Student Illiteracy Hits Higher Education

While much hand-wringing accompanies each round of dismal reading assessment results, nothing of substance ever seems to be done to remedy the problem. For many years, the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) scores have shown a downward spiral in grades K-12, as Education Reporter and other news outlets have consistently documented.

A variety of issues have been singled out for blame, including the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disadvantages, racism; in short, everything but the failure to teach children to read using the proven phonics instruction method has been offered up as an excuse for rampant illiteracy. And although several dozen states have passed legislation stipulating that “the science of reading” (i.e., phonics and reading comprehension) be employed in reading instruction, scores have continued to plummet.

Election Fallout in Higher Education

The impressive victory of president-elect Donald J. Trump and running mate J.D. Vance is being roundly applauded by those who support the moral crusade to rebuild and restore America. But their opponents are not taking the election results well, and nowhere is this more evident than in academia, where liberal professors are in the majority and college students are melting down.

The College Fix chronicled the fallout in the wake of November 5 that demonstrates the challenges the new Trump Administration will face in, among other places, the realm of higher education. The good news is while college-age voters favored Kamala Harris, it was by a smaller margin than those who voted for Biden in 2020.

Escape from the Teachers’ Unions: It Can Be Done

Although the June 2018 Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME freed teachers from being forced to pay dues to their local teachers’ unions if they are not union members, many educators remain unaware of this ruling. Last month, the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) released a documentary called Karin’s Story, which shows how a special education teacher, Karin Majewski, risked her career to escape the PSEA (the Pennsylvania affiliate of the NEA), and help her fellow teachers do the same if they wished.

IW Features is the storytelling platform of the IWF, which produced the documentary. The video opens with Majewski explaining that the teachers’ unions are actually “a money-laundering system of which teachers and taxpayers are unaware,” and later shows how much of it is ultimately used for political purposes.

Shuttering the Department of Education: Will it Happen?

The expressed intent of the incoming Trump Administration to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) reflects the 2024 Republican Party Platform, which states in part: “We are going to close the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. and send it back to the States, where it belongs, and let the States run our educational system as it should be run.”

The vitriol unleashed by the Left following Trump’s impressive electoral and popular vote victory includes belittling his plans to shutter the DOE. Former Obama Administration education secretary, Arne Duncan, told CNN and repeated on The Hill.com that Trump’s pledge is never going to happen. “That’s just another empty, broken promise,” Duncan said. “Whether his supporters hold him accountable for that, I don’t know.”