I am an enthusiastic fan of Thomas Sowell and his observations on life, especially those about the American education system. As a person with serious academic credentials, he is often quoted but not always heeded by those who govern and direct our public schools.
“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.”
What is disturbing about Sowell’s observation of our public and private education system is that it is true. It is a truth we do not want to own up to, but it is right, nonetheless. And to take it further, the problem continues into adulthood and is now multi-generational.
The Promise of Education for All
Decades ago, I remember an advertisement featuring an awkward young backwoods teen receiving his first real pair of shoes. When he slides them on, his face lights up, and he exclaims, “I can wear shoes, I can go to school, I can be somebody!” This was a humorous take on the promise of public education and on the schooling I remember from my childhood.
It is believed that the drive for free public education in America began with Horace Mann in the mid-1800s. His Common School Movement established free, tax-supported schooling with trained teachers and a standardized curriculum, and it was non-sectarian. His ideas proved successful, and the movement spread to other states.
Around 1875, President Grant tried to nationalize the system after the Civil War, but his bid for a Constitutional Amendment failed. It was almost one hundred years later that President Johnson expanded the Federal Government’s role in elementary and secondary education. It was an era of change, and expanding the system brought many underserved and underfunded schools into the national system.
As with many of LBJ’s programs, what began as lofty ideals ultimately became a national tragedy. The promise of public schools has been a campaign topic for decades. These campaign promises of reform always come with lofty ideals because voters know the system is broken and getting worse. They always fail because good education is a partnership among schools, teachers, and parents. If one leg of this classroom stool is uneven or missing, nothing happens.
The Failing American Education System
Today, some of our teachers are, at best, DEI hires, bogged down in meaningless paperwork and controlled by unions. Parents are often absent, or, when involved, do so to fight with schools and teachers rather than to support them. Students often come from broken homes, where a good childhood education is the last thing on their minds.
The failure of our public schools is a shared fiasco. We are now facing a multi-generational failure with no real solution in sight. We are falling behind internationally, and it shows.
“So long as public schools are treated as places that exist to provide guaranteed jobs to members of the teachers’ unions, do not be surprised to see American students continuing to score lower on international tests than students in countries that spend a lot less per pupil than we do.”
It has not always been this way. When I was growing up, families stayed together, teachers held authority and served as role models for students, and education was a priority. Teachers were not DEI hires; they were professional educators with authority over their classrooms. If one of my classmates or I needed correcting, we were corrected, not coddled. Teachers and parents were in sync about the connections between instruction and discipline. For those who think this did not work, facts do not lie.
Facts Do Not Lie
There is something funny about facts and data: so long as the data is accurate, it does not lie. It is just numbers, trends, and analyses. This is where teachers’ unions, administrators, parents, and politicians clash. When the numbers show you are failing, finger-pointing begins. In public schools, there is plenty of blame to go around, and no single point of coordination to solve the problem. So, what are the numbers?
Reading Proficiency
The Nation’s Report Card study shows that only 36% of fourth graders are proficient in reading, and only 33% of eighth graders are at grade level. These results reflect a long-term decline across all percentiles. By high school, disengagement is unmistakable. In the 2024 assessment, about one-quarter of twelfth graders reported an interest in reading. When only one in four seniors enjoys reading, reading proficiency declines. Many factors are to blame, from parents and electronics to social media, teachers, and school systems. Every link in the chain of decline is a shared failure.
Adult literacy numbers are even more alarming. According to the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, “Literacy is understanding, evaluating, using and engaging with written text…” Yet about thirty percent of college graduates score at or below a sixth-grade reading level. These are adults who have earned degrees but cannot read, analyze, or evaluate text at an adult level. The cost of this incompetence has risen precipitously over the past decades. This is the educational equivalent of “shrinkflation.”
Math Proficiency
Math performance mirrors the reading collapse. Only 36 percent of fourth graders are proficient in math, and the share at grade level falls to 28 percent by eighth grade. The 2024 results for “Mathematics Grade 4 2024…” and “Mathematics Grade 8 2024…” show the same downward trajectory as reading.
Twelfth-grade math performance continues to decline. The 2024 report, Mathematics and Reading at Grade 12, shows average scores below those recorded in both 2015 and 2019.
If this were not enough, adult math proficiency follows the same pattern. Twenty-nine percent of college graduates score at a sixth-grade level or below, meaning they perform at a middle-school level in math. They are not leaving college with a thirst for knowledge; they barely have the skills to function in society. It is little wonder that many cannot find jobs. Employers are not looking to pay adult wages to people with grammar-school skills.
“Ours may become the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of our enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children. In an age of artificial intelligence, they are creating artificial stupidity.”
These failures are why magnet schools, charter schools, religiously affiliated schools, private schools, school choice, and homeschooling have become such hot topics. Politicians and teachers’ unions are not seeking answers. Protecting jobs by embracing failure is why teachers’ unions fight so hard to preserve the status quo.
The Parental Gap
This is the uncomfortable truth no politician wants to address. We tell parents to support education, yet many were failed by the same system that is now failing their children. A mother who reads at a sixth-grade level cannot teach her child to read at a twelfth-grade level. A father who never mastered fractions cannot help with algebra. It is illogical to believe a parent can give what they never received.
Yet even poorly educated parents can do things that matter more than worksheets or test preparation.
First, they can value and appreciate learning. Children know what their parents admire. If a parent treats reading as something serious, the child will too. If a parent treats school as a nuisance, the child will follow.
Second, they can create order. A quiet hour in the evening, a consistent bedtime, and a home where adults act like adults. These are not academic skills, but they form the foundation on which academic skills grow.
Third, they can insist on discipline and respect for authority, not punishment. Discipline means the ability to sit still, listen, follow instructions, and persist through difficulty. These habits matter more than IQ, more than curriculum, and more than technology.
Parents do not need advanced degrees to provide structure, stability, respect, and seriousness. They only need the will to do so. Schools cannot replace it. Teachers cannot manufacture it. No government program can simulate it. Without it, nothing else works.
The Political Incentive Problem
There is another truth we hesitate to acknowledge. Politicians of every Party deliver soaring speeches about education, yet decade after decade, nothing changes. It is fair to ask, “Why?”
The answer is not conspiracy; it is incentive. Voters who read at a sixth-grade level are easier to sway with slogans than with substance. A population that struggles with basic math is less likely to question budgets, policies, or economic claims. Emotional voters are easier to mobilize than thoughtful ones. In a system driven by reelection, incentives favor short-term messaging over long-term competence.
Whether by design or neglect, the result is the same. A public that cannot evaluate arguments becomes a public that can be governed with ease.
Retaining Our Greatness
For America to retain its greatness, appreciation for reading and math skills must return to homes, and adults must model a lifelong quest for learning. Schools cannot be a panacea for broken homes, and we must view literacy as both a parental and moral responsibility, not a government program.
A population that reads and performs math at a sixth-grade level cannot evaluate simple arguments and is easily deceived by politicians.
A population that cannot evaluate even simple arguments cannot govern itself.
A democracy built on self-governance cannot survive for long without citizens capable of reasoning.
Failures in national literacy are a call to action for all of us.
It is not hyperbole to say that our enemies see this weakness and work through teachers’ unions to fight changes,
This may be the greatest challenge we face, because we are fighting for the minds of the next generation. Elections matter, but so does the character of the people we trust with our children’s education. In the end, parents must lead, because no society survives when its citizens cannot think.
Resources and Further Reading
Condition of Education 2025, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Publication NCES-2026-019, ies.ed.gov, May 2026.
History of Education: How have Schools Changed Over Time?, by Staff, ED100, ED100.org, April 2026, Last accessed May 5, 2026.
LBJ: From Teacher to President, by Hparkins, National Archives, archives.gov, March 5, 2017.
The Celebrated Legacy of Horace Mann: Father of the American Public School System, by Staff, History Rise, historyrise.com, April 9, 2019.
The Nation’s Report Card: Student Performance Across Subjects, The Nation’s Report Card, nationareportcard.gov, Last accessed, May 12, 2026.
