“This week's Nation's Report Card is, as your editorial notes, "Another K-12 Education Disaster" (Sept. 10). High-school seniors now graduate with the weakest reading skills since 1992 and the lowest math performance since 2005. Nearly half lack skills that would allow them to use percentages to solve everyday problems, and a third lack the skills that would allow them to understand a basic news article.
Arresting this decline matters for our future. Research shows that learning losses could cost students 6% of lifetime earnings and strip the U.S. economy of more than $30 trillion this century.
China, meanwhile, is aggressively building a STEM-educated workforce and has already surpassed us in the number of working-age adults with college degrees. While we dither, they sprint.
There is, however, a silver lining: "Scores at charter schools mostly didn't fall." My experience helps explain why that's the case.
At Success Academy, where I lead 22,000 K-12 students in 59 schools across New York City, we recognized that in an increasingly competitive global landscape, the standard for preparedness is set by the world that graduates must enter. Our students were already among the highest math scorers in New York, but those tests are the floor. We owed them a program that would allow them to compete with the strongest students anywhere.
So we made sweeping changes. We added a second daily math block devoted to logic and problem-solving, integrated mathematics into every science unit and required all students to reach AP Calculus BC. We also redesigned our humanities program to ensure students are immersed in canonical literature, history and art, and that they engage deeply with the texts and ideas that form the foundation of our intellectual tradition.
We want our students to be prepared -- but also confident, resilient and energized by the rigor of their academic settings. These changes have been disruptive, but there is no other way. Incrementalism is a trap.
Policymakers must summon the same courage. That means setting clear, audacious goals: every American student leaving high school ready for college-level work. It means aligning K-12 instruction with the demands of higher education and the modern economy -- from calculus and data analysis to deep engagement with literature and the dispassionate, in-depth study of our past. It means dramatically raising our expectations, strengthening teacher training and holding schools accountable for results.
We are in an education cold war. The country that leads will command the global economy and shape the future of innovation.
If we continue to nibble at the edges -- or worse, retreat into political distractions and excuses -- we will forfeit that role. Our 12th-graders sent us a warning across every subject. It's time we listened and acted with the boldness the moment demands.
Success Academy
New York” [1]
1. The U.S. Is Locked in an Education Cold War. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 12 Sep 2025: A14.
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