Education’s Great Betrayal: How We Failed America’s Children and Wasted Billions on Empty Promises

Test scores are plummeting, learning gaps are widening, and billions spent on federal education reforms have delivered nothing but failure. It’s time to DOGE.

In my last piece, I emphasized the long-term need to invest in the educational quality of American students. Today, I want to focus on a critical aspect of this challenge: the performance of public schools.

Education is a deeply complex subject, rife with countless studies and intertwined variables. Claiming to have all the answers would be both naïve and irresponsible. Still, one undeniable trend emerges from the data: educational quality in America is declining—and this drop persists across all demographic groups.

The Data Speaks

The most reliable domestic measure of student performance is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report card, which tracks reading and mathematics proficiency for 4th and 8th graders. Across all demographic groups, scores reached their highest levels between 2009 and 2012.

Does this suggest that the quality of American schools peaked in 2012? Perhaps, but there’s a compelling environmental factor to consider. NAEP testing began in 1978, a time when the average blood lead level in children was 15.2 μg/dL. By 2011, that figure had fallen to 0.83 μg/dL. The significance of this drop cannot be overstated—lead exposure is a known cause of cognitive impairment, with a 15 μg/dL difference equating to an approximate loss of 9 IQ points.

A 9-point increase in IQ corresponds to a full 0.6 standard deviation improvement in cognitive ability. This means children became significantly more capable during this period purely due to reduced lead exposure. As a result, even without changes in teaching methods, we would expect educational performance to improve noticeably between 1978 and 2011—and the data confirms this trend.

The Common Core Revolution

Between 2010 and 2014, American education underwent a seismic shift with the introduction of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, widely known as Common Core. Backed by Bill Gates, this initiative sought to revolutionize the teaching of reading, writing, and mathematics. The Washington Post described it as “one of the swiftest and most remarkable shifts in education policy in U.S. history,” and for good reason. It was a comprehensive overhaul of the curriculum, changing not just what students learned, but how they were taught.

Perhaps nowhere is Common Core more evident than in how it reshapes the approach to teaching addition and subtraction in first, second, and third grades. Traditional methods stacked numbers and carried over digits. In contrast, Common Core utilizes number lines and grouping.

Take the example of adding 42 and 27. Instead of stacking the numbers vertically and carrying the one, students are taught to break the numbers into parts (or groups) and work with them incrementally. For instance:

1. Break 42 into 40 and 2, and 27 into 20 and 7.

2. Add the tens first: 40 + 20 = 60.

3. Then add the ones: 2 + 7 = 9.

4. Finally, combine these results: 60 + 9 = 69.

Alternatively, students might use a number line to visualize the addition. Starting at 42, they make a jump of 20 to reach 62 (adding the tens). Then, they make another jump of 7 to land on 69 (adding the ones).

In theory, this approach helps children understand the "why" behind calculations rather than memorizing steps. Bill Gates envisioned this as the dawn of a new educational era. He promised it would provide "a foundation for students to actually become those innovators that we know they could be in the future." Yet, in practice, I have yet to meet a parent who feels their child benefited from this approach. Both of my children ended up relying on traditional methods. If there was innovation in the marketplace, it was in creating tools that taught the old methods under a new guise.

The Data Post-Common Core

Despite these sweeping changes, test scores tell a different story. After an eight-year hiatus in NAEP testing, the results in 2020 revealed troubling trends: scores plateaued or declined across all demographics.

The most significant drop occurred among Black students—a stark irony given that one of Common Core's implicit goals was to promote equity in education through uniform standards.

The same pattern emerged in international assessments. In the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), mathematics scores for all demographics peaked in either 2009 or 2012, underscoring that Common Core failed to result in educational progress.

When we step back and look at the big picture, the score declines may be slight, but they’re undeniably consistent—raising serious questions about the payoff for the estimated $16 billion invested in developing and implementing Common Core. The results are far from the transformative improvement many had hoped for.

Distance Learning and Beyond

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought another shock to education: distance learning. Schools across the country closed, some for as long as two years. States like California, Illinois, and Maryland had some of the longest closures, leaving students reliant on virtual learning well into 2021 and beyond.

NAES test scores took their biggest drop in 2023, particularly among Black and Hispanic students.

Overall average NAEP scores plunged back to levels not seen since 1990. While the long-term effects of distance learning on IQ remain uncertain, an eye-opening study from Lithuania offers a glimpse of its potential impact. In a limited sample, researchers observed a staggering drop of 8.22 IQ points among children aged 11 to 15. This finding, though based on a specific context, raises serious questions about how disrupted learning environments might have reshaped cognitive development during those critical years.

A Call To Action

Taken together, this paints a grim picture: America’s children are in the midst of an educational crisis. Federal standards have locked us into a rigid system that fails to accommodate diverse learning needs. I believe this rigidity may even be contributing to the rise in autism diagnoses, as Common Core’s one-size-fits-all approach often labels children with unique learning styles as "disordered."

What has all this achieved? Despite billions spent on federal education initiatives, the returns have been counterproductive. It’s time to address the root of the problem. Eliminate the Department of Education, redirect resources to parents, and empower schools to innovate. Let schools hire the best teachers for their unique needs, and let parents choose the best schools for their children.

If we want to reinvest in our children’s future and make America competitive on the global stage, decentralizing education through DOGE is the first step.