Untertitel (137)
0:00Here’s a question: what’s
12 plus 12 plus 4 minus 4?
0:07A large, nationwide, representative sample of
American eighth graders was recently given this
0:12problem. 29% — nearly one third of soon-to-be
high school freshmen — answered incorrectly.
0:2135% of 4th graders said “3 feet” was a reasonable
height for a door. Another 22% said “20 inches.”
0:31And it’s not just math. Only 28% could label all
0:36seven continents. Nearly as
many couldn’t name even one.
0:41Congress began collecting this data back in 1990.
For the next twenty years, American students
0:48performed better on nearly every subsequent test
— showing consistent, long-term improvement.
0:55Then, in 2013, something changed. Starting
that year, this growth didn’t just slow,
1:02and it didn’t just stall — no, our
progress actually began reversing.
1:09Today’s eighth graders score lower
than they did in 1992 — effectively
1:14erasing 34 years of progress.
1:18And the effects are beginning to spill over
into college. A recent UC San Diego report
1:24begins by lamenting the, quote, “steep
decline in… academic preparation [among
1:29incoming students],” noting that “the number…
whose math skills fall below high school level
1:34increased nearly thirtyfold… 70% of those
students fall below middle school levels.”
1:41Next up: the workforce, and
with it, according to many,
1:45the American economy at large. The world’s only
superpower is slowly “collapsing,” they say.
1:52The less alarmist predict a stagnant U.S. GDP,
soon to be overwhelmed and overtaken by China.
2:00But there’s a fatal flaw in this argument…
2:04Sponsored by Mad Kings, a new
Nebula Original series about some
2:08of the most insane modern dictators
created by Joseph from RealLifeLore.
2:14Identifying the problem with the U.S.
education system is difficult because…
2:19there really isn’t one.
…A “system,” that is.
2:24Even before last year’s downsizing,
the U.S. Department of Education
2:28was never what it sounds like. Unlike most
countries, it never commissioned textbooks,
2:34set graduation requirements, or even
administered standardized tests like the SAT.
2:40Even back in 2021, for instance, this
entire, nationwide bureaucracy employed
2:45just over 4,000 personnel. The New
York City department of education,
2:50meanwhile, has one-hundred and fifty
thousand people on its payroll.
2:55At minimum, there are 50 education
“systems,” or, more accurately,
3:0013,000 — the number of districts that govern our
128,000 individual public and private schools.
3:08In other words: there is no one policy that would
3:12affect them all — never mind
all at the same time in 2013.
3:17…With one exception: the repeal
of “No Child Left Behind.”
3:22In 2011, the Obama administration began relaxing
one of the rare federal education requirements,
3:29giving states greater flexibility
to design their own policies.
3:33Whether you consider this a good
thing — freeing schools from wasteful
3:37“accountability theater” — or a bad one
— lowering standards and settling for
3:43mediocrity — it’s not hard to imagine
that this would show up in the data.
3:48But here’s the thing: the
U.S. isn’t alone. Far from it.
3:54This is that post-2013 score decline in America,
3:58and this is the equivalent across the
entire OECD — 38 countries, representing
4:04over 1.3 billion people, with cultures as
different as Australia, Japan, and Mexico.
4:11American students are falling “behind,” sure,
4:14if what the doomsayers mean is “behind in
time.” But what you can’t leave out is that:
4:20so are most students across the
entire wealthy, developed world.
4:25Here’s another, more
plausible theory: smartphones.
4:30The timing is perfect — U.S. smartphone adoption,
for example, crossed the 50% threshold in 2013.
4:37The geography makes sense — smartphones
spread rapidly across the entire rich world.
4:43…And it aligns with anecdotes from teachers
— teenagers became increasingly distracted in
4:48the classroom and social media replaced
the time they previously spent reading.
4:54It also explains a particular
feature of the post-2013 data:
4:58a striking divergence between
the best and worst performers.
5:03Before 2013, the scores of all students were
improving at around the same rate. After 2013,
5:11as you can see here, the decline was
much worse for lower-scoring students.
5:16While smartphones distracted everyone, elite
schools were among the first to quietly ban
5:22them and the most involved, wealthiest parents
were among the first to restrict their kid’s
5:27“screen time.” Steve Jobs famously limited his own
family’s access to the very computers he built.
5:35Now, we’ll see if this theory holds up as more and
more schools ban phones and new data is released.
5:42Still, no amount of bans will put
an end to the headlines about our
5:46“national education crisis” because
the headlines long predate the phones.
5:52In 2010, students from Shanghai scored
first on the “Programme for International
5:57Student Assessment,” which Obama called a
“Sputnik moment” in his State of the Union.
6:03Before that, back in 1983, “A Nation at Risk”
swept through the country, declaring that “the
6:10educational foundations of our society are
presently being eroded by a rising tide of
6:15mediocrity that threatens our very future as a
Nation and a people.” It too mentioned Sputnik.
6:23And before that, in 1958, the cover
of Time magazine was devoted to our
6:28“crisis in education,” warning that
the “mediocrity” of our schools may
6:33cause us to lose the arms
race against the Soviets.
6:37There’s a reason pundits have never
stopped sounding the alarm about our
6:41“mediocre” students: it turns out our
students have always been mediocre.
6:46For as far back as we have data, the
United States has ranked, at best,
6:51right in the middle of its peers.
Quite often, it’s at the bottom.
6:56To quote the Brookings Institute, “…there has been
no sharp decline… the U.S. never led the world.”
7:03In 1964, we scored below every
country measured but one. In 2000,
7:09we were 15th out of 27 in reading.
And in 2022, 31 out of 36 in math.
7:17The only thing that’s changed over the last 60
years is who we’re told is “outcompeting” us:
7:24Soviet military prowess, then Japanese
efficiency, and now Chinese STEM-dominance.
7:31Each has neatly fit into our
pre-existing national anxieties,
7:36distracting us from asking a more fundamental
question: do we want to be on top?
7:42It’s no mystery how to get Soviet
or Japanese or Chinese results:
7:47simply adopt Soviet or
Japanese or Chinese practices.
7:52And yet, over the last hundred
years, Americans have chosen not
7:57to do so. And not without reason:
top scores come with trade-offs:
8:03higher rates of childhood depression
and anxiety, an enormous diversion of
8:08resources from consumption and production
toward after-school tutoring and test prep,
8:13and a stressful, high-stakes style of parenting
that reduces fertility and favors the wealthy.
8:20Ironically, these are all challenges that
Japan and China have tried desperately to
8:24escape — looking West for inspiration and sending
their own children to American universities.
8:30At minimum, America proves that
all-consuming, hyper-competitive,
8:35exam-driven schooling isn’t necessary
to become the world’s only superpower.
8:40But it also invites a further
question: have our consistently
8:45failing grades actually played a role
in our consistent economic success?
8:51After all, it’s awfully hard to
invent the iPhone, found Walmart,
8:55or revolutionize the internet when every waking
moment of your day is monopolized by exam prep.
9:01The point is not that the U.S. has perfected
K-12 education. Quite the opposite.
9:08That 30% of eighth graders can’t
do simple arithmetic is real cause
9:13for concern. …Just not for
the reasons typically cited.
9:18What this and our average test scores obscure
is the real source of the problem: inequality.
9:25These are the reading scores of Canada’s
upper-class students. These, virtually
9:31identical scores are from America’s upper-class.
Where they differ is among the most socially
9:37disadvantaged — Americans in that group
trail far behind their Canadian peers.
9:44That, in a nutshell, is why America’s
schools are, on average, “mediocre.”
9:50In absolute terms, the U.S. produces more top
9:53performing students than anywhere else
on the planet and it’s not even close.
9:58But because we lack a unified, national school
system, our lowest-performing students are
10:04among the worst in the developed
world, dragging down our average.
10:09The problem with the “national
crisis” narrative is that:
10:12it’s unclear whether this will ever show up
on the balance sheet. America, as a whole,
10:18has grown unbelievably large, powerful, and rich
despite “mediocre” average scores for decades,
10:25and there’s no reason to think
it won’t continue to do so.
10:29If we wait for this “mediocrity” to show
up in our GDP, that day may never arrive.
10:36And those who warned of a “national crisis”
will sound like the boy who cried wolf.
10:42One example of universally bad education
policy was Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya.
10:48Gaddafi made students spend hours each day reading
his manifesto, inspired by Mao’s “little red
10:54book,” called “The Green book.” And this doesn’t
even make the top twenty craziest things he did.
11:01In one episode of his Nebula Original series
“Mad Kings,” RealLifeLore explains some of the
11:07more… memorable Gaddafi moments, like when he
tried to pitch a bulletproof tent in the middle
11:12of Central Park or when he proposed “abolishing”
the country of Switzerland at the United Nations.
11:19Other episodes explain the crazed opulence of
Saddam Hussein’s eldest son and Kim Il-Sung’s
11:25“eternal presidency.” If you like my videos,
11:29there’s an extremely good
chance you’ll love these.
11:32Mad Kings is exclusively available on Nebula,
11:36the streaming service built by some of
your favorite creators, like yours truly.
11:40Nebula is also home to dozens of other
great Originals, like my series “China,
11:46Actually,” giving a more nuanced look at
one of the world’s most important countries,
11:51“Abolish Everything,” a hilarious comedy
debate show and one of my personal favorites,
11:57and Arctic to Africa — a four-video
journey following two friends traveling
12:01all the way from the Arctic Circle to
the top of Africa using only trains.
12:07Nebula is ad-free, new Originals
are being added all the time,
12:11and we have fantastic iOS, Android, and TV apps.
12:15You can even share guest passes with your
friends so they can watch along with you for
12:20free. Normally, Nebula costs $5 a month. But
you can get a whole year for just $30 — which
12:28works out to just $2.50 per month — right now
with the link on screen or in the description.
12:35If you’re not a fan of subscriptions, you can get
12:38$200 off of Nebula Lifetime
with the Lifetime link below.
