The federal government has spent over $3 trillion on education since 1979, yet American students remain shockingly unprepared for the modern world. The data paint an undeniable picture of failure: more than 60% of fourth graders and 74% of eighth graders are not proficient in math, while 70% of fourth and eighth graders fall below proficiency in reading. Worse still, nearly 40% of fourth graders cannot even meet the most basic reading benchmarks. These grim statistics are compounded by America’s dismal performance on the world stage—U.S. students now rank 28th out of 37 OECD nations in mathematics, despite the fact that America spends more per pupil than almost every other developed nation.
For decades, the Department of Education (DOE) has expanded its reach, ballooning into a bloated bureaucracy that does little beyond imposing federal mandates, increasing paperwork, and diverting funds from classrooms into administrative overhead. As spending has skyrocketed— per-pupil expenditures rising over 245% since 1979—student achievement has remained stagnant or declined. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores reveal that math and reading performance among 17-year-olds is virtually unchanged since the early 1970s, despite the massive influx of federal dollars. In other words, trillions have been spent for no discernible improvement. If education spending were the key to success, American students should be leading the world. Instead, they are falling further behind.