Of the 27 U.S. urban school districts that reported their results for 2019—from Boston and Chicago to Fort Worth, Texas, and Los Angeles—not a single one can say a majority of the black eighth graders in their care are proficient in either math or reading. Incredibly, “In a number of these school districts, proficiency rates for black eighth-graders are down in the single digits.” That suggests deliberate malfeasance on the part of those districts. In New York City, for example, proficiency rates for black eighth-graders are 10 percent in math and 14 percent in English. Until we end the monopoly teacher unions have on our public schools, this pattern will continue and further erode American society.
