public input or accountability to taxpayers.”

Some public schools do struggle with reduced budgets due to enrollment loss. But the DOE could address these challenges by reallocating its vast budget more effectively. The district continues to operate many small, financially unsustainable schools that should be closed or consolidated. Doing so would free up resources for the remaining schools, improving educational quality for more students rather than propping up low-enrollment, underperforming institutions. The DOE should also reconsider the need for 32 school districts, which range in size from 4,000 to 39,000 students. Merging the smallest districts and reinvesting the savings could better support schools serving the highest-need populations.

Parents are leaving these schools for charters because they are dissatisfied—not for lack of funding. Polling from EdTrust New York shows that 51 percent of voters and 50 percent of parents believe that the education system is on the wrong track.

The Blind Leading the Dumb—and the Hateful America’s schools are collapsing not from lack of funding but from a teacher pipeline that churns out ideology instead of knowledge—leaving students functionally illiterate. By Stephen Soukup

https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/27/the-blind-leading-the-dumb-and-the-hateful/

About three decades ago, when I was part of the Washington research team of a now-defunct brokerage house, I worked (with my then-boss) on a report about the state of the American education system. The results—unsurprisingly—were not good. The system was in disarray, with towns, cities, and even the federal government spending more and more tax dollars on education every year and getting worse and worse results. The educational and political establishments had convinced the American people that the problem with education was that they simply weren’t spending enough money on it and that, if they did, the people who broke the system in the first place could fix it and, by extension, could fix the country as well. Unfortunately, the data showed definitively that this was untrue.

Based on our research, we concluded that something more obvious—and more uncomfortable—than funding was the real root of the problem with American education. It was obvious because… well… it just was. It made perfect sense. It was uncomfortable because it hit close to home. We knew that what we had learned would likely be taken as insulting or, at the very least, overly provocative by a number of our clients and other readers, including friends and even family. My mom was a teacher. We both had friends who were teachers or whose spouses and/or kids were teachers. Like almost everyone, we had fond memories of that one (or more) special teacher who, when we were kids, helped us in some unique way or influenced us profoundly. Teachers are, for good reason, heroic figures in much of American history. And yet, everything we read and heard and studied indicated that teachers were an enormous part of the problem with American education.

To be clear, the main culprits in our story were teachers’ colleges, not individual teachers. Still, the colleges were a problem because they were churning out inferior products, which, of course, meant that many of the teachers in the American education system were not up to the job—the absolutely imperative job of preparing the next generations of Americans for intellectual and professional life.

In our report, titled “The Dumb Leading the Blind,” we noted the difficult truth that the nation’s education schools had largely become a dumping ground for college students who couldn’t hack it in any other degree program. That wasn’t—and isn’t—to say that all students who wanted to be teachers were dumb. Far from it. Most were smart and earnest and dedicated and resembled the heroic teachers of American lore. At the same time, however, what they were being taught was mostly nonsense: bland, simplistic, often trite twaddle that was disguised and legitimized as “educational theory.” Ed. School curricula were so preposterous and so lacking in academic rigor that almost anyone could—and did—pass without much effort. A multi-decades-long effort by educational “reformers” to shift the focus of teacher instruction away from subject matter and to cognitive theory and epistemology had meaningfully dumbed down the curricula. In turn, students who failed out of other colleges ended up earning degrees in ed. schools because it was shockingly easy to do so. Meanwhile, smart and earnest students were denied a proper education by their instructors, who taught down to the lowest common denominator.

All of this, we argued, suggested that American K-12 education would, in the long run, grow even worse, even more expensive, and even more controversial. And that could only bode ill for the nation as a whole.

When U.S. Tuition Dollars Collide with National Security by Derek Levine

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21916/china-students-national-security

China recognizes the strategic value of these students. As American universities and laboratories are global leaders in advanced research, Beijing has developed a multifaceted strategy to acquire that knowledge. One element is the China Scholarship Council (CSC), which funds Chinese citizens to study in the United States, particularly in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) on the condition that they return home to serve China’s scientific and technological ambitions.

Espionage is an activity additionally concerning, as well as the role China’s intelligence agencies play in recruiting ordinary citizens for it…. According to reports, the Ministry of State Security (MSS) and the Military Intelligence Department (MID) threatened Mr. Wu with serious prison time if he refused to cooperate.

Complementing this is the Thousand Talents Plan, which offers lucrative salaries, research funding, housing benefits, and prestigious positions to overseas-trained students and researchers, incentivizing them to bring back advanced skills, technological expertise, and sensitive intellectual property. Intelligence officials see these initiatives as an encouragement of espionage.

If the applicants were from a reliable ally, the situation might be different. However, China has already declared a “people’s war” on the U.S. through the doctrine of “Unrestricted Warfare,” first outlined in a 1999 publication by two PLA colonels. Although Trump has expressed hopes of turning the CCP into a partner, that goal has not been realized, and under the current Xi regime, meaningful cooperation remains highly unlikely. So why would the U.S. consider it an “honor” to admit 600,000 students who may seek to help China to achieve its ambition of becoming the dominant global power in the 21st century?

Universities might understand that they are not operating in a vacuum; they are at the heart of a global competition where intellectual property, advanced research, and talent are critical assets. Protecting these assets means implementing robust safeguards, carefully scrutinizing foreign influence, and ensuring that the drive for tuition revenue never compromises national security. The future of America, as well as the West, depends on it.

In late August, President Donald J. Trump announced that up to 600,000 Chinese students would be allowed to study in the United States. He stated that without the revenue from full tuition and fees from international students, financially vulnerable schools could collapse:

“I like that their students come here, I like that other countries’ students come here. And you know what would happen if they didn’t, our system would go to hell immediately. And it wouldn’t be the top colleges, it would be colleges that struggle on the bottom.”

This policy, however, has drawn criticism across the political spectrum, even from supporters of MAGA. They argue that it prioritizes tuition dollars over national security.

Stu Smith “Destroy the Idea of America” The People’s Conference for Palestine put academic radicalism on full display.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/peoples-conference-for-palestine-gaza

Over Labor Day weekend, thousands gathered for the Second Annual People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit. The conference featured a lineup of speakers who variously called on activists to “destroy the idea of America in Americans’ heads,” identified Palestine as “the vanguard of the second wave of decolonization,” and told attendees to “bring[] the fight back home.” One of America’s most prominent live streamers called for “revolutionary optimism” and increased agitation.

The event drew an array of activists and ideologues. Many youth organizations, such as the Palestinian Youth Movement, Students for Justice in Palestine, and Young Democratic Socialists of America, organized the conference. The speakers included academics, doctors, journalists, politicians, nonprofit leaders, and even a former UFC champion. Often, those most likely to sympathize with lawbreakers and call for direct action were the professors—underscoring the need to root out such extremism in higher education.

The conference’s “guiding principle” was “Gaza is our compass.” UCLA professor Loubna Qutami, a cofounder of the Palestinian Youth Movement and a member of the Palestinian Feminist Collective, expanded on that theme in her speech. “Gaza fuels our moral clarity, our political will, and our sense of responsibility to act with integrity, with vigilance, and with organized discipline,” she said.

Qutami also implicitly praised what leftists call “diversity of tactics”—the strategy of using variously legal and illegal means to achieve a political goal. She highlighted how some pro-Palestinian activists have variously “shut down bridges, flooded streets, organized die-ins and sit-ins, rallies, marches . . . pickets, fundraisers, and conferences,” while others have “doubled down on campaigns for boycott, divestment, and sanctions” or “confronted tech, logistics, media, and other private industries colluding in genocide.”

The Latest NAEP Disgrace U.S. students continue to perform poorly on standardized tests. By Larry Sand

https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/17/the-latest-naep-disgrace/

Every time National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores are released, it’s bad news for American students. Headlines in newspapers and websites repeat the same sad story, and the results for the “nation’s report card” released on September 9 were typical. A Wall Street Journal headline stated, “Twelfth-Grade Math and Reading Scores in U.S. Hit New Low.” The online K-12 Dive reported, “5 takeaways from another round of disappointing NAEP results,” and the NH Journal noted, “Worst-Ever NAEP Test Results a Five Alarm Fire for Public Schools.”

Indeed, the results of the latest tests conducted in spring 2024 were dismal, showing that only 22% of high school seniors are proficient or higher in math, a decrease from 24% in 2019. Additionally, only 35% of high school seniors are proficient in reading—the lowest score since NAEP began in 1969—down from 37% in 2019. Also, a record-high percentage scored at “below basic” levels in both math and reading compared to all previous assessments.

And just for good measure, the eighth-grade science test results were also released, and they were no better. The percentage of students scoring at the proficient level fell to 29%, down from 33%, and the average score returned to levels last seen in 2009, when a new version of the test was introduced.

Performance declined in all three science categories—physical, life, and earth and space sciences. Fewer than half of students can identify the main component of living cells, compared to 55% in 2019, and the percentage of students who can identify a characteristic of mammals dropped from 72% to 68%.

It’s not just the decline in skills that is concerning. The percentage of students who say they enjoy science activities fell from 52% to 42%.

Not surprisingly, students’ confidence in the subject has also worsened, with 28% saying they “definitely can do various science-related activities,” down from 34%.

The poor outcome aligns with the 4th- and 8th-grade reading and math scores, which were reported earlier this year. The results from those tests, administered in 2024, were announced in January and showed that 4th-graders continue to fall behind, with reading scores slightly lower, on average, than in 2022 and significantly lower than in 2019. Currently, only about a third of 4th- and 8th-grade students are proficient in reading and math.

Jennifer Weber The Nation’s Report Card Shows How Education Policy Has Failed After a decade of low standards, student performance is slipping.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/nations-report-card-education-students-math-reading

The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress—also known as the “Nation’s Report Card”—is now out. It shows 12th-graders’ performance slipping to a record low.

According to the report, one-third of seniors are reading at a below-basic level, and only 35 percent are proficient or above. In math, 45 percent are below basic, with just 22 percent meeting proficiency. The proportion of students at the 10th and 25th percentiles has fallen to historic lows, widening the gap between the highest-and lowest-achieving students and leaving many unprepared for life after high school.

The declines reflect the failures of more than a decade of educational policy—specifically, a retreat from expectations that began under the Common Core Standards and continued under the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Declines have not always been so predictable. Under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, passed in 2002, results were more stable. Reading scores remained 25 percent below-basic and 37 percent proficient, while math scores remained 33 percent below-basic and about 25 percent proficient. As Roberta Rubel Schaefer recently explained for City Journal, NCLB established rigorous, content-rich curriculum standards and tracked schools and students’ performance through regular testing, encouraging a culture of educational excellence.

After 2013, as states adopted the Common Core Standards and later, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) took effect in 2016, progress declined. Proficiency remained stagnant, while the number of students reading and doing basic math below the basic level increased.

Schools Are in Hooky Hell American children are skipping school in staggering numbers. By Larry Sand

https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/12/schools-are-in-hooky-hell/

It’s early September, and children should be back at school, right?

Well, many aren’t. With data from 44 states and Washington, DC, the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) director of education policy, Nat Malkus, discloses that the chronic absenteeism rate—students missing more than 10% of school days each year—was an alarming 23.5% in 2024.

Malkus notes that the surge in absenteeism affects districts of all sizes, racial backgrounds, and income levels, but the data does reveal significant differences by race and ethnicity, with 39% of Black students, 36% of Hispanic students, 24% of white students, and 15% of Asian students chronically absent.

Additionally, while students from both low- and high-income families often miss school, the highest rates occur in low-income districts, where 30% of students are chronically absent. Still, the rate has gone up even in low-poverty areas, increasing from about 10% to over 15%.

High-achieving districts have also been affected by the new normal. Over 15% of students in the top third at those schools are chronically absent, compared to 10% before the pandemic.

States vary significantly in the number of student absences. While Alabama, New Jersey, and Virginia have a 15% rate, Alaska’s is 43%, Oregon’s is 34%, and Michigan’s is 30%.

The problem is particularly egregious in our big cities. According to a recent report, in Los Angeles, where over 32% of students were chronically absent in the 2023-2024 school year, 34 elementary schools have fewer than 200 students, and 29 use less than half of the building.

Even worse, in Chicago, the chronic absentee rate is 41%. The city’s dwindling enrollment has left about 150 schools half-empty, while 47 operate at less than one-third capacity. One Chicago high school had just 33 students last year.

No matter. The district’s spending of taxpayer dollars appears to be unaffected. On August 28, Chicago Public Schools approved a $10.2 billion budget, and at the same time, it is facing a $743 million deficit. Before the budget was approved, three major credit rating agencies each rated CPS General Obligation Bonds as “non-investment grade speculative,” also known as “junk bonds.”

What are education leaders doing to stem the tide of student flight?

The Southern Surge in Education By Frederick M. Hess

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2025/10/the-southern-surge-in-education/

These four states have a lot to teach the country about teaching

It’s been a grim stretch for America’s schools. Reading and math achievement are in a decade-long swoon. This year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) yielded the worst fourth-grade reading outcomes in 20 years, with 40 percent of students scoring below basic proficiency. For eighth-graders, reading scores hit a historic low — with 33 percent below basic. Meanwhile, chronic absenteeism is way up, as are grade inflation and misbehavior.

At this point, the nation’s most popular K–12 reform is the push to let families opt out and choose new schools. There is, however, one notable good-news story when it comes to school performance that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves: A handful of red states are making notable gains — and putting their big-spending peers to shame. Their success has come to be called the Southern surge.

On the new NAEP (better known as the Nation’s Report Card), just two states, Alabama and Louisiana, had math or reading scores higher than what they were in 2019, pre-Covid. When researchers at the left-leaning Urban Institute adjusted 2025 NAEP results based on state demographics, Mississippi fourth-graders topped the country in math and reading. Louisiana’s fourth-graders led the nation in reading growth for the past two NAEP cycles and rank fifth nationwide for math growth. In fact, the two states were in the top four in every category. These accomplishments have taken many by surprise, perhaps because of a habit of imagining the South as a cultural backwater.

The Education Recovery Scorecard, a Harvard-Stanford research collaboration, tracks how well states are making up academic ground lost after 2019. The most recent results offer an eye-popping portrait of the Southern surge: Alabama was first in math recovery and third in reading recovery; Louisiana was second and first, Mississippi sixth and fourth, and Tennessee third and ninth. Chad Aldeman, a respected education analyst and old Obama hand, makes clear the extent of the “Mississippi miracle,” noting that Mississippi’s black students “rank third nationally, and its low-income kids outperform those in every other state.” Mississippi is the “only state to see gains across all performance levels over the last decade. Its average went up, but so did the scores of its highest and lowest performers.”

What’s driving these results? A commitment to basic skills, especially through phonics-based early-literacy instruction, and rigorous classroom materials.

School Choice Battles Are Widespread Parental freedom expands – and teachers’ unions resort to litigation. by Larry Sand L

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/school-choice-battles-are-widespread/

On June 11, New Hampshire became the 19th state to implement a universal private school choice program when Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed Senate Bill 295. The law eliminates the income threshold from the state’s Education Freedom Account Program, making it accessible to all students.

Parental freedom is spreading rapidly across the nation. In the summer of 2024, the number of students participating in school choice programs exceeded one million for the first time, with an estimated 1,038,500 opting in. By July 2025, that number had grown to approximately 1,300,900, a 25% rise.

The surge in parents leaving government-run schools isn’t surprising, given the latest PDK poll results released on August 19. The survey showed that Americans’ confidence in public schools is at an all-time low, with only 13% giving them an A or B, down from 19% in 2019 and 26% in 2004. Nearly 60% of parents nationwide say they would choose a private or religious school for their child if offered public funds.

The expansion of parental freedom has created an interesting political scenario. Jorge Elorza, CEO of Democrats for Education Reform, states, “For too long, the political Left has allowed the debate over school choice to be defined and dominated by conservatives. In doing so, we’ve neglected the most dynamic lever for equity and innovation in American education while alienating the Black, Latino, and working-class families we claim to represent. It’s time for progressives to come to the school choice table—not to dismantle public education, but to reinvent it for a new era.”

Elorza adds, “To reassert leadership on education, progressives must do more than say ‘no’ to choice plans. Instead, we need to lay out a vision of choice. That starts by breaking the monopoly of the traditional, top-down system and making room for bottom-up, community-driven innovation. We must empower communities to create new and different school models that can meet the unique educational needs of each child.”

Elorza’s words are especially timely because on July 4, President Trump approved legislation allowing the federal tax scholarship program to proceed. The Educational Choice for Children Act offers a tax credit that individuals can use to reduce their tax bills by donating money for private school expenses for students. ECCA is set to begin in 2027.

But the law’s final version allows states to opt out of participating, meaning no students in those states would be eligible for the program, which could have political consequences. It might be advantageous for Republicans because, clearly, Democrats are divided on the issue.

Additionally, the teachers’ unions are taking note. Open Secrets reports that in the 2024 election cycle, over 98% of the National Education Association’s political spending went to Democrats. While all teacher union leaders and some white progressives strongly oppose public funding for private schools, school choice remains popular among Black and Hispanic communities. In a recent poll, 63% of Hispanics and 68% of Blacks—typically Democrats—voiced support for a private option.

Epic Failure of American Students on the ‘Nation’s Report Card’ Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2025/09/09/epic-failure-of-american-students-on-the-nations-report-card-n4943482

Johnny can’t read. Johnny can’t count. Johnny can’t reason.

Johnny is an unemployable bum.

“The Nation’s Report  Card,” AKA the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NEAP), was released on Tuesday, and, quite simply, the state of learning by America’s 12th graders has never been worse.

“Students are taking their next steps in life with fewer skills and less knowledge in core academics than their predecessors a decade ago,” said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Center for Education Statistics, the group that oversees the NEAP. “This is happening at a time when rapid advancements in technology and society demand more of future workers and citizens, not less.”

“Twelfth-graders’ average math score was the worst since the current test began in 2005, and reading was below any point since that assessment started in 1992,” reported the Wall Street Journal.

The percentage of students judged “proficient” in math and reading skills dropped by two percentage points between 2019 and 2024, to 35% in reading and 22% in math.

“Scores for our lowest-performing students are at historic lows, continuing declines that began more than a decade ago. My predecessor warned of this trend and her predecessor warned of this trend as well, and now I am warning you about this trend,” said Matthew Soldner, acting director of the Institute of Education Sciences (ES). ES is a research arm of the Department of Education. “These results should galvanize all of us to take concerted, focused action to accelerate student learning.”