US Department of Education Report Card

The Department of Education, was created by laws passed in 1979 and it began official operations on May 4, 1980. Here are its own statistics (ie, From the National Center for Education Statistics at the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences on their website: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ltt/results2004/).

These are the average scores for 17-year olds about to graduate from high school. (Note: The first scores are for the earliest years reported by the website.)

Reading ("Average Scale Scores"):
1980: 285
1992: 290
2004: 285

Writing ("Average Scale Scores"):
1998: 150
2007: 153

Math ("Average Scale Scores"):
1980: 300
1992: 307
2004: 307

Science ("Average Scale Scores"):
1996: 150
2005: 147

Reading scores are the same today as the day ED, the Department of Education, started operating. It's true that the scores increased slightly between then and now to a peak of 290 but it's a pretty small peak and scores have decreased steadily since then.

Writing scores are the only ones that increased but it wasn't much and to the extent what we see written in opinion pages, general media, advertising, and other sources is an indication of competency in grammar and general expression, the writing ability of our high school and even college graduates is none too impressive.

Math scores haven't improved since the early 90's. We got a little value out of ED before then but nothing since.

Science scores decreased slightly since the early 1990's. Considering that high tech endeavors are increasingly driving the economic engines of successful countries this is very discouraging.

Test scores in all areas of learning did increase substantially and consistently(!) for grade school and middle school children in all areas of learning but what good is that if such increases cannot be sustained through high school since, at graduation, they become the students' tools in the real world. For that reason I haven't included those statistics. High school graduates' scores are the ones that matter as a tool for measuring likely success as adults and those are the scores that stagnated at least 20 years ago.

An important point to make is that all the hubbub over pre-kindergarten education and 'getting children ready for grade school' is way overblown based on test results that show CONSISTENT increases for all for pre-high school grades. I have a revolutionary idea, why don't we pay more attention to the areas in which test scores show there is an actual measurable need? Duh! That would be, drum roll, high school! Hello? With all grades except high school making improvements, by what warped logic can anyone claim pre-kindergarten (or any other pre-high school level) is where we need to focus? The education 'experts' tell us with their own data(!) that all grades except high school are improving and then they say that where we need to focus is getting children better prepared for grade school. Grade schools are improving and high schools aren't so we need to fix grade schools? Say, what? These are supposed to be our smart people fixing this. With thinking like this is it any wonder our high school graduates aren't any more skilled than those from 20 years ago or more? And with logic like this, what are the chances it'll improve any time soon?

Indeed, intuition and annecdotal information also strongly speak to multiple needs highschoolers have that aren't being met besides strictly academic ones. I strongly disagree with the focus I hear from mostly liberal circles that we need more emphasis on pre-kindergarten education or, for that matter, on kindergarten, grade school or middle school either. Why not fix what's wrong at the high school level first since their own test results show that's what needs fixing? Could it be that this pre-kindergarten education need is actually tax-payer funded day care masquerading as 'education reform'?