America’s current education system is failing the nation - William Cooper

And Thomas Jefferson, for his part, understood that an educated populace was a crucial defence against demagoguery. In his “Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge,” Jefferson warned that government “tyranny” would emerge unless “the people at large” were “educated at the common expense of all.”

Recognising the importance of public education was hardly the founders’ greatest insight. It’s obvious. Yet while America’s public-education system (which educates over 90 per cent of our students) has historically been a success, it has been deteriorating in recent decades. This is a monumental unforced error.

The problems are manifold. Low and declining rates of government funding are leading to less talent and commitment among teachers, who are severely underpaid. Teachers’ unions complicate all this by protecting under-performers. Budget deficits cause overcrowded classrooms and limit essential resources like new books and in-classroom technology. And zero-sum rivalries with charter schools and voucher programs divert funds away from public schools.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics in 2018, over 20 per cent of students in grades 6 through 12 have been bullied either in school or on their way to or from school. Studies show increased mental-health challenges among students, especially in college.

These struggles get worse the lower down the socio-economic ladder one looks. And as wealthy students increasingly migrate to private schools, underprivileged kids become a bigger percentage of public school students.

When underprivileged kids struggle in school - surprise, surprise - their job prospects as adults suffer. And studies reveal that low-income students perform worse than wealthier students on average, as family wealth correlates strongly with academic success.

America’s schools (public and private combined) now compare very poorly with the rest of the world.

“Thirty countries now outperform the United States in mathematics at the high school level,” Education Week explained in 2021. “Many are ahead in science, too.

Worse still, America has saddled its young people with gobs of student-loan debt.

America’s public-education system does have some positive aspects, however. Many public schools do exemplary work. Many teachers perform admirably despite being underpaid. And most elite public universities are still among the leading educational institutions globally. The upper echelon of American public education is, indeed, spectacular.

But these discrete examples of high performance make it all the harder to swallow the broad and unforgivable deficiencies. America shows its potential to excel in education; yet for so many of its young people, it fails miserably.

Adams and Jefferson would be appalled.

William Cooper is the author of How America Works … And Why It Doesn’t.