Some troubling news on the education front, from the Kentucky Lantern:

Just days after federal data revealed average reading, math and science scores dropped among certain grades since before the coronavirus pandemic, a U.S. Senate panel on Thursday picked apart the root causes and methods for students’ academic improvement. 

The hearing in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions centered on the “state of K-12 education” — which GOP members on the committee described as “troubling” — in light of recent data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP.

NAEP, regarded as the gold standard for tracking students’ academic performance, showed that average science scores for eighth-graders decreased by 4 points since before the pandemic, in 2019. Average math and reading scores for 12th-graders also fell 3 points between 2019 and 2024. 

The assessments were administered between January and March of 2024. Results also showed that just one-third of 12th-graders are considered academically prepared for college in math — a drop from 37% in 2019. 

The committee’s chair, Sen. Bill Cassidy, said “it should concern us that children’s reading, math and science scores have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels.” 

Cassidy is a Louisiana Republican. Perhaps it’s his fault because he voted for this:

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released a statement after the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Linda McMahon to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education by a final vote of 51 to 45. Last month, the HELP Committee approved her nomination by a vote of 12 to 11.  

And for those of you who don’t know Linda McMahon’s background, look at the photo at the top, then read this:

McMahon, along with her husband, Vince McMahon, founded sports entertainment company Titan Sports, Inc. (later World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.), where she worked as the president and later CEO from 1980 to 2009. During this time, the company grew from a regional business in the northeast to a large multinational corporation. Among other things, she initiated the company’s civic programs, Get R.E.A.L. and SmackDown! Your Vote. She made occasional on-screen performances, most notably in a feud with her husband that culminated at WrestleMania X-Seven.

Then combine that with this (also from the Lantern):

Kentucky’s kids are struggling in school more than they did pre-pandemic, according to a new report on child wellbeing from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. 

While Kentucky children improved in the last few years on a few measures — more have health insurance, for example — every measure of education worsened, according to the KIDS COUNT Book, released Monday.   

From 2019-2023, about 63% of Kentucky’s children ages 3 and 4 were not in school, an increase from 58% from 2014-2018.

In 2024, 67% of Kentucky’s fourth graders were less than proficient in reading. That’s up from 65% in 2019. 

That same year, most — 76% — of eighth graders in the state weren’t proficient in math, up from 71% in 2019. From 2021-2022, 10% of high school students did not graduate on time, an increase from 9% in 2019, according to the report. 

In essence, we are in an idiocracy, which means we have been reduced to this:

The sad thing is that Camacho, as stupid as he may be, actually wants to help people and make their lives better, unlike the current Orange TACO and his WWE-inspired secretary of education.

(And before some MAGAt says it’s all Joe Biden’s fault, TACO was president when the pandemic began, and the decline is rooted there. The Biden administration was stuck with trying to fix the damage, but MAGAts brought TACO back, and everything has gotten worse.)