Nation’s report card ‘must be America’s wake-up call,’ Betsy DeVos says

By Mary Margaret Olohan

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos criticized the state of American students’ education Wednesday, saying the United States is in a “student achievement crisis.”

DeVos referred to the 2019 Nation’s Report Card, a national assessment of U.S. students’ academic understandings and abilities released Wednesday. The report found that between 2017 and 2019, reading and mathematics scores lowered for all students, except for mathematics scores for fourth-graders.

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“Every American family needs to open the Nation’s Report Card this year and think about what it means for their child and for our country’s future,” DeVos said in a statement provided to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“The results are, frankly, devastating. This country is in a student achievement crisis, and over the past decade it has continued to worsen, especially for our most vulnerable students.”

DeVos warned that “this must be America’s wake-up call.”

“We cannot abide these poor results any longer,” the secretary of education said. “We can neither excuse them away nor simply throw more money at the problem.”

DeVos said the Trump administration has “a transformational plan” that aims to expand education freedom and help students “break out of the one-size-fits-all system” and “unlock their full potential.”

“They deserve it. Parents demand it. And, it’s the only way to bring about the change our country desperately needs,” she said.

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