Shouting “There’s No Fire” in a Burning Theater

In today’s Washington Post, government schooling advocate Gerald Bracey argues that American education is just fine, thanks. He makes this case by noting that NAEP 4th grade science standards are set too high. Only 29 percent of kids are deemed “proficient” on that test, while the U.S. ranked third in an international test of 4th grade science a few years ago. If these are the only data you look at, Bracey’s argument is not ludicrous on its face. If you look at all the available data on U.S. student performance, it is.


Jerry has a habit of glossing over the evidence on the performance of older U.S. students and young adults. I ran into this eight years ago when I had an on‐​line exchange with him over my book Market Education. As I explained then:

While U.S. students sometimes do well and usually do adequately at the 4th grade, their performance deteriorates significantly by the 8th grade, and they hit rock bottom by the 12th grade. American 16–25 year olds are among the most illiterate in the world, with nearly a quarter scoring at the lowest possible level measured by the International Adult Literacy Survey. Since most Americans are chiefly concerned with how well their children are prepared for adult life at the end of their education, the appalling performance of U.S. high‐​school seniors and recent graduates represents a genuine and not a manufactured crisis.…

Regrettably, but not at all surprisingly, little has changed in the intervening years. I updated my analysis of U.S. peformance in an international context when the latest TIMSS and PISA tests were released two years ago. The data continue to show that “the notion [our] public school problems are confined to inner cities, and that our wealthy suburbs produce world‐​beating high school graduates is a myth.”