Updated
Updated · Fox News · Sep 17
US Students Post 14-Point Reading Drop as 67% of Adults Dissatisfied With Schools
Updated
Updated · Fox News · Sep 17

US Students Post 14-Point Reading Drop as 67% of Adults Dissatisfied With Schools

3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Sep 17

Summary

  • U.S. 15-year-olds recorded among the country’s weakest results in a generation, with reading down 14 points and math still near historic lows in the latest PISA data.
  • Gallup polling matched that academic slide: 67% of adults said they were dissatisfied with K-12 education, the worst reading yet for parental and public sentiment.
  • Spending has not reversed the decline. The report says the U.S. now spends more than $21,000 per student, while staffing since 2014 rose by about 620,000 even as enrollment fell by roughly 775,000.
  • Chicago’s Frederick Douglass Academy illustrates the imbalance — 27 students, 28 adults and more than $90,000 per pupil, yet no tested student was proficient in math or reading.
  • School-choice demand has grown alongside that frustration: 18 states have passed universal choice policies in six years, New York homeschooling has climbed more than 200% in 15 years, and Texas has over 100,000 students on a waitlist.

Insights

With enrollment plummeting and staff numbers soaring, what hidden crisis is driving the massive parental exodus from public schools?
As schools spend record amounts while losing thousands of students, where is all that taxpayer money actually going?
Could the unprecedented surge in school-choice waitlists signal the inevitable collapse of the traditional public education funding model?