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"The latest scores from National Assessment of Educational Progress are unsurprisingly catastrophic. A generation of painfully slow progress was swiftly wiped out...and reading scores for our lowest-performing students fell to the lowest levels in the NAEP assessment’s 30-year history — despite an additional $190 billion from the federal government for K-12 in the last few years, on top of its usual massive outlays..." In 2023, the total spending on K-12 education in the United States was reported to be approximately $857 billion from all sources—federal, state, and local. So, only a fool would continue to believe that funding is the problem with the decline in American education. K-12 education expenditures breakdown thusly: -Administrative Salaries: 7.5% -Teacher Salaries: 42.4% -Employee Benefits: 37.6% The average K-12 teacher (and I am not saying they don't earn it; they do, especially with the intellectual handcuffs they are made to wear by administrative edict) makes approximately $66,397 (salary) and $19,919 (benefits) annually, totaling $86,316. The average K-12 administrator makes approximately $116,474 (salary) and $101,186 (benefits totaling $217,660 per year (if we are looking at where to cut based on bureaucracy and inefficiency, this is where to start). So compensation is not the problem...at all. The problem is with the quality of the curriculum. Our society has abandoned critical thinking skills, which teach children how to think and make decisions for themselves. Instead, our schools have become the playground for neo-Marxist indoctrinators, and our children are their lab monkeys. If we are going to survive as a society, as a culture, and as a country, we must cleave the teacher's unions from any and all decision-making processes where curriculum is concerned. Further, we must cleanse the colleges of education of the far-Left transformative neo-Bolshevik ideologies so pervasive in those institutions. Education has to be about the core subjects -- reading, writing, math, science, and core civics and history --devoid of socio-political ideology. Critical thinking skills must be the order of the day. Social engineering indoctrination through our education system should be considered a criminal act of child abuse. https://substack.com/profile/129788551-frank-salvato/note/c-89835608 #Education #Teachers #Students #Unions #TeachersUnions #Funding #Government #Politics