The United States education system performs poorly compared to the rest of the world, and it's just getting worse. On standardized tests we finish far below average among western nations. And these ratings are just getting worse each year. Arne Duncan, President Obama's Education Secretary, has said this about these test scores:

“The brutal fact here is there are many countries that are far ahead of us and improving more rapidly than we are... This should be a massive wake-up call to the entire country.”

SAT scores are actually hitting record lows. And these test scores are measuring the students that are still in school... and our school system is failing at that as well. We are near the middle of the pack in high school graduation rates among western nations. And this despite the fact that we blow away most of the rest of the world in education spending - only Switzerland spends close to as much as we do:

Not only does the United States spend more than the rest of the world to get mediocre results, but we are spending more and more each year without any positive results. Despite all the fear-mongering from Big Labor and their media mouthpieces, the fact is that education spending (adjusted for inflation and population) has increased monotonically for decades:

Not only has hiking spending done nothing, but there isn't even any correlation between spending and success. Schools all over this nation are failing, whether they are high spenders or low spenders. Big Labor just wants us to throw more money at the problem. The reality is that this has proven to do nothing - our schools will continue to fail until we reform them:

Big Labor forces in Wisconsin have tried to deceive on educational outcomes. Probably the most popular talking point over the past year has been that Wisconsin students are outscoring Texas students, since Texas does not have unionized teachers. Paul Krugman of the New York Times made that argument here. This sounds like a compelling argument until you realize the demographics in play. Wisconsin is a primarily caucasian state. Texas has a higher minority rate, and a higher poverty rate. It's a simple reality that wealthy, white kids are going to do fine for the most part in whatever school system we set up. The ones who suffer most at the hands of a bad school system are impoverished minorities. And when you break down the stats, you come to a startling conclusion. Here are the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP):

2009 4th Grade Math

White students: Texas 254, Wisconsin 250 (national average 248)
Black students: Texas 231, Wisconsin 217 (national 222)
Hispanic students: Texas 233, Wisconsin 228 (national 227)

2009 8th Grade Math

White students: Texas 301, Wisconsin 294 (national 294)
Black students: Texas 272, Wisconsin 254 (national 260)
Hispanic students: Texas 277, Wisconsin 268 (national 260)

2009 4th Grade Reading

White students: Texas 232, Wisconsin 227 (national 229)
Black students: Texas 213, Wisconsin 192 (national 204)
Hispanic students: Texas 210, Wisconsin 202 (national 204)

2009 8th Grade Reading

White students: Texas 273, Wisconsin 271 (national 271)
Black students: Texas 249, Wisconsin 238 (national 245)
Hispanic students: Texas 251, Wisconsin 250 (national 248)

2009 4th Grade Science

White students: Texas 168, Wisconsin 164 (national 162)
Black students: Texas 139, Wisconsin 121 (national 127)
Hispanic students: Wisconsin 138, Texas 136 (national 130)

2009 8th Grade Science

White students: Texas 167, Wisconsin 165 (national 161)
Black students: Texas 133, Wisconsin 120 (national 125)
Hispanic students: Texas 141, Wisconsin 134 (national 131)

What do those stats mean? They mean that despite Wisconsin having a higher average score overall than Texas: African-Americans in Texas performed better than African-Americans in Wisconsin, Hispanics in Texas performed better than Hispanics in Wisconsin, and whites in Texas outperformed whites in Wisconsin. And here's the kicker: the black-white achievement gap is less in Texas than in Wisconsin.

Wealthy, white kids will do fine in any educational system. But minorities are struggling badly in the US, and our current educational system is doing absolutely nothing to close the racial achievement gap: