At a time when business leaders across the country are saying they can’t find enough qualified workers to compete internationally, a recent report from the University of California San Diego that shows many students at the top-tier public university can’t do elementary school math is alarming. The report lists COVID-19 shutdowns as a leading cause of the decline in student ability, but the rot goes much deeper and should sound an alarm that extensive reforms are needed.

The UC San Diego Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions Final Report found that the share of students performing below middle-school math levels has exploded, rising nearly thirtyfold, from less than 1% in 2020 to about 1 in 8 by 2025. To underscore how alarming this is: 25% of students could not correctly solve the equation 7 + 2 = [ ] + 6.