It is a sad truth that the United States, the wealthiest nation in the world and the one that spends more on education than any other, continues to see a decline in academic performance. Schools in Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C. now spend $30,000 and more per student.

Only in a government-controlled system could spending rapidly increase while performance continually decreases.

I don’t believe every schoolteacher or administrator is a Marxist-Leninist. However, we can see the poison fruit of a Marxist worldview in schools across America. In the Communist Manifesto (1848) produced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, education is mentioned several times. Consider a few excerpts:

• The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor.

• The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.

• Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

Not everything in American education reflects this vision, but we can truthfully say that those who control our public schools have been either directly or indirectly influenced by this revolutionary, government-controlled philosophy for years.

Interestingly, though education was controlled by the government in formerly communist countries, they at least provided a basic education for many. In the American version of Marxist-influenced education, the results are typically the opposite. Consider the following examples:

• In late 2020, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced major changes to the way New York City’s selective middle and high school would admit their students in the name of preventing discrimination.

• Students in the state of Oregon will no longer have to prove basic mastery of reading, writing, and math to graduate from high school. This provision will last until at least 2029. This policy is driven by the supposed harm these standards cause among students of color.

• Marxist Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson did not want to be left out of the club of lowering standards, even though he has chosen to send his children to better schools. Recently, it was announced that the Chicago Public School Board is considering the end of selective enrollment and magnet schools. Sadly, just two years ago, it was reported that only 11% of black students and 17% of Hispanic students could read at grade level. This is what $30,000 in spending per student gets you in Chicago. The budget for CPS has grown 40% while the number of students has dropped by approximately 40,000. But we need more money for education!

• In 2012, President Obama launched the “Race to the Top.” Increasingly, what we are seeing in government-controlled education is a Race to the Bottom.

Some might think, “Well, at least my child is not in one of the Chicago or Decatur school districts. My school is probably exempt from this madness.”

But they would be mistaken.

Sadly, new statewide standards were passed in 2022 mandating Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading. In 2021, Illinois mandated Comprehensive (and perverse) Sex Education in schools. The fruit of this system, along with other aspects of cultural rot and rebellion in our state, show that even admired school districts have serious problems, as was reported by Tom Burrows earlier in 2023.

Not all hope is lost, as we have thankfully seen an increasing number of students exiting the government system. Have you taken the initiative to get your children out of these government indoctrination centers? Could you help get your grandchildren out of the system?

Christian schools and homeschool organizations don’t get up to $30,000 per student from the state, but you can help by donating to a Christian school with which you are familiar or supporting the efforts of the Good Soil Good Seed Foundation. Don’t just complain or curse the darkness.

Help share the light of the Gospel through your giving, engagement, and support.