US Education Declines Could Empower China

The U.S. faces a worsening education crisis that experts warn could erode its economy, weaken national security, and hand China a decisive advantage in global competition.

National test scores show steep declines in literacy and numeracy since the mid-2010s, with the pandemic accelerating the slide. Reading levels for 13-year-olds have fallen to lows last recorded in the 1970s, according to the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics. Among adults, nearly 30% now score at the lowest level for literacy, while a third rank lowest for math, both well above international averages.

"Even if it's only half as bad as those test scores suggest, it's unbelievably terrible," American Enterprise Institute Deputy Director of Education Studies Nat Malkus told The Telegraph.

"It's hard to overstate how bad it is."

President Donald Trump has rebuked the cost of the Education Department, which he said has led to a decline in education standards, with the White House asking bluntly: "Why would we keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result?"

A White House memo in March was titled "On Education, President Trump Knows We Can Do Better":

Since 1979, the U.S. Department of Education has spent over $3 trillion with virtually nothing to show for it. Despite per-pupil spending having increased by more than 245% over that period, there has been virtually no measurable improvement in student achievement:

Math and reading scores for 13-year-olds are at the lowest level in decades.

Six-in-10 fourth graders and nearly three-quarters of eighth graders are not proficient in math.

Seven-in-10 fourth and eighth graders are not proficient in reading, while 40% of fourth grade students don't even meet basic reading levels.

Standardized test scores have remained flat for decades.

U.S. students rank 28 out of 37 [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] member countries in math.

The education declines threaten U.S. national security, particularly as China has conversely managed to bolster its education standards, The Telegraph reported.

"Once the world's education superpower, the U.S. is slipping down global rankings," the paper's Melissa Lawford and Meike Eijsberg wrote. "With this decline comes a massive threat to productivity, economic growth and America's national security.

"The threat is particularly acute because the US's arch rival, China, is overseeing a rapid improvement in its education system. When it comes to 'human capital,' America may have already been surpassed."

The test score declines have accelerated post-pandemic.

Last year, American students were still trailing behind their pre-pandemic peers by almost half a grade in mathematics and reading, based on findings from the Education Recovery Scorecard, a joint effort by researchers from Stanford and Harvard.

Stanford economist Eric Hanushek has warned that U.S. students may lose 6% of lifetime earnings due to pandemic learning loss, cutting $31 trillion from GDP over the century.

"Really the top half is pretty much flat and the bottom half is dropping dramatically," the AEI's Malkus told The Telegraph. "In fact, the gap between the top and bottom performers in the U.S. is growing at the fastest pace in the world, based on comparable data.

"It is not really only in America, but it is by far, far the worst in America."

The crisis is especially stark when set against China's rapid educational expansion. Beijing has produced the world's largest skilled workforce and is projected to have more than 120 million college-educated citizens by 2040 compared with a stagnant 60 million in the U.S.

America's share of the global college-educated workforce already dropped from 40% in 1950 to 16% in 2022.

"Quantity can become a quality of its own," the AEI's Nicholas Eberstadt told the Telegraph.

Trump has long lamented that the U.S. pays more per pupil for education and gets far less in return compared with the rest of the world, arguing that Democrat-run education systems in America's cities along with federalization of education are to blame.