Below is my column in the Hill on the education cartel and how it is destroying our K-12 school system. After decades of bloated budgets and failing scores, our school system is now less popular than Cuba and communism. It is a particularly telling comparison in Chicago where union members went to Venezuela to praise the worker’s paradise of the Maduro regime while the school system dumped U.S. bonds in opposition to the American “regime.” Generations of inner-city children are being left without a future due to the failure of our school system, which prioritizes its own survival over its students.
Here is the column:
“In the first place, God made idiots,” Mark Twain once wrote in an 1879 travel book. “That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
It appears that most Americans now agree with him. New polling shows that K-12 education has now reached a record low in the number of people who are even “somewhat satisfied” with the state of education in the U.S.
What is most troubling is that the near-total contempt for our school system does not make a bit of difference. Families and students have become largely irrelevant to an education cartel, a self-sustaining, self-perpetuating political alliance of unions and politicians.
According to Gallup, only 32 percent of American adults say they are “completely” or “somewhat” satisfied with the quality of K-12 education. That is the lowest figure in Gallup’s 27 years of asking the question. Public satisfaction with the school system has dropped almost 20 points since just 2024.
The collapse comes at a time when universities are reporting that college students are entering higher education without basic math and other skills.
We have also seen the dismal decline in standards at elite universities like Harvard, where faculty have been compelled to teach high school-level math classes to students.
In May, faculty in the University of California system (which eliminated standardized testing to achieve greater equity in admissions) reported an alarming lack of math knowledge among new students.
Most recently, a University of California, San Diego, faculty report found a nearly 30-fold increase since 2020 in incoming students whose math skills fell below a high-school level.
For many of us, neither the drop in skills nor public support is surprising. For generations, the public school system has failed students in major cities. Despite massive budget increases, actual test scores continue to fall or remain at subpar levels.
In a prior column, I was particularly moved by the frustration of a mother in Baltimore who complained that her son was in the top half of his class despite failing all but three of his classes. Her story led to my changing my view of school vouchers. Despite my long support for public schools, I believe vouchers may be the only way to wrest control away from the education cartel by introducing real competition based on academic performance.
Faced with low proficiency scores, teachers’ unions and school administrators have continued to lower proficiency requirements. They are simply pushing students out the door without basic skills, robbing these kids of any chance to break out of cycles of poverty and unemployment. When confronted with their poor performance, school board members have declared meritocracy to be a form of “white supremacy.” Gifted and talented programs are being eliminated in the name of so-called “equity.”
In any other field, such generational failure would be unthinkable. No business or enterprise could sustain itself. However, that is the point. There is little competition in this system. Blue states have largely blocked voucher systems while protecting teachers from performance-based standards.
Actual students have become irrelevant to budgets. In Chicago, there are schools that remain open despite 80 percent vacancy rates. One school, Frederick Douglass Academy High School has only 27 students, or 2 percent of its building’s capacity. The school system spends $55,000 for each student at Frederick Douglass Academy.
Overall, 35 percent of Chicago schools are half full or less. But that did not stop the schools from spending a couple million on transcendental meditation sessions or giving teachers and students days off to join May Day protests (with city-subsidized buses).
According to a recent study, in 2025, Chicago Teachers Union spent a record $4.2 million on politics and lobbying but less than 18 percent on representing teachers. This included massive contributions used to elect former teacher and union organizer Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former organizer for the union. Johnson, in turn, has effectively turned over his office to the far-left union.
In economics, there are few scourges older and more damaging than the cartel, which uses its power over an area to create “higher prices, lower quality, and stifled innovation.” There is a natural tendency for people to form such groups to stifle competition and feather their own nests. Adam Smith warned that “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public.”
The Education Cartel is becoming one of the greatest and most insidious forms of such anti-competitive conduct. Teacher unions have used hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to acquire unchallenged power in blue states where they can dictate ever-increasing salaries, pensions, and budgets. One estimate found that, since 2015, the nation’s two largest teachers unions — the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers — spent $669 million on federal campaigns and another $336 million on state and local campaigns.
Figures such as Randi Weingarten with the American Federation of Teachers effectively made their unions piggy banks for the Democratic Party and appear at far-left rallies to support Democratic causes. In return, Democratic leaders give this cartel most everything that it demands, including barring competition in the form of public vouchers or tying budgets to improving the education of actual students.
It is a closed circuit. Democratic leaders increase school budgets and salaries and the unions then send back hundreds of millions to fund Democratic campaigns.
If you want to understand the priorities of the unions, just watch one of National Education Association head Becky Pringle’s unhinged speeches.
Her declarations that the union will “win all of the things” clearly did not include educational improvements for students.
A recent study found that blue states with strong teachers’ unions overwhelmingly have worse student literacy scores than red states. At least eight of the ten states with the worst literacy scores were liberal districts with politically powerful teachers’ unions, according to the Progressive Policy Institute.
For example, in New York, more than half of third- to fifth-grade students failed their reading proficiency exams this year. And it isn’t about money: The state spends almost $37,000 per student to fund this bloated, poor-performing bureaucracy. But the unions also pump political contributions into the campaigns of Democratic leaders in every election, and nothing changes.
In the meantime, historically poor states like Mississippi and Arkansas, with relatively new voucher and performance-based systems, are showing major improvements in scores among their students. Yet when these same policies are proposed in blue states, they are routinely blocked by the powerful teachers’ unions.
Many liberals instinctively support unions and schools despite their costs. Recently, former New York Times journalist (and now Howard University Journalism Professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones drew criticism over an exchange with her daughter when she discussed her disappointment that her daughter would not stay at a majority-black, inner-city school despite its poor conditions and resources. Her daughter finally insisted on going to a private school out of concern for her own future as opposed to what Jones called supporting “her life’s work.”
Most families do not have the resources of Jones to make that choice. They are captives to a system that appears entirely detached and unresponsive to their same concerns as Jones’s daughter.
The mark of a cartel is that it controls competition while inflating profits or costs. However, the education cartel makes you long for the old oil or even drug cartels. The difference is that the education cartel actually charges cartel prices while producing diminishing products. It is like OPEC watering down the gas at the pump while pumping up the price. Everyone is getting windfall profits, from the unions to the politicians. Only the kids are being shortchanged by America’s school system.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Look at the disgusting image above of the NEA Boss Going Wild.
Lincoln had a resolution for this problem:
“[Racial separation] [is necessary], and [though difficult] must be effected by colonization… The enterprise is a difficult one, but ‘where there is a will there is a way’; and what colonization needs most is a hearty will… Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and at the same time [not against] our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it.”
– Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857 (Adapted)
“Below is my column in the Hill on the education cartel and how it is destroying our K-12 school system.”
– Professor Turley
_____________________
It’s not a “K–12 school system.”
It’s a union-driven wealth-redistribution system masquerading as education. Its primary focus is redistribution of wealth, not education.
Remove the unions from the equation and let free enterprise and merit prevail.
Let the wealth chips fall where they may.
To the meritorious go the spoils.
_____________________________________
“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
– John Lydgate (paraphrased)
Unions are criminal organizations, the only bargaining chips of which are threats, property damage, and bodily injury.
Unions are the direct and mortal enemies of the American thesis of freedom and self-reliance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, actual Americans, and America.
Unions must be eliminated with extreme prejudice.
Collective bargaining is about countervailing power to achieve a state of peace. It’s still a work in progress for industrial peace. For all that appears, it is not delivering educational peace because the government power on the other side of the table has collapsed. Bought off by political campaign contributions from the other side of the table. Government outsourcing the public fisc to privately organized education is akin to a State open shop law. No wonder blue states hate it. I would suggest that the missing ingredient is that educational peace belongs to us. We own the bargaining table. And recapturing competition through outsourcing says if you have a better answer, bring it.
Has it ben considered whether the failure of public education to successfully educate students is by design? It certainly benefited my children, all four graduates of parochial school and four years of college. Graduating students from high school with inadequate reading and math skills effectively shrinks the the size of the candidate pool with which my offspring needed to compete for employment. Even the president of the Chicago teachers union knows this and sends her children to private high school, not to one of public schools with teachers in the union that she leads. Something in public education needs to drastically change to ensure that children graduate from public school with the skills necessary for a successful life. What we have now is a public educational system that borders on criminal child neglect.
Vincente
Of course it is by Democratic design. The dumber they are the easier they are to control. The more they want someone else to take care of them.
Look at the COVID response, here’s an untested shot of something that might do something to lessen symptoms but it might kill you or sterilize you or cause heart damage and cancer.
Line up sheep and don’t forget to wear your masks and keep 6-ft separation. Except if you’re dining out that is…
President Donald Trump is set to campaign in ruby-red Texas on Wednesday — but the state’s Republican governor will be conspicuously absent in favor of other campaign stops.
Gov. Greg Abbott told Houston Chronicle reporter Ben Wermund he would miss the visit because of “other campaign events already planned,”.
The MAGA governor’s decision to skip Trump’s upcoming campaign stop in San Antonio was a clear “sign of the times,”.
The writing is on the wall, and Abbott is reading it. The GOP is going down bigly, due to Trump’s toxicity.
What nonsense. The left is thanking god that Trump is NOT on the ballot in 2026 – or this would be a wipe out for Democrats.
Democrats are praying to god right now that the NORMS of dissatisfaction with the party in power, and high gas prices will get voters past their own extremely high unpopularity.
While the odds and historical norms slightly favor democrats in this election, results are still to be seen.
Enthusiasm among the republican base is AS HIGH as that of democrat – both at about 71% saying they will definitely vote.
This election will be decided by turnout among independents and how they choose to vote, and that is not easy to predict.
Based on historical polling trends between Now and the election in the past – this election is a dead heat.
Collins has come from behind in maine in Every election and has Never been less than 6pts behind in september.
Cruise was supposed to lose to ORourke – how did that go ? Paxton is only slightly less popular than Cruise, and Talarico is significantly less appealing in TX than ORouke. But soon enough we shall see.
For more than two decades most late september polling has underestimated republicans by 3-5pts.
A 3pt swing by Nov. and this election is a nail biter – and the GOP could actually gain senate seats.
Further Polling this year has been absolutely attrocious – several primaries were off by 10-20pts.
Minesota is in play for Republicans. New Hampshire is within the margin of error.
Republicans have bad candidates in some races that should be safe – but democrats have bad candidates in other races that should be safe.
Absolutely Trump is Toxic – to left wing nuts. Most of the country is fine with that.
Democrats astroturf efforts to take down Trump have failed.
The no kings protests – fizzled,
no one is paying attention to ICE protests any more.
Rents in big cities are down 5% according to the St. Louis Fed.
Yesterday I paid 3.81 for Unleaded 88.
All the losses in real income during the Biden administration have been recouped – and then some.
The Atlanta Fed has 3Q 2026 growth coming in at 5.1% – that is unheard of.
Will Republicans hold on ? I do not know. Nor mostly do I care.
Democrats are blocking anything of consequence getting through the senate.
Absent the GOP winning 6 democrats seats – and that is not happening, that will not change.
A democrat Senate will not be consequentially different.
A democrat house will impeach everyone in creation and no one will pay any attention.
Contra BOTH parties, this election is actually NOT consequential.
Very little will be different over the next 2 years regardless of which party wins.
Trump will remain president. He will continue doing exactly as he is now.
Nothing will happen in Congress
“It is a particularly telling comparison in Chicago where union members went to Venezuela to praise the worker’s paradise of the Maduro regime while the school system dumped U.S. bonds in opposition to the American ‘regime.'”
– Professor Turley
_____________________
Chicago is Obama’s ideological home.
The American Founders wrote the Naturalization Acts to prevent Obama from becoming a citizen.
Now he is attempting to complete his communist conquest of their nation.
__________________________________________________________________________________
“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
– Barack Obama
____________________
“We will stop him.”
– Peter Strzok to FBI paramour Lisa Page
_____________________________________________
“[Obama] wants to know everything we’re doing.”
– Lisa Page to FBI paramour Peter Strzok
_____________________________________________
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk it’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before 40.”
– Peter Strzok to FBI paramour Lisa Page
_____________________________________________
“People on the 7th floor to include director are fired up about this [Trump] server.”
– Bill Priestap
_________________
“I had a discussion with the case team and we believe there to be predication to include former president of the United States Donald J. Trump as a predicated subject.”
– Timothy Thibault to John Crabb, U.S. Attorney’s Office, D.C.
___________________________________________________________________
The Obama coup d’etat in America is the most egregious abuse of power and the most prodigious crime in American political history. The co-conspirators are:
Kevin Clinesmith, William B. Taylor Jr., Eric Ciaramella, Rod Rosenstein, Robert S. Mueller III (and team), Andrew Weissmann, James Comey, Christopher Wray, Andrew McCabe, Peter
Strzok, Lisa Page, Paul Laycock, Zdravko Kadić (if this is the intended “Kadzic”), Sally Yates, James Baker, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Bill Priestap, Michael Kortan, James A. Campbell, Sir Richard
Dearlove, Christopher Steele, Glenn Simpson, Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer, Stefan Halper (“The Walrus”), Azra Turk, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, John
Brennan, Gina Haspel, James Clapper, Lois Lerner, Evelyn Farkas, Samantha Power, Loretta Lynch, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett, Eric Holder, Donna Brazile, Jeff Sessions (patsy), Jerrold
Nadler, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, James E. Boasberg, Emmet G. Sullivan, General Mark Milley, George Soros, John McCain, Marc Elias, Igor Danchenko, Fiona
Hill, Charles H. Dolan Jr., Jake Sullivan, Strobe Talbott, Cody Shearer, Victoria Nuland, Ray Epps (“Red Hat”), Don Berlin, Kathryn Ruemmler, Rodney Joffe, Paul Vixie, L. Jean Camp, Andrew
Whitney, Lisa O. Monaco, Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, Matthew Colangelo, Merrick Garland, Juan Merchan, Timothy Thibault, Carmen Mercedes Lineberger et al.
Figures such as Randi Weingarten with the American Federation of Teachers effectively made their unions piggy banks for the Democratic Party and appear at far-left rallies to support Democratic causes.
Marxists are like that. They preach collectivism to the gullible while their cult leaders live off of their backs. Fidel Castro’s net worth was near a billion dollars at the time of his death.
Here in Virginia, Senator Mark Warner is running on a re-election campaign of “affordability”. This despite Warner having been the Governor of VA (2002-2006) and a Virginia Dem Senator since 2009.
from Warner’s campaign website:
In the Senate, Mark has worked tirelessly to strengthen America’s economy and solve problems for Virginia families. He spearheaded the largest infrastructure investments in half a century, significantly expanded Virginia’s domestic manufacturing, and has fought to lower health care costs. In 2021, Mark became Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he has emerged as a key leader in protecting the highest levels of America’s national security.
by any metric, Warner has failed the people of Virginia by a hundred-fold. Not surprisingly he has the gravitas to seek re-election to the US Senate for a 4th term. Warner’s net worth: ~ $215 Million
I happened to be the person who provided security guards for the Pittsburgh Public Schools in the early ’70s. The then new AFT had some legitimate concerns regarding teacher compensation and some other things. However, by the mid ’90’s there had been a sea change in the product the institutions training “educators” were producing. A definite difference in their view of their role. At least at that time, the change appeared mostly centered in those who’s drive was to get out of the classroom and into administration. My personal experience involved a guidance counselor who informed me that “We educators (the title was emphasized) are better able to determine what a child should be studying than the parents .” She then admitted that she did not know me, my level of education or field of employment. Our parting was polite by chilly. I brought her attitude to the attention of the school board and she elected to pursue other employment.
Teaching used to relate the subject matter to real world use of the material. It doesn’t anymore with the presentation of material changing apparently according to the newest dissertation on the latest and greatest method or esoteric considerations with little real world application. That needs to change and the place to start is at the local school board.
Chicago has fewer limits on borrowing than any other big city
City Council voted last week to implement a modest new limit on borrowing. The mayor and his allies are attacking it.
By: Austin Berg – The Last Word ~ Oct 04, 2026
https://www.thelastward.org/p/chicago-has-fewer-limits-on-borrowing
Calls to increase evidence-based funding dominate Illinois education board hearing
Calls for increasing evidence-based funding — the state’s way of distributing money by calculating which K-12 public schools districts have the highest needs — dominated the conversation during the ISBE hearing. But state officials also heard about other funding changes Illinoisans want to see in their local schools. That feedback and future public input will be used to develop the board’s budgetary recommendations to the governor and the state legislature in January.
By: Makiya Seminera ~ October 5, 2026
https://www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2026/10/05/isbe-hears-calls-for-more-ebf-funding-in-next-year-illinois-state-budget/
S&P revises Chicago Board of Education outlook to negative
S&P Global Ratings has revised the Chicago Board of Education’s outlook to negative, pointing to worsening reserves and liquidity and “a lack of structural budgetary discipline,” including the board’s assumption of additional state funding to balance its fiscal 2027 budget.
By: Jennifer Shea ~ September 14, 2026
[Link] bondbuyer.com/news/s-p-revises-chicago-board-of-education-outlook-to-negative
Suburban Chicago referendums on term limits, school bonds on election ballot
The 2026 Illinois election will feature several key referendums and tax levy questions on suburban ballots
By: NBC Chicago Staff • September 22, 2026 at 5:53 pm
[Link] nbcchicago.com/illinois-election-2026/suburban-chicago-referendums-on-term-limits-school-bonds-on-election-ballot/3992419/
Professor Turley writes, “Nikole Hannah-Jones drew criticism over an exchange with her daughter when… Her daughter finally insisted on going to a private school out of concern for her own future as opposed to what Jones called supporting “’her life’s work.’”
Not to worry, Nikole. According to Massachusetts jurors, late-term abortions now apply to all ages.
The public school system–aka, socialized education–proves socialism will always suck. It always represents a truly absurd level of trust in the managerial class. Human nature has to be checked, not worshipped.
BTW, great blog today, Professor! Lots of food for thought 🙂
No group or organization that is funded by, or who’s salaries are paid for with taxpayer money should be permitted to unionize. It places them in an adversarial relationship with the very people they are employed to serve.
Break up police unions first.
ALL government employee unions need to go. For police, the biggest reform would be to get rid of QI.
In the case of the teachers’ unions, it also lets them fund the campaigns of the school board members with whom they then negotiate the teachers’ contracts. Look carefully at the candidates for your school boards on the next ballot that you receive. The number of candidates who tout their experience as classroom teachers will be high. Most won’t mention their long time teachers’ union memberships or their leadership roles. Conflict of interest is writ large where government employee unions are concerned.
I think Randi Weingarten epitomizes the leftward drift of the educational establishment. A childless Jewish lesbian is the long-term head of the AFT. Wow! What symbolism. A woman who is “married” to a Rabbi. And she leads the AFT.
Wow, Professor Turley, what took you so long to realize that America’s public schools are a jobs program, which funnel money to the unions and then a democrat politicians?
Here in Washington state we see that across the state and the state as a whole having a failed public school system. The public school system is loaded with master degree or better teachers, who are complete failures at educating children, but their failures don’t show up in their pay. We have teachers making over $200,000 a year teaching in Jr. High School. The average pay for teachers is approximately 155% of the median single person household.
Nowhere in Private employment can you fail so miserably and still retain a job. 74.5% of our State Teachers have Master Degrees or better, Yeah, they are utter failures at their job educated the children are state.
Consistent Grade level knowledge and above.
ELA – 52.8%
Math – 43.1%
Science – 51.0%
Parents and Taxpayers have to demand more, or refuse to pay taxes for a failed Public School System.
We get what we tolerate!
In the south the Democrats did everything they could to keep the slaves uneducated. They’re still doing the same thing now with the help of the privileged house blacks. If you keep em dumb they won’t know any better and will just keep goin on. Tempt them with a few scraps of bread, a pack of cigarettes and a six pack of beer paid for with food stamps and like Lyndon Johnson said you’ll be having them darkies voting for you forever. The racism of poor expectations continues. If the children must be sacrificed on the alter of power so be it. The formula devised in the slave states run by Democrats is tried and true and continues to bear fruit. You can’t go back if you never left.
Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Monday that she was joining Fox News Channel as a stepping-stone to becoming Secretary of Defense.
Leavitt said that only by becoming an on-air personality at Fox could she acquire the “warrior ethos” necessary to lead the world’s largest military.
“I’ve watched YouTube mascara tutorials and spent hours sampling blush at Sephora,” she said. “But if I’m going to launch unprovoked attacks on other countries, I need to put in the hard yards of getting my hair and makeup done at Fox.”
As for her stated reason for leaving the White House—a desire to be with her newborn—Leavitt said, “I have spent enough time with babies. Quite frankly, I’ve had my fill of that working for President Trump.”
I love real humor – even at my own expense.
This is just crap.
The left has completely lost its ability to be funny.
In all seriousness I would like to see Leavitt become the public face of Turning Point USA. Her experience and performance as press secretary makes it clear that she is well qualified to succeed Charlie Kirk as a young person going to college campuses and seeking out those who disagreed to have a true dialogue and change minds.
…as if this were funny. Ms Levit was an exponential improvement over not one but two of her immediate predecessors.
Parents with children in grade school should be able to take their school tax bill and pay it to the school of their choice.
It’s high time taxpayers stopped being a captive of their ZIP Code.
Or it’s not free anymore. Taxes subsidize a child’s tuition for instance. Those children below poverty line might attend poverty schools. Like everything else, you’ll get what you pay for. Elderly and childless pay nothing.
Surprised it took until 2026 and a lady in Baltimore to open your eyes.
We (Reagan’s Conservatives) tried to get rid of the abomination of the Department of Education back in the 1980s. We were slandered and crushed by the Left. The effect was immediate and accelerated at an exponential rate. Forty years later we seem shocked at the outcome of the Left’s horrific failure. That’s perhaps the most damning and disturbing part of all of this. We (those of us who fought it from the beginning) are sickened to witness what we knew to be true. One generation sacrificed on the Leftist altar. A second generation is soon to meet its fate. But the future can be salvaged. Look at Mississippi and Arkansas, states that have been denigrated for over a century as backward, ignorant and uneducated. I am from Mississippi. We lost patience with those who dedicated themselves to the status quo and did something about it. We took control. We weathered the criticism and the pressure and the intimidation. And our kids are leading the nation in educational excellence. You can have it, too. But you must muzzle the Leftist machine that is crafting the victimization of your children. Do it now!
With the privatization of religion and a more secular culture remaining; sections of society have found many substitutes for a moral compass, so to speak.
Some have been disasters (such as the rise of advocates for pedophilia) and others seemed more benign but still antithetical to a united culture with an agreed upon moral code. History has shown that the removal of a common culture is a step towards national failure.
What the various teachers unions (those at public schools and at the university level) have done is fill a void for a common code of moral behavior that nurtures that singular community with it progressive woke adherence.
If you analyze progressive educators you see a great similarity between their memberships and those of a religious order such as the Dominicans where strict adherence to the “faith” is demanded and apostates are cast off, This gives the believers a righteous sense of moral correctness by virtue of the castigation of those not adhering to the required beliefs.
You see this, also, in the islamist community but there the ultimate castigation is death.
WTF are you yapping about? You’re a crazy old bag.
Your ignorance of both history and the concept of analytical thinking displays itself daily and it is wearisome to deal with such intellectual deficits as you are so willing to illustrate.
ATS she is talking about reality.
The political left has always been a godless religion, today it is a cult.
Negative morality – Thou Shalt not kill, is the domain of government.
Positive morality – do unto others as you would have them do unto you – is the domain of religion.
Actual rights – that govenrment is obligated to protect, impose no burden on others.
Not murdering people, requires no effort on your part.
Not censoring people does not require you to act.
Make healthcare into a right – and you FORCE everyone else to provide it.
If your ideology requires that you motivate others to act – it is a religion and has no place in government.
If that motivation requires the use of FORCE – it is immoral.
^^^ evidence of why Jane Doe faced what she did? Anon’s comment …
#Anonymoose
whimsicalmama, your first point is the key one. When the institutions that used to do the forming go quiet, the space doesn’t stay empty. Something fills it.
That isn’t unique to the unions. Whatever institution is present when the others are absent ends up doing the forming.
The fix isn’t just fighting whoever filled the void. It’s showing back up.
whimsicalmama humans have an innate desire for spirituality.
If you deprive them of god, they will create a new one.
Whether it is communism or socialism or just modern progressivism – what you have is a religion – a cult.
It is beleif, not facts that matter. Only we are no longer dealing with belief in moral conduct or an afterlife,
but in a political or economic system. Systems that it is heresy to point out that they do not work.
So you agree that there is no god, and that mankind creates gods, not the other way around.
This is progress.
And you talk about cults where “it is belief, not facts that matter”.
A perfect encapsulation of the MAGA cult.
I would add in feminism as one of the most egregious cults developed. There is only the “Self” at the center of that cult and it has destroyed a major prop of western civilization at this point.
…. humans have an innate desire for spirituality.
St Augustine of Hippo wrote as such in his The Confessions in 397 AD
Great are You, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Your power, and of Your wisdom there is no end. And man, being a part of Your creation, desires to praise You — man, who bears about with him his mortality, the witness of his sin, even the witness that You “resist the proud,” — yet man, this part of Your creation, desires to praise You. You move us to delight in praising You; for You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You. [cor nostrum inquietum est donec requiescat in Te]
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110101.htm
free download here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3296
Nonsensical drivel from a cultist.
There is no god. Mankind creates gods, not the other way a round.
Throughout history mankind has invoked the existence of over a thousand gods. Reason and science has dismissed the existence of almost all of them. We are now down to one “god”. This is great progress and it will not be long before rational people overwhelming reject the existence of this one remaining god.
Hindis have moree like 70,000 gods.
Thank you for the links to St Augustine
The difference is, Dominican-educated students can read. Not making any claims about math or science instruction. But those Catholic school kids can usually read.
That’s one of the reasons why non-Catholic parents enroll their kids in Catholic school, even with the negatives (for these students) of having to sit through religious instruction about a Christian denomination not their own, of having to sit through Mass once a week.
Not saying Catholic schools don’t have problems. Just that teaching kids to read isn’t one of them.
Excellent column. This has all been in motion for some time, but really got solidified with No Child Left Behind; it is now an abject mess. There is no ‘catching up’ when these deficiencies are put into place in the formative years when neural pathways are being formed, and we can’t continue with inclusion, ESL students, ‘regular’ students, and advanced students all trying to thrive in the same classroom. Neither can teachers realistically be expected to create four or more curricula to cover all of the bases, particularly when class sizes can be 35+ students.
The solution is not to further pander. It is a huge mess, and the outsize power of the politically aligned unions is all but a State education at this point in über-blue places. This is going to collapse, and it isn’t going to be fun when it does. Eventually, kids are simply going to be something akin to feral as we have seen in Paris recently, and I do not know what we do with such large numbers of troubled and defunct people before they’ve even graduated from high school.
The covid lockdowns created further trouble across the board, and we may have to simply let those generations age out. What we do in the meantime is a real head scratcher. Nevertheless, we must address it somehow, now, and it is guaranteed solutions from the modern left will simply be newer problems and cement the old ones. Think further ahead than your next trip to the gas station when you vote in November (you are going to vote, right?).
James, I agree with you about the importance of the formative years, but I part company with you at let those generations age out.
That’s surrendering too much ground.
Formation doesn’t stop when the neural pathways of childhood are established, and it certainly doesn’t stop at graduation. Family forms us. School forms us. But so do work, marriage, parenthood, church, neighborhood, civic organizations, responsibility, failure and consequences.
That’s actually what worries me about this discussion. We keep treating education as though the school is the only institution capable of forming a person. If that’s true, we’ve already lost something much bigger than reading and math scores.
Academic deficiencies may be difficult to repair. That doesn’t mean the person is beyond formation.
Stephen’s comment is a good example. He didn’t like what his school system was producing, so he showed up. That’s citizen formation happening outside the classroom.
The answer to bad formation can’t be waiting twenty years for a generation to age out.
It has to be better formation.
Agreed, just look at France, if we do not coral these feral children ( and I refer to them as children because they have not the emotional development beyond toddler) they will destroy this nation/culture like a swarm of locusts or a hive of termites. They only know how to consume since they were never inculcated with the notion of production. Most have lived off of the system or their parents all their lives and only know how to receive. When the goods stop flowing or life demands more from them for what they receive, they have the typical toddler tantrum. Tantrums in a 2 year old can be easily handled, tantrums in hordes of adult humans are a threat to civilization.
Mama, I agree with the point about development, but I wouldn’t frame it around age.
Turning 18 makes you a legal adult. It doesn’t hand you judgment, self-restraint, responsibility, resilience, or the ability to tell evidence from emotion. Those have to be formed.
And formation doesn’t stop at 18. Family, work, media, government and culture keep building those capacities or wearing them down throughout life.
So the problem is bigger than badly raised kids. We have grown adults who never developed what self-government requires. And some who had it once and gave it up.
Forget why adults act like children. The real question is: What’s been forming them, and what did it produce?
Olly
The state can not repair education – or the students that have been destroyed by modern education.
There are two things that are able to do so.
For those still in the public education system. Restore control of education to the parents.
Vouchers are ONE way to do that.
For those who have aged out – the free market will fix most of them over time.
It has ALWAYS been true that people are more “liberal” when they are younger. They are more inclined to top down, state imposed societal Utopian solutions to problems. As we age and as we are required to function int he real world we learn those approaches do not work.
Some of us learn faster, a few do not learn at all.
Regardless in every system in existance – people get ahead by effort and merit in some form. Whether it is Mao or Wiengarten, or Mamdani – those at the top succeed in much the same way as they do in a perfect free market – effort and merit. The leaders of the most socialist institutions in the world are incredibly capitalist. The big differences between free markets and socialism and other totalitiarian forms is that in a free market – everyone is striving to get ahead on their own, and has the greatest freedom to do so, and they are empowered in every aspect of their lives. In a top down system – the leader(s) decide what crops to grow. In a free market – each farmer makes their own choices and individuallly reaps the rewards of those choices. But even the farmer is not really in control – the demands of consumers expressed though the free market are in control. We all get ahead by meeting the needs of the market – which is all of us.
In a top down system – consumers are not free to buy what they want – they must by what those at the top decided should be produced.
All top down systems are significantly worse at meeting peoples needs – because a few at the tope decide what people need and want.
While in free markets – we all get to decide.
My point is that Freedom and NOT solving problems top down ultimately teaches most of us.
We debate here about DEI and similar things – the FACT is that lots of major businesses have tried to make the left happy – and failed.
DEI does not make a company more profitable or productive. Free markets are ruthless.
Those on the left like to beleive that businesses just make more and more profit infinitely.
Businesses strive to profit as a temporary measure to get ahead of their competition. Every improvement that increases profits eventually is returned to consumers by lowering REAL prices, Business profits do not rise infinitely – they rise with each new innovation and they fall as competitors either adopt the same innovation or come up with a different one.
OIver time and to differing degrees, the real world teaches all of us these things.
The miseducated generations will have to learn as they confront the real world.
Some will learn faster than others – and the faster they learn the better they will do.
John, I think the real world teaches all of us gets right to the heart of it.
Wherever we find ourselves, formation is happening.
The market forms us. Work forms us. Family forms us. Government forms us. Churches, communities, institutions and culture form us. Freedom and responsibility form us. So do dependency and the absence of consequences.
Some environments strengthen judgment, agency, responsibility and resilience. Others weaken them. And none of that stops because we turned 18 or graduated from school.
So I think we’re closer than it first appeared. You’re describing the free market and real-world consequences as corrective formation. I agree they can be. I just wouldn’t assume they’re the only forces forming the adult who encounters them.
The question I keep coming back to is: Wherever people are being formed, what is that environment forming them to become?
Olly, who says education through the school is the only institution capable of forming a person?
Some argue that schools are the only institution publicly funded and legally mandated to guarantee academic literacy. Expecting neighborhoods or churches to pick up the slack for a school system’s failure to teach reading is an abdication of systemic accountability.
You say, “Formation doesn’t stop when the neural pathways of childhood are established.” While neuropasticity does exist in adults, science shows that the window for effortless formational skill acquisition (like language and basic numeracy) is heavily concentrated in childhood.
Remediating an adult who lacks basic high-school math or literacy skills takes an immense amount of time, specialized resources, and money—luxuries that working adults rarely have. It is vastly more difficult and less efficient than getting it right the first time. That’s why there’s plenty of evidence of a serious lack of reading comprehension skills among adults.
LMAO… from the troll who has alienated everyone yet now wants to opine! Hysterical!!!
X, I never said schools are the only institution capable of forming a person. Quite the opposite. And I’m certainly not saying churches and neighborhoods should pick up the slack when schools fail to teach kids to read. If that’s the school’s job and it fails, that’s on the school.
But I think you’re using “formation” more narrowly than I am.
Reading, language and basic math are skills. I don’t dispute that childhood is the best time to learn them or that trying to fix those deficiencies at 40 is a whole lot harder than getting it right at 10.
But formation is bigger than learning skills.
A 40-year-old can become more responsible because suddenly other people depend on him. Make enough bad decisions and suffer the consequences and you may develop better judgment. Work can teach reliability. The military can teach duty and teamwork. A church can teach obligation to others. Government can teach people to take responsibility for themselves, or teach them to wait for somebody else to solve the problem.
All of that is formation.
So yes, get childhood education right the first time. Absolutely.
But wherever human beings find themselves, formation is happening. Something is teaching us what works, what doesn’t, what’s expected of us and what we can expect from others.
That doesn’t stop at 18.
School is enormously formative. It just isn’t the last institution that gets a crack at us.
Olly, I can’t argue with your rationale. I can’t completely disagree. But….(i know it’s a habit), we can’t define formation so broadly either. I’m sure you would agree somewhat.
X, I agree. If we call everything formation, the word doesn’t tell us much.
That’s actually what got me working on the 12 axes. I started with a simple question: What does a person have to be able to do to function as a citizen in a self-governing republic? Not what side he’s on. What does he need to be able to do?
Can he weigh evidence when the story pulls the other way? Does he own his moral compass, or borrow someone else’s? Does he act like a citizen or a subject? Will he step onto the field, or watch from the stands? When something needs doing, does he act, or wait for permission?
I kept pulling on that thread and ended up with 12 things I could identify and describe. I call them axes. That’s where I put the fence around citizen formation. I’m not measuring everything that forms a human being. I’m looking at the capacities that make self-government possible.
The fence isn’t around the person. It’s around the citizen.
James NCLB deserves analysis and possiblke criticism – but US education fell apart BEFORE NCLB.
NCLB was supposed to be the fix for a failed education system.
While Turley has suddenly woke up to how bad education has become – this did not happen yesterday.
I am not sure that education has gotten worse since NCLB – I am not sure that it could have gotten worse since then.
Whatever your criticisms of NCLB – it was an effort to SOLVE the problem of a failed system.
The system had already failed BADLY.
I do not think education has gotten significantly worse since NCLB – I do not think it could get worse.
What do we do now ?
We do anything we can to improve things.
I am NOT a huge fan of vouchers. I would just end public education entirely – sell of the schools and let people keep their school taxes.
But I will support vouchers – because the political support for the best solution – completely free markets, just does not exist.
Regardless we have LOTS of things that can be done.
Contra your claims – NCLB did have some positive effects. It also had problems, But it did improve things in some areas.
I beleive it is still in effect – but like myriads of govenrment programs it si in effect in name only – the programs are still their,
the requirements still exist, but the money is being doled out whether those requirements are met or not.
Or more accurately schools just lie and claim the requirements were met.
We have all been exposed to “the quality Learing center” – is there anyone who thinks that is unique ? A minnesota only problem ? Limited to immigrants ? Illegal Immigrants ? Somali’s ?
HHS is reporting that 40% of PPACA enrollments are for people who DO NOT EXIST.
Various “solutions” or more accurately improvements are to return control of education to parents.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill “Parents are the worst people to decide the educational needs of their children – Except all others”
A MAJOR problem with the left is that it is utopian. One size fits all top down solutions that will make everything perfect.
That is just not possible. What works in the real world is people making choices in their own life (or their children) where they directly pay the costs and reap the benefits or harms.
Vouchers work, charter schools work, cyber charters work – but the right answers is NOT to impose a specific solution. Each person is different. One size fits all does not work very well. As an example – my children were cyber chartered. That worked Great for them. It is also overall working well even today for inner city minority kids in failed schools. But it is not a one size fits all solution. Public Schools attempting to mass cyber charter every kid in the nation was an abject failure. Partly because regular public schools do not know how to run distance learning programs, but partly because distance learning does not work well for every student.
Every system that puts control of education funding back in the hands of parents is going to work much better than what we have.
Whatever the problems parents have – with rare exceptions they know their children adn make better choices for them than teachers, administrators and govenrment. Regardless, we need to restore the schools working for Parents. Being dependant on Parents.
That is what will compel the schools to deliver the education that parents want for their kids.
“Parents are the worst people to decide the educational needs of their children – Except all others”
Churchill never said this. It is not paraphrasing Churchill. Churchill never said anything remotely like this about education.
No notable person has ever said this, or anything similar to this.
It is a completely made up fictional quote.
It is typical of the fictional fantasy that John Say spews forth here on a daily basis.
ATS – you are a complete loon. I never said Churchill said this. If you had the brians you were born with you would not the exact quote attributed to Churchill that I reframed.
Of course it is a fictional quote – again I never said otherwise.
Your being badly pedantic.
Regardless of whether anyone notable ever said anything like that – and obviously SOMEONE notable said something almost identical to that – except with Democracy rather than parenting as the subject.
The FACT is that it is TRUE.
Instead of debating the ISSUE – you want to engage in pedantic nonsense.
Regardless your entire reply is meaningless nonsense.
You completely avoided the issue of education and wasted your post on a personal attack over complete nonsense.
Your drowning in personal hatred so bitter it has precluded your brain from functioning.
John say is wrong, again. Sigh.
“HHS is reporting that 40% of PPACA enrollments are for people who DO NOT EXIST.”
No citation or proof this is even true.
This is a wild distortion of real data. Federal crackdowns by Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) targeted a specific ring of fraudulent broker activity.
Investigators culled 760,000 fraudulent or unauthorized sign-ups out of a marketplace that holds over 19 million total enrollees. This means fraudulent or nonexistent enrollments accounted for roughly 4% of the system, not 40%. John Say multiplied the actual data tenfold to exaggerate government failure.
X – RFK Jr. said EXACTLY that – you should easily be able to find the clip on Youtube.
RFK jr. IS HHS.
BTW RIGHT NOW – 760K enrollments are being removed from PPACA.
The largest single reason for that removal – the people DO NOT EXIST
The second largest – The REAL people on the roles NEVER APPLIED and did not even KNOW they were being insured.
The 3rd largest – they are not eligable – such as illegal immigrants.
And the 760K – that is just the low hanging fruit.
They have not come close to finnishing the job of removing fraudulent PPACA enrollments.
4% is Just those that are being removed RIGHT NOW.
And that will save $22B/year.
X you are CORRECTLY citing the data for those being removed RIGHT NOW.
You are CORRECT that this is from a specific fraud ring.
Are you really so stupid that you beleive that this is more than the tip of the ICE Berg ?
Again – the quote is specifically from RFK Jr – the head of HHS.
Your post is making the idiotic argument of the form that the “Quality Learing Center” was the Only fraud in Minesota,
Or that similar large scale fraud does not exist in CA, OH or pretty much every other state.
As to your claim that this is exagerating the failure of Government
THIS SPECIFIC FRAUD – the one YOU CITE, is ALONE 10% of TOTAL INSURANCE FRAUD OF ALL KINDS in the US.
So even if the fraud in PPACA is only 22B/year – that is MASSIVE – that is 10% of all fraud in auto, property, medical insurance combined.
And PPACA is tiny compared to Social Security and Medicare.
YOU admit that this Single Fraud Ring is accounting for a 4% fraud rate in PPACA.
Previously you have claimed that Medicare costs less than regular insurance because there is no need for a profit.
You made the same stupid claim regarding Mamdani and NYC government subsidized housing.
Private health insurance company profits are 2-6% – averaging 4% for healthy insurance companies.
PPACA has just blown the equivalent of they profit of the average private business just on ONE instance of Fraud.
And YOU KNOW there is much more.
What is ACTUALLY surprising is that anything is being done about it.
AS Musk noted with respect to DOGE – his biggest opposition in cutting waste fraud and abuse was from Republicans.
Even though they were a small part of what he was finding – they were OK with democrats raking in hundreds of billions – so long as they got there 10s of billions.
BOTH parties rail about waste Fraud and abuse.
DOGE is not even a Republican creation – Obama appointed none other than Joe Biden to lead DOGE
Promising to cut billions and actually doing nothing.
I do not find it to be even slightly surprising that PPACA has a fraud rate of 40%.
What I find surprising is that anyone is doing anything about it.
The 760K fake enrollments that you admit – did not happen YESTERDAY
As we know from the investigations in Minesota – and the election fraud in New Jersey – those in power KNEW about this for years – even decades. Gov. Walz was told of massive medicaid fraud in 2019 and obstructed investigations until Trumps DOJ stepped in.
The NJ illegal immigrant voter registrations were from years ago, and NJ is only admitting to those from ONE year, and only came forward, because they KNEW DOJ was about to announce MUCH LARGER FRAUD
Why does large scale govenrment fraud surprise you ?
While MUCH of what is announced is specifically in Blue states, Sen. Collins specifically asked DOJ to stall investigation in Maine as they might damage her re-election.
We also know of significant fraud in OH involving home health care that likely involves more republicans than democrats.
Regardless, Why in the world would you NOT expect large scale fraud in everything Government does ?
In SS, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, SNAP, the Military, Everything ?
And why is it that you think that manufacturing 760K fraudulent PPACA enrollments, is more likely than manufacturing 2M nonexistant voters ?
Fraud in government programs is a GIVEN and it is extremely rare for any political party to do anything beyond lip service about it.
You do not seem to grasp that Government does not care about fraud involving YOUR MONEY.
Getting rid of public schools is a huge mistake. I would put us at a disadvantage against other countries. Both economically and society-wise. Fraud would run rampant and a two-tiered society would emerge. Which seems to be the ideal society of libertarians.
In a free-market system, private schools would either explicitly deny admission to special-needs children due to the high overhead costs, or charge astronomical “service surcharges” that the average family could never afford.
A completely unregulated free market would see schools operating under wildly contradictory ideologies. You could have schools teaching entirely flat-earth geography, highly politicized historical revisionism, or radical isolationist doctrines. Without a common baseline of factual literacy, shared national identity and civic cohesion would fundamentally fracture. It would create a monumental mess.
A child’s education is a non-renewable resource—you cannot go back and redo the ages of 6 through 12. Unregulated private operations could easily engage in deceptive marketing, inflate grades to keep parents paying tuition, or suddenly go bankrupt mid-semester, leaving students educationally stunted with no oversight mechanism to claw back those critical formative years.
Something like this already happened in Oklahoma with the charger schools. Early on a huge fraud investigation resulted in the state losing tens of millions in public funding.
Here’s a case of why gettign rid of public schools is a bad idea.
The Netherlands (over 82% private/voucher enrollment), Chile, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom (where elite private schools dominate university placements).
On raw, unadjusted PISA scores, private school students in these countries initially appear to significantly outperform public school peers.
The OECD’s comprehensive data shows that once you control for the socioeconomic background of the students, the private school advantage entirely disappears. In fact, across OECD nations, public school students score an average of 11 points higher in math than private school students from the same socioeconomic baseline.
Countries heavily reliant on independent private networks suffer from severe socioeconomic stratification. Private networks naturally cluster wealthy families together, creating hyper-segregated school environments. The data confirms that countries with high stratification experience wider domestic achievement gaps and lower overall national reading scores.
“Getting rid of public schools is a huge mistake. ”
Because you say so ?
“I would put us at a disadvantage against other countries.”
Which is why countries like Sweden are moving in that direction ?
” Fraud would run rampant”
Because of magic ?
” and a two-tiered society would emerge. ”
Nope – that is precisely what we have NOW.
The rich send their children to excellent private schools – that actually cost less than public schools in NYC or DC or Chicago.
The middle class send their children to suburban public schools that are realatively cheap, but also nearly as good as private schools
and the poor go to shitty schools in failed cities that are egregiously expensive.
Nikole Hannah-Jones daughter is publicly pi$$ing on her for sending her to failed public schools.
Your 2 tiered system already exists and YOU MADE IT.
In EVERYTHING that is outside of govenrment – there is no two tiered system.
Or to the extent there is – no one cares.
Much of the countyr buys groveries are Acme, or Giant or Kroger or Walmart.
Slightly more affluent nd often left wingers go to Whole Foods
So What ? Everyone has the oportunity to eat well – and those who do not, do so by choice not cost.
“Which seems to be the ideal society of libertarians.”
There is no “ideal society” – this fixation on unacheivable utopian visions is purely on the left.
Libertarians do not seek perfection – they seek the continuous improvement that free markets deliver everyhere in everything.
“In a free-market system, private schools would either explicitly deny admission to special-needs children due to the high overhead costs, or charge astronomical “service surcharges” that the average family could never afford.”
ROFL
While technically cyber charters are public schools – they cost on average 75% of what public schools cost and that is where all the special needs students are dumped today.
“A completely unregulated free market would see schools operating under wildly contradictory ideologies. ”
Or none at all – so what ? We already have an education system taken over by a completely absurd ideology.
Are you so terrified that schools might actually teach economics by Nobel prize winners ?
BTW this same idiocy has been leveled at Charter schools, cyber charters, and home schools.
IT FAILED TO PAN OUT.
“You could have schools teaching entirely flat-earth geography, highly politicized historical revisionism, or radical isolationist doctrines. ”
Again – SO WHAT ? Exactly how many parents in this country do you think there are that beleive the earth is flat
The left today is already shilling a completely F$%Ked up historical narrative. If most of the idiocy the left claims abotu slavery as an example were true – the south would have won the Civil war. Slavery was an economic FAILURE – which is easily predictable.
But then left wing nuts do NOT understand the importance of incentives. Socialism fails – because if you guarantee people everything they have no need to work. Slavery fails because you can only get so much out of people by beating them.
“Without a common baseline of factual literacy, shared national identity and civic cohesion would fundamentally fracture. It would create a monumental mess.”
We once had that – it was not perfect – by YOU F#$KED it up. Now we have a mess, that deliberatly seeks to DESTROY any shared national identity or civic cohesion.
If you were actually correct – we will have lost nothing.
James,
Well said.
As for the generations age out, reading some Gen Z freshmen are not making it in their first two weeks at a full time, living on campus and are either switching to online classes and going back home or are dropping out entirely.
https://nypost.com/2026/10/05/lifestyle/gen-z-college-freshmen-are-quitting-college-early-and-moving-back-home-with-parents/
I mentioned yesterday to John Say, I have a class where it has a very high school like vibe on one side of the class room. The other side is a bit more serious.
When I graduated high school, it was a milestone. And there was an expectation that you graduated high school, you left that high school mentality behind, in high school.
So, yes. From my observations, high school is not preparing their graduates for not only college but life.
I do agree with OLLY in his response that we should not just give up on this generation. Perhaps they need some mentoring. Maybe being forced to get a job, even if it is flipping burgers, roofing, being expected to pay rent, their cell phone bill, their own food, something that resembles real life.
Upstate, I believe most people equate reaching the age of 18 as the conclusion of formation. There is no clock on it.
I agree that mentoring and other efforts necessary to form citizens for self-government are essential at all stages of life.
OLLY,
Oh, I am not saying formation concludes at turning 18 or high school graduation. At the time, there was the expectation you closed your high school years to go on to the next stage of life. Which could be anything from working at the local plant, college, the military etc.
I am fortunate enough I have reached a point where I can go to college, seek another career, being a productive member of society and improving myself. Continuing formation if you will.
Funny note, met up with a high school classmate over coffee when I was visiting my sister over the summer. The classmate told me of some of our other classmates and what they were up to. The way she described it, sounded like they still had not graduated from the high school mentality.
Every generation has their “gen Z” scapegoat. Your generation was seen the same way by the older generation. Remember the Jay Leno street interviews from years ago? Younger people were quizzed on general knowledge and a majority failed spectacularly and hilariously. Why would the Gen Z’s be any different? They are young kids who are more concerned about social status, or what the newest trend is. They don’t care about political issues as much or debate complex issues for…fun. Some do, but they are the exception not the rule.
It would never occur to me to do something like this, 77% of Gen Z job seekers have brought a parent to an interview—they’re even getting them to negotiate pay rises and take their hiring tests
https://fortune.com/2025/08/14/gen-z-job-seekers-have-brought-a-parent-to-interview-research-reveals/
I guess my generation had a bit more formation than Gen Z.
My generation was formed not to believe everything we read. My dad and his dad would both laugh at that statistic.