Again, the Kids are NOT Alright

To note, Minneapolis Public Schools announced that they will provide "E-learning" through Feb. 12th for any student who requests it due to the ICE shooting in that city as well as ICE agents who appear to be circling schools, looking for undocumented parents. From NBC News:

Just a few hours after an ICE officer ignited nationwide outrage Wednesday by fatally shooting Renee Nicole Good on a snowy street in Minneapolis, U.S. Border Patrol agents clashed with teachers and protesters at a high school less than 3 miles from where the 37-year-old mom was killed.

“This is so upsetting,” Carol said Thursday as she tearfully recounted what she had witnessed. “All these men, who were fully armed, suddenly jumped out of the SUVs and started running towards the school.”

School was being dismissed at the time, and hundreds of students were walking out of the building, she said.

“Some of the teachers and school workers were trying to keep the Border Patrol away from the students, telling them to stay off school property,” she said. “They just pushed [the teachers] away. I saw one teacher get tackled.”

There is an article written for the New York Intelligencer about parents' lack of understanding about what is happening in public schools. It is lengthy but I urge you to give a read because it starkly lays out the main issue which is the divide between students is growing. It seems it is definitely worsening for those at the bottom.

Basically, it states that last winter's results from federal testing show that 4th and 8th graders are not doing well and at least 40% of the 4th graders and one-third of 8th graders are performing below basic. As well, scores for 12th graders - the first assessment since COVID - showed similar results. 

Many graduate from high school without the ability to decipher this sentence. How can I assume that? The test asked them to define the word decipher and 24% of them got it wrong.

This was a math problem scenario presented:

The students were to add the cost of these items together and calculate a 20% tip.

Three-quarters of the high-schoolers were unable to correctly answer one or both parts of the question.

Here are reasons that may cause confusion about how a student is doing:

- Annual standardized-test results often arrive after the school year is over.

- Teacher feedback can be subjective.

- If grades are inflated, then the report card may not truly be true.

While test scores can be made to mean too much, and no one likes seeing a process as magical as a child's intellectual development reduced to a number, the hard data does tell us something we can't otherwise know.

In 2015, students were actually doing better and much of that is "primarily driven by outsized gains by the lowest-performing students as they caught up to the kids at the top."

Disparities between the performance of white students and Black students narrowed. The gender gap in math disappeared, and girls were performing just as well as boys.

So what happened? "Academics are nearly united in the opinion that the problem is not simply a product of the pandemic."

And it isn't just about income disparities either. The author references his own district in Montclair, New Jersey which a tony place to live. 

All told, our district spent around $27,600 per pupil, according to Census Bureau data, which put it in the 95th percentile for school systems of its size.

Here's what is key to me and what I hope incoming superintendent, Ben Schuldiner, and the new Board hear:

But the district has one or two meetings a year where they say "This is the data." and there is no explanation about how they are going to improve it.

The story goes on to explain that there were a lot of federal dollars flowing to schools during COVID. 

I expected the district to use our cut of the money to address the emergency; mobilizing an army of tutors, working after school and during the summer, to compensate for the months lost to lockdown. But the MASH unit never arrived.

What is fascinating to me is that this New Jersey district had many of the same issues as SPS. Namely, losing a superintendent, the costs for Special Education and bus service, and teacher contract costs. (One issue for them, though, was a COO who "left behind about $12M in unpaid bills, jammed into desk drawers." Oh my.) What is also interesting (and aligns with SPS):

Speaker after speaker demanded a forensic audit to probe for corruption, but the superintendent offered a more banal explanation: We had been living beyond our means."

As well, throughout the country, there were districts who moved to get rid of gifted programs rather than reform them to serve more students. 

In lots of weird ways, the political left has used equity to diminish high expectations for kids," says Aldeman, the former Obama administration official.

There is also discussion of the "southern surge" which is Southern states doing better when they traditionally have been at the bottom. What is interesting is that the achievements are at the 4th grade level but plummet by 8th grade.

A cynic might say this shows that Democrats believe in data only until it elucidates their shortcomings. But an inability to face the facts is bipartisan. And Republicans preferred solution to this crisis of public education is its abandonment.

At the end of the day, that New Jersey district's superintendent said this:

Our budget reflects our priorities and I don't know how much of a priority teaching and learning has honestly been."

 

Yesterday, WA state superintendent Chris Reykdal held a news conference on the state of Washington public education. From OSPI:

The Superintendent talked about Washington's unfair tax system and the negative impact it has on individuals and families, as well as the limitations of our state's tax policy in fully funding public education.

From the Seattle Times:

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal wants the state to boost education funding and enact a fairer tax system to pay for it.

Reykdal on Thursday said he supports proposals that would ask more of high-income taxpayers, and that he wants to ease the pressures on struggling families frustrated with the current tax structure.

“We need tax reform,” he said. “The wealthiest don’t pay an equitable share. Our middle-class families pay too much, in particular.”

He referenced stats like WA state being down 41,000 students since 2019. 

As positive signs, Reykdal pointed to the increasing percentage of high school students taking college credits and ninth graders passing all of their classes. About 70% of high schoolers took dual-credit classes in 2025, including career and technical education classes, and nearly 72% were on track to graduate.

However that issue of attendance:

More than a quarter of students were chronically absent in the 2024-25 school year, missing more than 18 days of school. In the 2018-19 school year, only about 15% of students were chronically absent.

Only 57% of eighth graders demonstrated foundational grade-level knowledge or higher in math in 2025.

Reykdal called for more emphasis on math across the educational system: He said he wants more math professional development for elementary school teachers during and after their preliminary training, and more classroom time devoted to the subject in elementary schools. OSPI will also investigate using technology to help students who are already ahead of their grade-level in math, he said.

In the meantime, the state is overhauling math standards, which will kick in in the 2027-28 school year, he said.

About 43% of the state’s budget goes to K-12 education, less than before the landmark McCleary lawsuit, which declared the state was not fully funding K-12 education, and led to billions of dollars in investments in public schools, he said.

Citing research from the Education Law Center at Rutgers University, Reykdal said the state ranks 40th in the nation for how much of its economy goes back to schools.