President Trump recently signed an executive order that prohibits federal funding from going to K-12 public schools teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) or gender issues.

The Executive Order states,

“Imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation’s children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights law in many cases, but usurps basic parental authority.

For example, steering students toward surgical and chemical mutilation without parental consent or involvement or allowing males access to private spaces designated for females may contravene Federal laws that protect parental rights, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), and sex-based equality and opportunity, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX).

Similarly, demanding acquiescence to “White Privilege” or “unconscious bias,” actually promotes racial discrimination and undermines national unity…

My Administration will enforce the law to ensure that recipients of Federal funds providing K-12 education comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination in various contexts and protecting parental rights…”

This executive order is, of course, cause for celebration.

Education should be singularly focused on actual learning in areas like reading, writing, and math rather than philosophically harmful ideas like CRT, sexual orientation, and “White Privilege.”

Because of this, many parents may feel themselves start to soften towards the idea of the government education system.

After all, if the classroom promises to only teach academics so that they can still be recipients of federal funding, what could be the harm in sending your children to a public school district?

Well, for one, the latest results of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) report card continue to demonstrate why public education is a failure.

As Illinois Family Institute and Public School Exit have faithfully proclaimed for years, no education is religion-less. The faith “neutral” position of public schools is not as innocuous as it sounds.

The government education system continues to be anti-God.

Yet, even if you choose to remove morality and faith from the conversation, the startlingly poor academic scores should continue to give you pause.

The NAEP is a congressionally-mandated test designed to evaluate and measure the state of public education on a national level. This particular study evaluated fourth and eighth graders.

In discussing the results of the NAEP, the Christian Post noted some startling statistics regarding fourth graders:

• “Among fourth graders, only 31% of studentswere ranked at a NAEP proficient level, meaning they ‘have demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter, including subject-matter knowledge, application of such knowledge to real world situations, and analytical skills appropriate to the subject matter.’
• The reading performance of fourth graders at this level is 2 percentage points lower compared to 2022.
• Most fourth graders (60%) were ranked at the NAEP basic level, meaning they only have ‘partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for performance at the NAEP Proficient level.’
• 40% of fourth-grade students were found to be performing below the NAEP basic level in reading in 2024.”

When it came to eighth graders, Christian Post noted the following:

• “30% of students were ranked as NAEP proficient in reading for 2024.
• Most eighth graders (67%) were ranked at the NAEP basic level in reading, much lower compared to 2022 and 1992.
• 33% of eighth graders ranked below the NAEP basic level.”

Nicki Neily, President of Parents Defending Education, rightly commented,

“This year’s NAEP scores clearly show that the American education system is in crisis.”

Even if you remove morality and faith from the conversation about whether to send your children to public schools, you as the parent must still face the reality that the public education system has failed America’s children on the most basic level–academics.

The government education system made a lot of promises to parents–namely high-quality education, which one could argue is its only job.

And it has failed.

Keep your kids out of public school.