This is what you get when a near government monopoly — subject not only to the manipulations of labor unions that treat schools as a job-entitlement program, but also the political whims of activists — controls a nation’s education system for decades:

U.S. millennials, defined as people 16 to 34 years old, were supposed to be different. They’re digital natives. They get it. High achievement is part of their makeup. But the ETS study found signs of trouble, with its authors warning that the nation was at a crossroads: “We can decide to accept the current levels of mediocrity and inequality or we can decide to address the skills challenge head on.”

The challenge is that, in literacy, U.S. millennials scored higher than only three countries.

In math, Americans ranked last.

In technical problem-saving, they were second from the bottom.

According to Todd Frankel’s article in the Washington Post, the problem has gotten worse than a decade ago, and American schools are producing highly inequitable results.  It’s a bit more than assumption to suggest that giving in to more of the demands of the progressives who make so much noise about inequality would only exacerbate problems, as the Obama Era has proven with income disparities.

The results don’t appear to be broken out by state, but given Rhode Island’s performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), especially in math, we can be sure that the Ocean State fares worse than the nation’s abysmal performance.

There is no more time for footsie with the special interests that are harming our children and our country.

(Via Instapundit.)