Students and Teachers Are Ditching Public Schools in Droves

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released a report titled, “A Nation at Risk,” which was an important point in the history of American education. The document used dire language, asserting that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”

The report also stated: “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”

If this was a wake-up call, the powers that be shut the alarm off and went back to sleep.

In November 2022, the National Assessment of Educational Progress results were released for the test taken earlier in the year and showed that just 33% of the nation’s fourth graders are proficient in reading, and 36% are proficient in math. The eighth graders did even worse: 31% are proficient in reading, while 26% show proficiency in math.