The Long Line of Pessimists About America's Schools

"Was there ever a time when Americans believed that kids were actually being educated well? A look back through The Atlantic's archives shows that bouts of optimism are very occasional. I recently joined this long line of pessimists when reporting on the stunning decline in educational performance among K-12 students in the United States over the past decade. After a temporary period of improvement"

"Compare this to James L. Mursell's complaint in 1939 that "in the grand struggle to get subject matter off the page and into the head, the schools are suffering a spectacular and most disconcerting defeat." He was dismayed that half of the students who took algebra in Iowa failed a basic mathematics test, that physics students failed basic questions of kinematics, and that the time spent learning high-school chemistry turned out to be "an almost total loss" when those students arrived at college."

K-12 student performance in the United States has declined sharply over the past decade, reaching 25- and 30-year lows in reading and mathematics, and high-school ACT scores are the worst since 1990. A 1939 assessment reported that half of algebra students failed a basic mathematics test, physics students missed basic kinematics questions, and high-school chemistry learning proved almost entirely lost by college arrival. The 1939 assessment also reported many high-school pupils could not distinguish sentences. A 1950 essay warned against outsourcing curriculum development to university pedagogical experts and criticized "superprofessionals" who determine the education paid for by taxes. Pessimism about public schooling has recurred across decades.

Read at The Atlantic