Adding to the swath of anecdotes here so wiser policymakers and teachers than myself have more perspectives to draw from in addressing the ongoing learning crisis.

I was in High School for the first full class of the new millennium (2000-2004). Being gifted at the time (now we know I just had OCD and hyperfocus), I’m cruising through on Honor Roll and knocking even difficult content out of the park. It’s to the point that I’m sleeping through English with a perfect GPA and have been politely asked by my Social Studies teacher to stop answering questions (to give other students a chance to learn) and just work on my homework in his class while he teaches. Everyone is super chill, happy to teach, and has no compunction failing students who don’t grasp the material and fail to seek help.

January 8, 2002. Social studies is my last class of the day. The teacher storms in, angry, and flips his desk in rage.

Alright, you have our collective attention.

He points furtively at the class while facing the chalkboard before turning around. “Congratulations, you’re the last group of students to get a decent education. Starting next semester, No Child Left Behind means we’ll be teaching to tests and not covering the material, and every single class after you is going to be dumber as a result. You better pay attention, because this is the last good world history class you’ll likely ever have.”

I could not hope to appreciate his wisdom at that moment, but in the years since? Dude was 100% correct. I learned about context and nuance to discuss on essay exams; my siblings who came after me learned rote dates and events for a standardized test. The irony is that they have superior college credentials (MS and BA) than I do (AS), but all three of us are fairly even in footing in our overall intelligence, seeking of new knowledge and data, and ability to teach others. I can anecdotally credit my superior education pre-NCLB for preparing me to succeed in the real world compared to younger peers who have required far more (expensive) education to get to the same point. Introducing KPIs alone won’t fix the problem, it will require rekindling a passion for learning in the hearts of students, teachers, and parents alike to restore our basic comprehension scores.

And before people ask: yes, we too had the dreaded issues of defunding everything to fund the football team. My school closed auto, metal, and eventually wood shop classes to create three more weight training rooms for the sports teams, and cancelled HomeEc in lieu of letting bankers do an hour lecture on credit cards to Seniors.