American public schools are getting worse. Declining results are clear in the government’s own “Nation’s Report Card” on the state of public education. The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) likewise shows that students got lower scores in mathematics across almost the entire country in 2021 compared to 2019. Blacks and Hispanics fell even farther behind than whites, and reading scores in most jurisdictions also fell.

The basic skills of America’s workforce may also be declining. “According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,” wrote Marc Tucker of the National Center on Education and the Economy, “the millennials in our workforce tied for last on tests for mathematics and problem solving among the millennials in the workforces of all the industrial countries tested.”

Violence in schools is increasing. There were more than four times as many school shootings in 2020–2021 than there were in 2000–2001. The National Educational Association (NEA), the country’s largest teacher’s union, held a summit on the problem earlier this month. Just last year, it wanted an end to the “criminalization and policing of students,” instead favoring “restorative justice, culturally competent professional development, family and community engagement, and the elimination of inequities in student discipline and the policing of students on campus.” Thus, more security won’t be an option unless the NEA reverses its position.

The decline in American schools is driven in part by the federal government. The Obama administration wrote a “Dear Colleague” letter in 2014, which warned schools that the Department of Justice might investigate if there were “substantial racial disparities” in school discipline. Schools lowered suspension rates and violence increased. The reality is that blacks and Hispanics cause more violence in schools, and so are punished more often. If schools are prevented from punishing them, there will simply be more violence.

It is common to find videos of mass brawls in schools on social media, with teachers barely able to maintain control.

The violence in our schools is getting out of hand. Kid possibly paralyzed from this high school brawl. pic.twitter.com/tmnUNFxTv3

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