The United States is facing a major reading crisis in 8th grade classrooms, reporting that only 30 percent of all students enrolled in public education are able to proficiently read at their expected level, raising a variety of questions for parents, “what are you actually teaching our kids?” Public Education in the United States receives roughly 946.5 billion dollars in government funding annually (Reported in 2023), with it expected to be roughly a near trillion-dollar price tag by 2030, and still, 70 percent of kids can’t read on proficient nor satisfactory on an eighth-grade level? Many parents ask and plead where the funding is going, and a parent who asks these same confusing questions by the name of Esti Iturralde said, “I thought there was something wrong with my kid. I thought there was something wrong with us… What’s missing here?”
This quote by Esti summarizes how roughly 70 percent of parents feel about their children. Yet, with this crisis imminent and on the forefront of the Public Education’s doorstep, they are yet to make any drastic changes to counteract these reports, like a possible ban on AI assistance, extra reading practice, or a significant upgrade on sufficient teachers and equipment, yet a study by the U.S. Census Bureau, a government related data-base, which shows that schools around the world spend over 100 billion just in sport events alone (10-11% annually), but most of the expenditures are spent on teachers, with nearly 78 percent of the near trillion-dollar budget is spent on teachers’ salaries and benefits, a stark contrast when compared to the amount spent on school supplies, which is around 78 billion (7.8 percent). There is a significant rate of funding, showing that sports are taking a definite precedence over actual learning, which contradicts what is being expected from students, showing that sports are more important in the school’s eye then their actual purpose of school; to teach the next upcoming generations of youth. Also, we understand that the payment of teacher is worthy and deserved, but it definitely shouldn’t make up 78 percent of the total fund. This excessive payment leaves the teachers payed, but it leaves them unprepared on school supplies or how to teach the children in general. These shocking findings show the gap in private institutions where their proficiency in reading at the eighth-grade level is near 46 percent (pre-2019 findings), showing the gap isn’t as far as people make it to be. Still, this 16 percent gap is still noticeable, but is it worth the 14,999 dollars the average American spends on private school tuition? That tumultuous decision is truly, for you to decide.
