Why Johnny Can’t Read, Write or Do Math

There is a reason why student performance in schools is tanking fast, particularly in Blue states. As Mississippi is zooming ahead in teaching kids to read because they dropped the stupid liberal methods of teaching and went back to phonics, teachers, administrators, and school boards in Blue areas are focusing their attention and their school funding on indoctrinating children and turning them into leftist activists. 

Please bro just one more tax will fix it trust me bro https://t.co/M56GTlKW39 pic.twitter.com/bYS1rfY581

— Kane 謝凱堯 (@kane) April 18, 2026

No doubt, my center-left friends living in suburban districts, where performance is declining more slowly due to their parents’ efforts rather than the schools’, will scoff at this idea. Sure, the teachers’ unions are lefties, but public schools made America great. 

CBS News Chicago: Chicago to provide buses for students to attend anti-Trump May Day rallies pic.twitter.com/w0ZwcJyUtV

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 1, 2026

To a certain extent, that used to be true, but that time is long in the rear-view mirror, as is the myth that most teachers are underpaid. While some still are, including new teachers whom the unions work hard to keep underpaid to ensure they can trot out somebody with a low salary, teachers in many districts make far above the median income. 

“We are organizing our school so that the kindergarten through 6th grade students are also going to be able to march.” pic.twitter.com/pJJtOoUlhr

— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) May 1, 2026

In cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and many others, teachers are well-paid, the schools are grossly overfunded, and the kids are learning basically nothing. Kids can graduate with A averages and also be illiterate. 

Student who says she is illiterate, despite graduating with honors, sues Connecticut school district https://t.co/Y12wgP6rR7 pic.twitter.com/QYUM6JriF3

— New York Post (@nypost) March 1, 2025

Public schools in general have plunged in performance for any number of reasons, but one of them is that many of them don’t even bother to teach things like reading and math. They exist as jobs programs for left-wing activists and indoctrination centers for the radical left. 

You Literally Can’t Make This Up

Democrat Chicago School Board stood in front of a school on camera & said “We want this type of school all over the district”

REALITY: Just that last year, not one single student at that school they chose tested proficient in reading or math… pic.twitter.com/JlfFebOlsC

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) May 7, 2024

You Literally Can’t Make This Up

Democrat Chicago School Board stood in front of a school on camera & said “We want this type of school all over the district”

REALITY: Just that last year, not one single student at that school they chose tested proficient in reading or math 

“This is the school where the Chicago Teachers Union kicked off their 2024 agenda. They picked it because in their words, we want this type of school all over the district. 

That struck me as odd because what they didn’t tell you is that last year, not one student at this school tested proficient in reading or math, and 80% of students are chronically absent. Richard’s Career Academy uses the sustainable community school model.

Right now there are 20 city-wide, even though they’re massively underperforming. Chicago public schools average 26% of students reading at grade level. 

But with this model, the average was only 4% for 11th graders tested last year. How could this be the model they prefer? All over the district!”

Brandon Johnson, the current Mayor of Chicago, is the perfect public school teacher and was their union leader. He is pillaging his city to pour money into a school system that barely graduates a kid who can read, and whose union insisted that reopening schools was racist.

Anyone else remember when the CTU said “The push to reopen schools is rooted in racism, sexism, and misogyny”? Your union – and Randi – conspired to keep schools shut and disproportionately impacted low-income students. https://t.co/qVAogKF0sB pic.twitter.com/E6jzlS73iI

— Nicki Neily (@nickineily) December 5, 2022

Teachers in Chicago insisted on closing schools today and on using the school district resources to organize protests, using their students as young as five and six to push their political agenda. The superintendent tried to stop them, but of course, the teachers won that battle. 

BOSTON Students in Boston’s government schools are taught to hate President Trump.

They aren’t taught to read and write,,, pic.twitter.com/WZMZoWV9j7

— MassCentralMedia (@MassCentralNew1) April 6, 2026

Kids are both historically, and in many cases literally, illiterate, and that is how the teachers and Democrats want them. It prepares them to become the revolution’s ground troops. They want a generation of Maoists, and that is no exaggeration. 

There’s never an excuse for diverting taxpayer dollars away from students and into political agendas.

But when chronic absenteeism is so high and only 1 in 3 students can read at grade level @ChiPubSchools, this is a dereliction of duty. https://t.co/mKBiIL7BSV

— Secretary Linda McMahon (@EDSecMcMahon) May 1, 2026

Even in more prosperous areas, such as West Bloomfield, Michigan, the schools no longer focus on academics. That’s because the teachers are all products of a credentialing system that prioritizes politics and so-called “social justice,” so the pool of teachers who want to teach the basics is very small these days. 

I received this from my daughter’s high school math teacher last week.

Insane.

West Bloomfield, Mi pic.twitter.com/xIyi6lZC43

— Sticky (@lynssss3125) April 6, 2026

It’s no surprise that they picked May first, or “May Day,” which is a communist holiday, to stage their walkout and protest day with the students. The CTU is explicitly communist, and proudly so. But it’s not just the CTU. It’s a trend everywhere. 

Teachers unions are recruiting high schoolers to skip school to ‘fight capitalism’ and ‘overthrow billionaires’https://t.co/JhVWljQb5O

— Mass Daily News (@MassDailyNews) April 20, 2026

Democrats are fully on board with this, and when anybody objects, we are labeled as racists, xenophobes, fascists, and selfish. It’s a tactic that has worked so far to keep the money flowing in copious amounts, and in radicalizing the young. 

A day of “civil action” for students.

Indoctrination Day!

99% of teachers unions political donations are to Dems.

Dem run Chicago has increased spending by 97%.

Scores…

Math down 78%
Reading down 63%

Only 11% of Chicago HS students are proficient in reading.

Child abuse. pic.twitter.com/qWetkIUz97

— C3 (@C_3C_3) April 20, 2026

Democrats aren’t even shy about voting to make the schools even less accountable. They fight to keep the money flowing and increasing, but when anyone tries to ensure the money reaches the classrooms, they vote in near-unison to oppose it. They want the money; they just don’t want it to go to educating anybody. 

BREAKING: Arizona Senate passed a bill requiring school districts to spend at least 60% of their operational funding on classroom instruction and teachers.

The vote was 16 to 12.

All Democrats voted against it. pic.twitter.com/YGX050dr7E

— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) March 23, 2026

What I don’t understand, as is often the case when I think about “moderate” liberal voters who think they are on the right side of history or whatever, is why they refuse to see this and do something about it. Many of them care deeply about the education their kids get, but when confronted by the evidence that they are getting little to none, they decide to shovel even more money at a system that doesn’t care about educating kids. 

They’re using your taxpayer-funded school systems to churn out footsoldiers for the Democratic Party. https://t.co/DA5AC7YC43

— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) March 23, 2026

It’s the “my school is doing well” fallacy. Some of it is obscured to them because the #1 variable, by a wide margin, is not the quality of the school, but the home environment that influences their own kids’ relative success. But a lot is willful blindness. They don’t want to see the real world, so they refuse to. 

It’s infuriating because the worst victims of this indifference to reality are kids from homes not like theirs. Kids from poorer, less educated homes need excellent schools, and they are being handed the opposite. 

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s leadership, the warrior ethos is coming back to America’s military.

Help us report on Trump and Hegseth’s successes as they make our military great again. Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.