As a kid, I was a bit rambunctious. I talked a lot in class, acted up some, and didn’t always pay attention to the lesson. Halfway through 8th grade my English teacher, Mrs. Hunt, told me something profound.
“You know, your classmates really look up to you. They see you as a leader. I bet if you paid attention in class more, you could teach them a thing or two,” she said.
That conversation changed my life. After that, I took my education seriously and tried to be the leader Mrs. Hunt thought I could be. Years later, I completed my doctoral degree in higher education. That conversation with Mrs. Hunt was a defining moment that put me on the pathway to academic and financial success.
This is not a unique story in America. Right after college, I was a middle school math teacher in a low-income community. I learned firsthand what Mrs. Hunt and so many other great teachers already knew — any kid can learn, regardless of zip code, race, income, or background. They just need great teachers who care about their future and an education bureaucracy that gets out of the way.
But right now, bad education policy has put our education system in crisis.
The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — known as The Nation’s Report Card — paints a grim portrait of K-12 achievement nationwide. These results, the first comprehensive post-pandemic snapshot, reveal American students testing at historic lows across math, reading, and science. In 8th-grade science, only 31% scored proficient, marking the first decline since 2009. For 12th graders, only 22% are proficient in math — the lowest average score since 2005. Nearly two-thirds lack proficiency in reading.
