In 1983, a commission appointed by President Ronald Reagan released its "A Nation At Risk" report which warned that "the educational foundation of our society are presently eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity."
Sadly, a new national education progress report released today finds that mediocrity would now be a vast improvement.
You’ve probably heard by now the headline that reading and math scores fell in EVERY state in the country last year.
You’ve probably heard that math scores plummeted by the largest margins in the history of the NAEP test, which began in 1969.
You’ve probably heard that almost four of 10 eighth graders cannot perform even the most basic math problems.
You’ve probably heard that the drop in reading and math scores was most severe for blacks and Hispanics – which portends even wider racial gaps in earnings in the future.
You’ve probably heard that inner-city schools in places like Baltimore and Cleveland suffered the biggest drop in performance.
Even in the age of amazing learning tools like computers, and the internet, and even though real spending per child in public schools has more than doubled over the past forty years, educational achievement is now lower today than in the 1970s.
It’s hard to imagine that any foreign enemy could do as much damage to America as the teacher unions and the public education blob in Washington and state capitals have done to endanger the future of our country.
We are infuriated by the blasé reaction of the “educators” who are responsible for this dumbing down of America. There has been no apology to parents and the kids from the unions or the school boards for this epic failure of what is now a one trillion-dollar industry.
The feeble response from the education bureaucrats is “the pandemic really hit us hard,” as Eric Gordon, the executive of the Cleveland Public Schools put it.
Wrong. For the thousandth time: these lousy test scores are not a result of the pandemic. It was the teacher unions and the politicians who shut down our schools for a year or more – even though we knew that kids were not in danger. Test scores have been falling for many years BEFORE the virus.
The head of the public schools in New Mexico, one of the states with the worst results, responded by saying we are going to have to “pay teachers more.” WHAT? To pretend that this problem will be solved by dumping more money into a rotten school system with too many rotten teachers is a dangerous fantasy that will only perpetuate the crisis.
When will our politicians – and voters – wake up to the reality that the highest national priority of our time is NOT climate change? It is our tragic public education system that is cheating yet another generation of children as they prepare for life. This should have been fixed 25 years ago. It’s so disarmingly simple. Let every parent have the financial resources to send their kids to a good or great school – public, private, religious, home schools, pod schools, technical schools, whatever works. This can’t wait another day.
The latest New York Times poll shows 64% of Americans believe the economy is headed in the wrong direction. That’s a dismal number for confidence in the future, but we are surprised the number isn’t much higher than that.
3) CDC STILL Wants Kids Vaccinated For COVID – WHY?
Will the litany of CDC errors related to COVID ever end?
The CDC's own testing shows that 86% of all children in the country had antibodies to COVID (natural immunity) from a previous infection by August of this year. And since not everybody infected develops antibodies, that means well north of 90% of kids have probably already had COVID.
Nonetheless, the CDC's Advisory Community on Immunization Practices voted 15-0 yesterday to add COVID vaccines – the primary series plus a booster – to the schedule of routine childhood vaccinations. Any health benefit to children is minuscule.
Why?
We suspect the issue here is that by doing so the CDC provides liability protection for the manufacturers even though it is doubtful this policy is what is best for children.
We are sympathetic to the case for liability protection. Vaccines are a unique product that can save lives, but they always have some number of adverse events. But Congress should have done its job and extended liability protection to the COVID vaccines that is not contingent on a “national emergency,” rather than rely on the backdoor of dubious addition to the childhood vaccine schedule.
Parents now face the prospect of states, localities, or schools mandating the vaccine based on the CDC schedule. A vaccine most parents of young children have sensibly passed on:
We suspect there are many millions of parents who do not want their kids injected with the vaccine. This creates a political opportunity for gubernatorial, mayoral, city council, and even school board candidates on the ballot this November to come out against vaccine mandates for kids.
4) Democrats Were For High Gas Prices, Before They Were Against Them
The standard rallying cry from the climate change alarmists is that fossil fuels must be shut down immediately. There is no burden too large to impede this goal. There is no price of gas that is too high if it means saving the planet.
Well, except if an election is coming up. For example, we now know that Biden tried to get the Saudis to jack up oil production until AFTER the November midterm elections. Then gas prices can go up again.
Even the media is in on the gambit. Chris Hayes, an MSNBC show host complained the other day that the Saudis are cutting back oil production and thus getting in the way of Joe Biden’s attempt to make fossil fuels cheaper at the pump – at least until November. “The future of American democracy is in real, existential peril,” Hayes breathlessly warned. “We find ourselves in a situation where keeping gas prices low is key to preserving and strengthening the future of our democracy. “
5) Video Of The Day: CTUP Economic Summit Gets Widespread Media Coverage
In case you were not one of the 100 or so people at our Economic Summit, great news. Our friends at CSPAN covered the entire event and you can watch some, or all, of the economic conference of the year by linking to this CSPAN site. Participants included Steve Forbes, Judy Shelton, Russ Vought, David Malpass, Steve Hanke, and Scott Atlas – an all-star lineup.
