Staff Reports
This week brought a hard, ugly truth to the surface: international tests and a national poll both say American schools are failing our kids — and parents are fed up. The OECD’s PISA 2025 results show U.S. 15‑year‑olds slipping in reading, and a new Gallup poll finds just 32% of adults satisfied with K‑12 education. That’s not a trend. It’s a crisis.
PISA 2025 and the Gallup poll: the wake‑up call
PISA 2025 measured 15‑year‑olds around the world and the United States did not do well. Reading scores fell sharply from the last round, and more students are now “hasty readers” — skimming instead of understanding. The Gallup/Walton poll this week reinforced the alarm: public satisfaction with K‑12 hit a record low. Add the steady NAEP reading declines and you see the same picture from every angle: fewer kids can read at grade level and adults no longer trust the system.
What’s behind the collapse?
Unions, ideology, and bad priorities
Blaming everything on screens is lazy, but teachers’ unions and education elites deserve blame for defending the status quo. Too many districts moved away from proven reading methods, celebrated soft policies over rigorous instruction, and pushed ideological priorities that have nothing to do with teaching kids to read, write, and do math. Remote learning exposed how thin the instruction had become, and social media and careless AI use made matters worse. Meanwhile, states that insisted on basics and high standards saw real gains — proof that leadership, not excuses, matters.
What parents want — and what actually works
Parents aren’t furious for fun. They want their children to learn. They want schools that teach reading with phonics, hold students to standards, and measure results with real tests. So they are voting with their feet: homeschooling, private schools, and charter schools are growing where families have options. Charter schools and targeted reforms show better results where they are allowed to compete and be held accountable. If the goal is diplomas that mean something, choice and accountability are the remedies, not more meetings and committees.
A plan that respects parents and kids
Fixing this mess means returning to basics: restore rigorous reading instruction, reinstate meaningful testing and accountability, shrink tenure protections that shelter poor performance, and expand school choice so parents can pick what works. If public schools cannot deliver, they should lose students and funding to those that will teach. Parents are right to be furious — and they’re right to demand better. The question is whether politicians and school bosses will finally answer them, or keep lecturing families while kids fall further behind.
