Behind the back-to-school advertisements for new clothes and colorful school supplies are alarming headlines about how America’s education system is failing our nation’s children.
Consider the University of Michigan. Beginning next year, first-semester freshmen in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts will not receive letter grades. The university says the change will help “curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals.”
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Meanwhile, across the country, professors are warning that students are unprepared for college-level instruction. At Berkeley, mathematics professor Zvezdelina Stankova has described calculus students who cannot solve basic algebra problems such as 7x − 5 = 9. She says some students are arriving at college a full five to eight years behind where they should be in mathematics.
Good luck mastering calculus if you haven’t learned algebra.
The story is equally dismal in our K-12 schools. The latest National Report Card found that only about a quarter of eighth graders in the District of Columbia performed at or above the proficient level in reading. In school districts across the nation, academic performance remains far below where it should be.
America’s students are struggling academically, and at the same time, they are reporting extraordinary levels of anxiety. As a nation, we should consider the possibility that these problems are related.
Rather than addressing the lack of academic and emotional preparedness among students, institutions of higher learning and public schools across the country are simply lowering their standards.
That approach is exactly backwards.
Our education system is institutionalizing failure. We tell children that they are succeeding regardless of their test results. We promote students even when they are academically struggling. We inflate grades, eliminate standardized tests, lower admissions standards, and now, thanks to the University of Michigan’s innovation, we simply abandon grades altogether.
And then we wonder why our nation’s youth are overcome with anxiety? We have spent decades helping them avoid hard work and consequences.
Failure is an essential part of education. A bad grade tells a student that he has not mastered the material. A failed test provides an opportunity to study, try again, and discover that disappointment is temporary. By insulating students from academic failure, our schools deny them the opportunity to learn how to overcome it. We should hardly be surprised when students protected from failure become anxious upon finally encountering real standards.
Washington, D.C.’s education policies have contributed to this crisis. Federal spending on education has grown enormously over the past several decades, but more spending has never equated to better outcomes. Instead, Washington has rewarded an education bureaucracy in which success is too often measured by dollars spent, programs created, and regulations followed rather than whether a child can read, write, or do math.
These bad policy decisions are why school choice and greater parental control are so important. Education dollars should follow students, giving families the ability to choose schools that demand excellence and meet their children’s needs. Competition forces institutions to respond when they fail. Government monopolies have little reason to improve.
During America’s 250th anniversary this year, Americans are focusing on our nation’s defining successes. We are celebrating our history of medical advancements, technologies that are the envy of the world, and new discoveries in space. Behind each success story is hard work and individuals who would not quit until they achieved the goal.
Our education system is failing students from kindergarten through college, teaching them to retreat from demanding work rather than preparing them to meet it. Beyond the tragedy this represents in an individual student’s life, we are undermining America’s ability to compete.
The next generation will enter a world in which the United States is competing with China and other nations for leadership in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, engineering, and space. That competition requires serious minds capable of mastering challenging subjects and solving difficult problems. Our competitors will not lower their standards because American students are struggling to meet ours.
America will not remain the world’s technological and economic leader if universities are admitting students who are five years behind in mathematics, and our response is to lower expectations even more. We cannot produce the next generation of innovators by teaching children to seek shelter from challenges.
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The solution is less Washington control, more parental choice, real academic standards, and accountability for results. Students should be challenged and allowed to fail. Education should give them the knowledge, discipline, and resilience to recover when they do.
For 250 years, American greatness has been built by people who encountered difficult problems, experienced setbacks, and persevered despite initial failures. If we want the coming years to produce achievements worthy of our nation’s history, our schools must prepare young Americans not merely to succeed, but to fail, recover, and try again.
Jenny Beth Martin is Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.