Problems in the American Education System Facing Schools Today

The problems facing American schools today are stacked on top of one another: test scores at historic lows, widening gaps between rich and poor districts, roughly one in five students chronically absent, teachers leaving faster than they can be replaced, school buildings averaging nearly half a century old, a student mental health crisis schools aren’t staffed to handle, and a political fight over who runs public education at all. These issues reinforce each other, and they hit low-income students, students of color, and rural communities hardest.

Academic Performance Is Falling

The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, released in early 2025, showed continued declines. Average reading scores for fourth and eighth graders fell by two points, with 40 percent of fourth graders and a third of eighth graders unable to meet even a “basic” reading level.¹ Fourth-grade math ticked up slightly but remains well below 2019 levels. Eighth-grade math was flat.

High school is worse. Among twelfth graders, 45 percent scored “below basic” in math, the highest share ever recorded, and only 22 percent reached proficiency. Twelfth-grade reading proficiency dropped to 35 percent. Only 33 percent of seniors were prepared for entry-level college math, down from 37 percent in 2019.²

Recovery has been uneven. Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, said gains have been “mostly in math, and largely driven by high-performing students.”¹ Students in the bottom quarter continued to lose ground or stagnate while top students pulled further ahead, widening the gap in twelfth-grade math to record levels.

Internationally, on the 2022 PISA, American fifteen-year-olds scored above the OECD average in reading and science. In math, the U.S. average of 465 was statistically indistinguishable from the OECD mean, placing American students below 25 other education systems, with Singapore, Japan, and Korea significantly ahead.³⁴

Grade Inflation Is Hiding the Slide

Test scores are falling, but grades are rising. Average high school math GPA climbed from 3.02 in 2010 to 3.32 in 2022, with similar jumps in English and science, according to an ACT report.⁵ At UC San Diego, the number of incoming freshmen scoring below high school math standards on placement exams increased nearly thirtyfold between 2020 and 2025. By fall 2025, roughly one in eight entering students did not meet high school math benchmarks, and more than 70 percent of that group also failed to meet middle school math standards. Among fall 2024 students who tested at below-middle-school levels in math, 94 percent had completed advanced high school coursework, and over a quarter of those placed into remedial math held a 4.0 high school math GPA.⁶

In Texas, roughly 40 percent of students entering colleges and universities do not meet state college-readiness standards, and about two-thirds of community college entrants fall short.⁷ When transcripts say one thing and standardized measures say another, parents and policymakers see rising GPAs and assume things are fine, while colleges and employers absorb the gap through remedial coursework.

Chronic Absenteeism

Chronic absenteeism, defined as missing at least 10 percent of the school year, or about 18 days, was around 15 percent before the pandemic. It peaked near 29 percent in 2021–22. As of 2024–25, RAND estimates it at about 22 percent, or roughly 10.8 million students.⁸

The distribution matters as much as the number. Nearly half of urban districts report “extreme” chronic absenteeism rates of 30 percent or more, five to six times higher than suburban or rural districts.⁸ In California, 67 percent of schools where three-quarters or more of students are socioeconomically disadvantaged reported high or extreme chronic absence in 2024–25, compared to just 2 percent of the state’s most affluent schools.⁹

Attitudes have shifted too. In RAND survey data, 26 percent of young people ages 12 to 21 believe missing three weeks of school is “mostly OK.”⁸ Even so, returning to pre-pandemic attendance would recover only about 7.5 percent of the nation’s pandemic learning losses, according to researchers, meaning absenteeism is one piece of a bigger problem.¹⁰

Funding Is Structurally Unequal

About 45 percent of K–12 revenue comes from local governments, and 80 percent of that local share comes from property taxes.¹¹ District boundaries are also taxing boundaries, which means the property values in a neighborhood directly shape what its schools can spend.

Along the 100 most economically segregating school district borders, the average difference in local revenue is $4,119 per pupil. Along the 100 most racially segregating borders, districts serving more students of color collect $2,223 less per pupil than their predominantly white neighbors. Nebraska’s most racially segregated district borders show a gap of nearly $8,300 per student in local revenue, and the state’s funding system covers less than 25 percent of the shortfall.¹²

States try to offset these gaps, and some have been ordered to do so. New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Ohio implemented more progressive funding systems as a result of court orders. Still, in nearly half of states, low-income students receive less combined state and local funding than wealthier peers. Federal money, mostly Title I, closes the gap in 18 states that would otherwise be regressive, but it amounts to only about 10 percent of total education spending.¹³

The ESSER Cliff and Special Education Shortfall

Nearly $190 billion in pandemic-era ESSER relief funds expired on September 30, 2024. Those funds had accounted for between 4 and 17 percent of total education revenue per state, and the highest-need districts had seen revenue increases of 40 percent or more.¹⁴ A review of 50 urban districts found that nearly half reported budget cuts, shortfalls, or declining revenues for 2024–25.¹⁵

Special education has its own long-running shortfall. When Congress passed the precursor to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1975, it pledged to cover 40 percent of the average per-pupil cost of special education services. As of 2025, the federal share has fallen to less than 12 percent, leaving a national shortfall of $38.66 billion for the 2024–25 school year. The bipartisan IDEA Full Funding Act, reintroduced in April 2025, would push federal funding back toward the original commitment but has not advanced.¹⁶

Racial and Socioeconomic Gaps Persist

Achievement gaps begin before kindergarten and widen. According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Black-white gaps at the start of kindergarten are about 0.5 standard deviations in reading and 0.75 in math, and most of that gap is explained by family socioeconomic status. By eighth grade, the Black-white math gap widens to a full standard deviation.¹⁷

On the 2022 NAEP, 84 percent of Black, 82 percent of American Indian, and 80 percent of Hispanic fourth graders scored below proficiency in reading, compared to 59 percent of white students. In eighth-grade math, 91 percent of Black, 89 percent of American Indian, and 86 percent of Hispanic students fell below proficiency, versus 66 percent of white students. The 2021–22 national graduation rate was 87 percent, but Black students graduated at 81 percent, Hispanic students at 83 percent, and American Indian/Alaska Native students at 74 percent.¹⁸

Segregation is a big part of the mechanism. Nationwide, 60 percent of Hispanic, 59 percent of Black, and 54 percent of Pacific Islander students attend schools where more than three-quarters of classmates share their race or ethnicity. A 2024 Albert Shanker Institute report found that Black students are twice as likely as white peers to attend inadequately funded districts and 3.5 times more likely to be in chronically underfunded ones.¹⁸ The Economic Policy Institute traces these patterns back to public housing segregation, redlining, and racially restrictive FHA loan practices whose effects have compounded across generations.¹⁹ Treasury Department analysis estimates that closing racial gaps in educational attainment could increase U.S. GDP by $190 billion.¹⁷

The Teacher Shortage

Teacher job openings began outpacing hires in late 2017, and the main reason is teachers quitting, not retirement. The pipeline of new teachers is shrinking too: enrollment in teacher preparation programs fell sharply between 2009 and 2014 and has stayed flat since. By 2022, 62 percent of the public said they would not want their child to become a teacher, up from 15 percent in 1969.²⁰

The consistent top reason is pay. In 2024, public school teachers earned 26.9 percent less per week than other college-educated professionals with comparable education and experience, a record gap that has grown from 6.1 percent in 1996. Over the last decade, inflation-adjusted weekly wages for teachers declined by $46, while wages for other college graduates rose by $220. Including benefits, teachers still earn 17.1 percent less in total compensation. The national average teacher salary is $72,030, with the penalty ranging from 10 percent in Rhode Island to 38.5 percent in Colorado.²¹

Rural schools have it worst. Rural districts serving low-income students have the highest teacher turnover rates in the country, and teachers are more than twice as likely to move from a rural school to an urban or suburban one than the reverse. A 2020 study of California districts found rural schools posted 12 more vacancies per 100 teachers than urban counterparts and hired twice as many emergency-certified educators. Arkansas raised its minimum teacher salary from $36,000 to $50,000 in 2023, and in the first year the average starting-pay gap between rural and urban districts shrank from $2,400 to $48.²²

School Buildings Are Aging Out

The American Society of Civil Engineers gives U.S. school infrastructure a grade of D+. The average main instructional building is 49 years old, and fewer than half have had a significant renovation since being built.²³ About 54 percent of districts need to update or replace multiple building systems, and 41 percent need HVAC work in at least half their schools, affecting roughly 36,000 buildings.²⁴ Rising temperatures have added roughly 13,700 schools to the list needing air conditioning, a $40 billion need.

The annual funding gap to bring facilities to good repair grew from $60 billion in 2016 to $85 billion in 2021.²³ Facility spending in low-income districts runs at half the level of high-income districts, and schools with high concentrations of Black and Latino students face the steepest underfunding, according to The Century Foundation.²⁵

Student Mental Health

Schools are the de facto mental health system for millions of children. About one in five teens has symptoms of anxiety or depression, and in 2024–25, 58 percent of schools reported an increase in students seeking mental health services over the prior year.²⁶ As of 2023 data, 40 percent of high school students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and 20 percent reported seriously considering suicide.²⁷

Youth are six times more likely to complete mental health treatment in a school setting than in a community clinic.²⁸ But the staffing isn’t there. The national student-to-counselor ratio is 376 to 1, above the recommended 250 to 1, and the student-to-psychologist ratio is 1,065 to 1, more than double the recommended 500 to 1.²⁷ Only about half of schools say they can effectively provide the services students need, with inadequate funding (56 percent) and provider shortages (55 percent) as the primary barriers. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022 had directed $1 billion toward increasing school-based mental health providers; the Trump administration announced the cancellation of those funds in April 2025.²⁶

Political and Policy Fights

The Department of Education

On March 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing the closure of the U.S. Department of Education.²⁹ The administration has fired nearly half the department’s staff and signed agreements to move 118 programs to other federal agencies, and in March 2026 it announced the transfer of the $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio to Treasury.³⁰ Formal abolition requires an act of Congress, which Brookings analysts consider “very unlikely” given the Senate filibuster and bipartisan public opposition.³¹ Title I and IDEA are written into separate statutes and would survive the department’s dissolution, but experts warn the loss of federal compliance machinery could leave oversight gaps, especially for students with disabilities. Congress rejected the White House’s proposed $12 billion cut in a January 2026 bipartisan deal that instead increased department funding.³²

Vouchers and Private-School Choice

Public funding for private education has expanded quickly. As of mid-2025, 33 states have private-school choice programs, 12 of them with universal eligibility.³³ Texas, Tennessee, Wyoming, and Idaho all enacted new programs in 2025, with Texas funding its at $1 billion to serve roughly 90,000 students. On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the first major federal private school choice program, a tax-credit scholarship giving taxpayers a full credit for donations up to $1,700 to scholarship-granting organizations, with students from families earning up to 300 percent of the area median eligible starting January 2027.³⁴

The academic evidence is mixed to negative. Brookings research found that over the last decade, studies of traditional voucher programs consistently showed negative impacts on student test scores, with losses as high as 0.4 standard deviations in Louisiana and about 0.15 standard deviations in Indiana.³⁵ Indiana-specific research found math losses persisted at least four years after students switched from public to private schools.³⁶ Larger programs tend to produce worse results, and programs with stronger accountability requirements perform substantially better.

Book Bans and Curriculum Restrictions

Since 2021, nearly 23,000 instances of book bans have been recorded in public schools. In 2024–25 alone, PEN America documented 6,870 instances across 23 states, led by Florida and Texas.³⁷ Targeted materials often include works by authors of color, LGBTQ+ authors, and women, and books addressing racism, sexuality, and history. At least 20 states have passed legislation since 2021 restricting instruction on race or gender. Eight states — California, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Washington — have passed “freedom to read” laws restricting ideological removals and requiring formal review.³⁸ PEN America filed a First Amendment lawsuit against a Tennessee school board in April 2025. A federal appeals court ruled in May 2025 that a Texas library’s decision to remove books could not be challenged under a patron’s “right to receive information.”

Immigration Enforcement Reaching Into Schools

The Trump administration’s rescission of the “sensitive locations” policy, which had previously discouraged immigration enforcement near schools, has affected enrollment and attendance. Florida’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research reported K-12 enrollment estimates for 2025–26 dropped by 46,455 students, attributed to “chilling effects from recently implemented immigration policies,” with a 17,312-student decline in English as a Second Language programs.³⁹ In a spring 2026 national survey, 39 percent of educators reported reduced attendance related to immigration enforcement, up from 24 percent the prior fall, and 57 percent reported increased anxiety and fear among students.⁴⁰ About 30 percent of Latino families reported in 2025 that they would not enroll their children in early childhood programs due to fears of detention or deportation.⁴¹

AI and Cellphones in the Classroom

Two newer pressures are moving through state legislatures. Since 2025, 35 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico have introduced AI-related education legislation, and 24 states have enacted laws or resolutions. Idaho prohibits AI from replacing teachers, Nevada bars AI from performing school counselor functions, and Illinois has expanded its cyberbullying law to cover AI-generated deepfakes.⁴² Georgia and Mississippi are requiring computer science coursework that includes AI instruction for graduation.⁴³ A January 2026 Brookings study found that AI risks currently outweigh benefits for children’s foundational development, with mixed evidence for older students receiving targeted support.

Cellphone bans are moving faster. New York became the largest state to enact a “bell-to-bell” smartphone restriction in K-12 schools as part of its FY 2026 budget, allocating $13.5 million for storage solutions.⁴⁴ A National Bureau of Economic Research study of a Florida district that required phones stored in backpacks all day found test scores rose by an average of 1.1 percentiles in the second year of the ban, with the largest gains among male students and middle and high schoolers. Unexcused absences also fell significantly, and researchers estimated improved attendance accounted for up to half the academic gains.⁴⁵

How the Public Sees It

A Pew Research Center survey of more than 5,000 adults found that 51 percent believe public K-12 education is headed in the wrong direction, while only 16 percent say it is headed in the right direction. The concerns split sharply by party. Among Republicans, 65 percent say the system is on the wrong track, with top worries being insufficient focus on core academics (79 percent) and teachers introducing personal political views (76 percent). Among Democrats, 40 percent see the system heading the wrong way, with primary concerns being inadequate funding (78 percent) and parents having too much influence over curriculum (46 percent). Teachers are more pessimistic than the public: 82 percent told Pew that the overall state of public education has worsened over the past five years.⁴⁶ The diagnosis varies by ideology. The sense that something is fundamentally broken is one of the few things that doesn’t.

1
Education Week. Reading Scores Fall to New Low on NAEP, Fueled by Declines for Struggling Students
2
National Assessment Governing Board. Declines in 8th-Grade Science and 12th-Grade Math and Reading
3
National Center for Education Statistics. Fast Facts: International Assessments
4
OECD. PISA 2022 Results (Volume I): The State of Learning and Equity in Education
5
RealClearEducation. Grade Inflation Is Hiding an Education Crisis
6
UC San Diego. Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions Final Report
7
Houston Landing. Many Texas College Students Start Classes Unprepared
8
RAND Corporation. State of the American Teacher and State of the American Principal Surveys
9
Policy Analysis for California Education. Unpacking California’s Chronic Absence Crisis Through 2024-25
10
The Hechinger Report. 7 Insights on Chronic Absenteeism
11
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Introduction: The Property Tax-School Funding Connection
12
New America. Segregation and Resource Inequality Between America’s School Districts – Executive Summary
13
Urban Institute. School Funding: Do Poor Kids Get Their Fair Share?
14
ERS. Analysis: ESSER Funds Fiscal Cliff by State
15
National School Boards Association. How State Education Agencies Are Leveraging ESSER Funds
16
Office of Senator John Fetterman. Fetterman, Van Hollen, Huffman Push Bill to End Decades of Underfunding in Special Education
17
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Racial Differences in Educational Experiences and Attainment
18
Annie E. Casey Foundation. Racial Inequality in Education
19
Economic Policy Institute. The Racial Achievement Gap, Segregated Schools, and Segregated Neighborhoods: A Constitutional Insult
20
National Education Association. 6 Charts That Explain the Educator Shortage
21
Economic Policy Institute. The Teacher Pay Penalty Reached a Record High in 2024
22
Federation of American Scientists. Ending Rural Teacher Shortages
23
American Society of Civil Engineers. Schools Infrastructure
24
U.S. Government Accountability Office. K-12 Education: School Districts Frequently Identified Multiple Building Systems Needing Updates or Replacement
25
The Century Foundation. The Dire Need for Public School Modernization
26
KFF. The Landscape of School-Based Mental Health Services
27
Learning Policy Institute. Student Mental Health and Education Factsheet
28
U.S. Department of Education. Supporting Child and Student Social, Emotional, Behavioral, and Mental Health
29
U.S. News & World Report. What Happens if the Education Department Is Dissolved
30
National Education Association. The Plan to Abolish the Education Department, One Year Later
31
Brookings Institution. FAQs: The U.S. Department of Education and the Trump Administration
32
EdSource. Education Funding Bipartisan Deal
33
FutureEd. Legislative Tracker: 2025 State Private School Choice Bills
34
Education Week. The Senate Passed a Federal Voucher Program. What’s in It?
35
Brookings Institution. Research on School Vouchers Suggests Concerns Ahead for Education Savings Accounts
36
National Center for Biotechnology Information. Voucher Pathways and Student Achievement in Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program
37
PEN America. Book Bans
38
Education Week. States Are Banning Book Bans. Will It Work?
39
WUSF. Immigration Enforcement Chilling Florida’s K-12 Enrollment
40
Education Week. Schools Saw Rising Student Anxiety From Immigration Enforcement in 2025-26
41
Brookings Institution. Federal and State Policies Targeting Immigrant Children at School Erode Decades of Progress in Education Access
42
New Mexico Legislature. Artificial Intelligence in K-12 Education: State Trends and Implications
43
MultiState. How States Are Regulating AI in Education This Legislative Session
44
Office of the Governor of New York. Distraction-Free Schools
45
National Bureau of Economic Research. School Cell Phone Bans and Student Achievement
46
Pew Research Center. About Half of Americans Say Public K-12 Education Is Going in the Wrong Direction