The Ohio data, for instance, showed that students in grades three, four and six made up at least half of the lost ground in reading. Seventh-graders made up some ground, though not as much. There was scant improvement in eighth grade, and in grade 10, scores dropped again.

In math, there was modest progress in most grades, but in 10th, there was virtually none.

The point of the article is just to lay out the findings in the research but the findings raise some obvious questions which I haven’t seen explored much.

  • Who is to blame for these terrible outcomes?
  • Will anyone be held responsible for this?
  • Is there anyway to fix the problem or are we just going to move along?
  • How can we keep it from happening again?

My own view is that the answer to the first question points in a direction (teacher’s unions, Democratic politicians) that makes it unlikely there will every be any real attention paid to the other questions. That’s a shame because if any other group had done this much damage to this many students they would be afraid to show their faces in public.

Finally, I’ve said this before but if you want to know why parental control of education has become such a hot topic lately, this is why. Parents saw up close what the experts did to their kids so now they’re no longer content to sit back and let the experts manage things. Massive failure has a way of undermining credibility.