Politicized and bureaucratic education system has failed families

Earlier this month, I took my 13-year-old son to buy a get-well card for a teammate who had taken a baseball to the face during a tournament.“How about this one?” I asked. He took the card I’d offered, paused, and looked up at me. We bought the card, but I left that encounter even more discouraged by the state of education in America. And I’m not alone.A Gallup poll released last week found that satisfaction with K-12 education has hit basement levels, with just 32% saying they are satisfied with the quality of education. Satisfaction with US education has hit an all-time low, according to a new @Gallup poll.Maybe that’s because proficiency in reading, math, and science has also hit 20-year lows.Would be interesting to compare these trends with per-student spending, @DeAngelisCorey. pic.twitter.com/CSvuvws7Sx— Jon Miltimore (@miltimore79) September 11, 2026 That’s the lowest level in the 27 years Gallup has conducted the survey, and a 19-point drop from 2019, when 51% said they were satisfied.While attitudes about education alone don’t necessarily mean quality has declined, the evidence suggests people have good reason to be dissatisfied.One day after Gallup released its poll results, the New York Times published the results of the latest Program for International Student Assessment, which measures 15-year-olds across countries for proficiency in science, reading, and math.To say the results for U.S. students are bleak is an understatement. Performance in science, reading, and math all hit 20-year lows.“Our kids are going in the wrong direction on the skills that are absolutely essential for their — and our — success. Period. The end,” Margaret Spellings, an education secretary under former President George W. Bush, told the New York Times.Considering these results, it’s hardly surprising that more than two-thirds of people say they are dissatisfied with K-12 education. Indeed, the only surprise is that a third say they are satisfied.Why student scores are plummeting is a more interesting question.If you read the New York Times story, the primary culprit is artificial intelligence. The newspaper reports that in the United States and other mostly free-market countries, most of which scored even worse than the U.S. in the latest PISA, AI is highly prevalent. Whereas in Asian countries that scored much higher, such as China, Singapore, and Japan, “AI is not typically used by students.”The New York Post, meanwhile, says social media, smartphones, and tablets are “behind the brain-rotting.” The paper, citing data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, said evidence suggests that these technologies have created a “hasty reading” epidemic, which has hurt reading comprehension.“In reading, more screen time and less reading for pleasure have gone hand in hand with weaker results,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann told reporters.Technology has no doubt played a role, but simply blaming tech ignores the pressure schools put on students to adopt it.In 2013, the year my son was born, cursive was disappearing from U.S. classrooms. It was “increasingly becoming obsolete,” an elementary school principal told the Washington Post. The newspaper also reported on what was taking the place of actual writing.“Cursive writing is a traditional skill that has been replaced with technology,” a union official told the paper.The paper was not wrong about these trends. Like many children, mine were sent home with tablets purchased by schools — no doubt with the aid of federal dollars. They were ordered to do their homework on these devices.Now the tide is turning once again. My younger son, who is entering fourth grade, won’t be bringing a tablet home, his teacher told me. He will not be receiving cursive instruction — he is “too old” at this point — but many younger students will.The return of cursive is part of a broader national trend. Now, it’s tech that is in the doghouse.“Sorry, the social experiment on a hundred million kids did not go as planned,” school administrators seem to be saying.This whiplash raises a lot of questions, but it’s a mistake to simply blame technology or believe that reintroducing cursive will improve U.S. education without identifying the root of the problem.Many claim that only greater funding and an optimal student-teacher ratio can improve schools. But K-12 spending is at historic highs, $21,065 per pupil, even as student achievement has reached historic lows.Banning screens can’t fix the system’s lack of accountability and skewed incentives. Schools continue to receive funds no matter how poorly they perform. As my colleague Corey DeAngelis recently noted, the failure of U.S. schools, which also suffer from an absenteeism epidemic, is the result of a government-run monopoly that is almost entirely insulated from competition.WHAT TO MAKE OF BERNIE AND BANNON’S ALLIANCE?Teachers are not to blame. Nor is technology primarily to blame. The fault lies with the highly politicized and bureaucratic system, which is failing before our eyes.Gallup’s polling suggests people have finally recognized the problem. The question now is: What will they do about it?