While the contentious battles to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence stole most of the headlines this week, the Senate also held the first confirmation hearing for Linda McMahon to become Secretary of Education. Though the hearing hardly produced the same fireworks that characterized Kennedy’s or Gabbard’s questioning, it nonetheless underscored the urgent need for reform of an American education system that is failing students.

McMahon decried public education as a “system in decline” during the hearing, vowing to “reorient” the priorities of the Department of Education and “invest in teachers, not Washington bureaucrats.” That alone represents a marked shift for an agency whose budget has exploded from $79 billion in 2000 to $268 billion in 2024 – even as student outcomes have steadily declined nationwide.

Trump has already begun following through on his campaign promise to enact sweeping changes at the Department of Education, shuttering programs that were not established by federal law and placing dozens of staffers on leave. The administration has also called on Congress to draw up plans to close the department entirely.

Democrats zeroed in on these actions during the hearing on Thursday, claiming that any budget cuts to the department would harm outcomes for students, particularly those in low-income districts. Protesters, some of whom claimed to be K-12 teachers (though it is unclear why they would be at a congressional hearing instead of teaching) also interrupted McMahon several times.

But the objections to Trump’s changes and McMahon’s nomination ignore the severity of the crisis facing American students. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” the most recent edition of which was released late last month, paints a dire picture.

According to its findings, more than five years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, students are still falling further behind.

In reading, “the average reading score for the nation at grade 4 was 2 points lower compared to 2022, and 5 points lower compared to 2019.” Eighth graders saw equally disappointing results. Fewer than one-third of students nationwide are reading at or above the NAEP “Proficient” level, which means they lack the ability to understand and interpret written text consistently.

Fourth graders are considered to have “Basic” reading skills if they are able to sequence or categorize events from a story. Forty percent of students failed to meet this standard, a three-point increase from 2022. About a third of eighth graders also now fail to meet the “Basic” benchmark.

In mathematics, the 2024 NAEP showed that fourth-grade scores were two points higher than 2022, but still three points lower than 2019. Eighth graders showed no improvement from 2022, remaining a shocking eight points below 2019 levels. Nearly 25 percent of test takers did not reach the NAEP “Basic” level, meaning “they likely cannot identify odd numbers or solve a problem using unit conversions.”

“Where there are signs of recovery, they are mostly in math and largely driven by higher-performing students,” said National Center on Education Statistics Commissioner Peggy G. Carr. In other words, while some students are scoring higher, others are falling even further behind, creating a widening performance gap.

In response to the release of the 2024 NAEP late last month, the Department of Education called the results “heartbreaking,” noting that “not only did most students not recover from pandemic-related learning loss, but those students who were the most behind and needed the most support have fallen even further behind.”

“Despite the billions of dollars that the federal government invests in K-12 education annually, and the approximately $190 billion in federal pandemic funds, our education system continues to fail students across the nation,” the statement said.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt further stated that the results were “completely unacceptable” to President Trump, promising that he would take “aggressive action to address this education problem.” To this end, Trump signed an executive order targeting Critical Race Theory and gender ideology in public schools. These practices, Trump said, “not only erode critical thinking but also sow division, confusion, and distrust, which undermine the very foundations of personal identity and family unity.”

Ultimately, however, real progress toward improving student outcomes must start at the state, local, and even individual family level – something Trump has long recognized. That is why Trump has championed school choice policies and empowering parents through policies like the direct election of school principals.

Professor Karl Schachtschneider, a lawyer and educator, told me in an interview that parental involvement is critical and irreplaceable. “Children learn information in school and then, with parental support, apply moral values to it, practicing the knowledge under their guidance. It is more about authority than skills,” he said.

Democrats, teachers’ unions, and liberal activists will undoubtedly continue to insist that Linda McMahon, Donald Trump, and the entire Republican Party are failing students by advocating for major overhauls to the American education system and the Department of Education. But the numbers clearly show that it is that system that has been failing students for far too long, and it is time for serious change.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.