U.S. educators better hope Santa doesn’t check test results. New results from an international comparison of K-12 students showed they continue to fall behind their peers around the world. If American students are to bounce back, policymakers need to ignore the calls for lower standards coming from some sectors and reject claims that more spending in education is the answer.
According to an international test known as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), U.S. fourth-graders dropped 18 points in math since the last test in 2019, and eighth-grade scores fell 27 points. These international results were especially bad, though, because students at the bottom end of the achievement scale fell even further behind.
Economists estimate that depressing results such as these will have lasting consequences on students’ future earnings and the entire economy, to the tune of $31 trillion in lost economic output over the next century.
Education successes in states such as Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi are showing the way out of this morass, but their results have been drowned out by the headline-grabbing activities of the U.S. Department of Education and flawed punditry from the mainstream media.
For example, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona led a “bus tour” this fall that touted states where policymakers had increased education spending. He didn’t mention that lawmakers in some of the high-spending states he visited such as Wisconsin had lowered the benchmark for passing scores on state tests.