Senator accuses National Education Association of failing students

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If Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus went to school today, their test scores would probably be much lower than when Charles Schulz started writing about these cartoon characters in 1952. I say this because the assessment national education progress recently released its 2022 test scores and the results are not good. Our students are failing.

Erdman

The National Assessment of Academic Progress is considered by many to be the gold standard for testing student academic achievement. Scores for 13-year-old American students have fallen to their lowest level in decades. Math scores were the worst, dropping nine points between 2020 and 2023, while reading scores fell four points for the same period.

The pandemic is not in question. Some blame the pandemic for the sharp drop in these academic test scores, but we know from data released by the National Assessment of Education Progress that these scores were already falling before the pandemic.

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Nor are socio-economic factors involved. Some insist on attributing the slippage in scores to socio-economic factors; however, data shows that students from all socioeconomic backgrounds and all performance levels saw their test scores drop significantly this year.

The elephant in the room that no one seems to want to talk about is the National Education Association and the teachers’ unions. During the pandemic, it was the National Education Association and teachers’ unions that fought vigorously to reopen schools and allow teachers to return to the classroom. The teachers are not to blame. Instead of focusing on the basics, teachers are now told to teach on non-essential subjects.

Refocusing on the fundamentals is why I think Nebraskans need school choices. Although the state legislature passed LB 753 this year for school choice, the bill didn’t go far enough. My bill, LB 177, would have allowed the money to follow the student so parents could make better decisions about where to send their children to school.

During the interim period, I will conduct an interim study on school choice. Specifically, I want to explore the best ways to fund school choice. Many states around us, like Iowa, have now passed more comprehensive school choice bills than LB 753. If Iowa can do it, then I think Nebraska can too . Therefore, one of my goals next year will be to introduce a bill that will give parents in Nebraska a much better option for school choice.

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