DON'T MISS: Latest episode of the Sphere Podcast!

In this week's conversation, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, Publisher of Sphere Media, interviews Yoram Hazony. Dr Hazony is best known as the founder of the National Conservative Conference, which is held under the auspices of his Edmund Burke Foundation. He is also the President of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem, and the author of numerous books, including "The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture," "The Virtue of Nationalism," and "Conservatism: A Rediscovery." Pascal and Yoram discuss a number of topics, starting with: what is national conservatism, why do we need to append a modifier to conservatism, why we have this strange phenomenon of an "internationale of nationalists," how nationalist movements can foster competent elites, and finally whether you should send your kids to elite schools or not, and if not, what should you do instead.

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Is Our Kids Reading?

Here's a number that should keep education policymakers up at night: 33% of eighth graders can't read at even a basic level, according to the latest NAEP data. That's the worst showing ever recorded. In some urban districts, more than half of students are chronically absent, and teachers report that high schoolers can't comprehend simple texts. "I have kids that can't read! I teach high school!" one educator told a reporter, echoing thousands of similar testimonials flooding social media. More troubling: only 17% of children chronically absent in kindergarten and first grade achieve reading proficiency by third grade. With chronic absenteeism now above 30% in many urban districts, we're looking at a generation-defining crisis.

This isn't just pandemic learning loss. This is a full-blown literacy emergency that predates COVID and continues to worsen. Yet despite mounting evidence, the education establishment seems determined to look the other way.

While teachers increasingly break ranks on Reddit and TikTok to share horror stories—college professors report students unable to read books, high schoolers stumped by basic paragraphs—official responses remain muted. As one researcher noted, there's "institutional reluctance to confront the full scope of the problem." But teachers are a guild, and they close ranks rather than do what's best for the kids. Equity sensitivities and graduation-rate incentives do the rest.

Meanwhile, the evidence keeps piling up. In 2024, NAEP scores fell another 2 points at both grades. Meanwhile, among 13-year-olds, NAEP’s long-term trend shows a 4-point drop in reading since 2020 and a longer slide dating to 2012. And the share of 13-year-olds who read for fun almost daily hit 14% in 2023, the lowest ever recorded. Multiple independent measures—NAEP, NWEA’s MAP Growth, and vendor screeners—converge on persistent weakness, especially for younger students and lower performers. NWEA’s 2023–24 brief concludes (PDF) recovery is "still elusive," with the gap to 2019 widening some 36% in reading versus last year. Behavioral indicators are bad too: reading-for-pleasure has cratered among adolescents.

What is causing this situation?

After some research, we are proud to report that, as always, the causes are many. Still, we think we can bring some clarity.

COVID lockdowns? They certainly didn't help. Students achieved only 48% of normal learning gains in reading during the pandemic year. But the crisis predated 2020 and has continued post-reopening, suggesting deeper issues.

Chronic absenteeism? Yes, chronic absenteeism has exploded since the pandemic, remaining well above pre-pandemic levels. When kids aren't in school, they can't learn to read. But it remains prevalent in urban schools, while the decline is across-the-board.

Screen time? Probably. Studies link excessive screen exposure to attention deficits and language delays. Teachers report students who can't focus for five minutes on educational videos, let alone books. But the evidence for screen time causing learning delays remains correlational.

AI and ChatGPT? They make easy villains, but elementary schoolers weren't using ChatGPT in 2015 when the decline was already underway. This might become a problem, but it doesn't explain current failures.

How about more politically incorrect explanations?

Sure, we have those.

SEL? If you don't know what SEL, "Social and Emotional Learning," is, consider yourself lucky. The short version is that it's Critical Race Theory, applied to the entire curriculum. Among other gobbledygook, SEL aims to redefine "self-awareness" through "intersectionality" and "self-management" as "resistance" and "transformative/justice-oriented citizenship," as AEI's Max Eden has documented. Woke ideologies are probably bad for kids' self-esteem and psychological health, which in turn probably makes learning reading harder. But even liberal teachers have criticized SEL for a much more straightforward reason: time is zero-sum. Every minute spent on SEL surveys about feelings or discussions of "identity" is a minute not spent on phonics, vocabulary, or reading comprehension. Schools embracing SEL often report spending two hours daily on literacy blocks that contain little actual literacy instruction.

Demographic change? The percentage of so-called ELL students, English Language Learners, increased from 9.4% to 10.6% between 2011 and 2021, which suggests that demographic change is having some impact. But reading scores dropped across all demographic groups, so immigration isn't the main culprit.

Secular IQ decline? For decades, IQ scores rose consistently worldwide—about 3 points per decade—in what's known as the Flynn Effect. But that trend has reversed. Northwestern University researchers found that between 2006 and 2018, Americans' scores dropped in verbal reasoning, matrix reasoning, and computational abilities. Only spatial reasoning improved. This "Reverse Flynn Effect" appears real and concerning. However, the timing is off. The IQ decline has been gradual—a slow slide over 12+ years. The reading crisis, while predating COVID, accelerated dramatically around 2015-2019, with teachers reporting sudden, qualitative shifts in student capabilities. If slowly declining IQ were the main driver, we'd expect a similar gradual deterioration in reading scores, not the sharp drops we're seeing.

What else?

We do think we have identified the biggest culprit.

Curricula. Phonics…works. There's not a lot of stuff in education for which we have robust, strong evidence. One of those things, though, is that phonics works. And yet, For decades, schools embraced "balanced literacy," the brainchild of Columbia professor Lucy Calkins. As AEI's Robert Pondiscio—a former Bronx teacher—discovered firsthand, this approach encouraged kids to guess at words using pictures and context rather than actually reading them.

The education establishment bought this hook, line, and sinker. By 2019, 18% of elementary teachers used Calkins's curriculum, with another 31% of principals recommending it. Teacher preparation programs barely taught phonics—only 39% included systematic phonics instruction by 2016. Pondiscio's broader critique of modern teaching methods is worth reading in full.

Why did patently ineffective methods spread so widely? Start with ideological capture. Education schools, dominated by progressive faculty, preferred "child-centered" approaches that seemed more enlightened than drilling phonics. Publishers made fortunes selling expensive "balanced literacy" materials. And a generation of teachers, trained to be "facilitators" rather than instructors, lacked the knowledge to push back.

The good news? We know what works. Systematic phonics instruction. Knowledge-rich curricula that build vocabulary and context. Direct instruction instead of hoping kids will discover reading naturally. When Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, retrained teachers in the science of reading, kindergarten proficiency jumped from 47% to 84% in three years.

The alternative is what's known as Knowledge-Rich Curriculum, which AEI's Robert Pondiscio has a great explainer on.

A lottery-based study (PDF) of Core Knowledge charters reports 16 percentile-point gains in long-run English Language Arts—a big, cumulative effect. Another RCT on this curriculum showed encouraging effects on listening comprehension, vocabulary, and domain knowledge.

What's the solution?

Well, the first one is honesty. We should be talking about this crisis, and we should be talking about it more.

The second seems pretty obvious: the Trump Administration should tie Federal funds to schools using reading curricula that are evidence-based and not politically-biased, and to schools that reduce absenteeism numbers.

Policy News You Need To Know

#OrderAndBeauty — In a reprise of one of his greatest hits from the previous administration, President Trump has signed an EO reestablishing the Council on Improving Federal Civic Architecture, which will review proposed federal building designs exceeding $50 million in construction costs. The order mandates that classical and traditional architectural styles be the "preferred and default" choice for federal courthouses and agency headquarters in the National Capital Region, while allowing some flexibility for other federal buildings based on regional context. It requires the General Services Administration to update its design guidelines and creates a formal review process where deviations from classical architecture must be justified. The order also directs that renovations of historically significant buildings respect their original architectural character. In practical terms, this will likely affect dozens of federal projects currently in planning stages, potentially requiring design revisions for those employing modernist or contemporary styles. Federal agencies will need to work with architects versed in classical design principles, potentially shifting which firms receive major federal contracts. This is obviously a great move that supports public order and beauty. Classical buildings better serve their civic function by creating dignified, welcoming spaces that citizens intuitively understand as important public institutions.

#Chyna — Treasury has released a report detailing the threat of Chinese Money Laundering Networks. They even coined an acronym. CMLNs often work with Mexican drug cartels out of mutual need. Mexican financial institutions restrict US currency deposits and the Chinese government restricts the amount of money nationals can send abroad. A glut of dollars is produced by Mexican cartel profits from drug and human trafficking that cannot be sent back to Mexico, which is then purchased by CMLN and sold to Chinese nationals who are limited in the funds they can receive from abroad. CMLNs also appear to be connected to fraudulent and illicit financial activities of senior care centers in NYC as well as real estate purchases all over the US.

#Immigration — ICE has deported nearly 200,000 people since President Trump has returned to office. Immigration hawks find that number very low. However, in an article at the Center for Immigration Studies, Andrew Arthur argues that we should be pleased. He points out that this is a number for genuine "interior removals," that is to say, deportations from within the US, rather than border returns; he argues that Obama-era inflated deportation numbers by including border apprehensions. He emphasizes that ICE's achievement of 200,000 interior removals in seven months is particularly impressive given the obstacles posed by sanctuary policies in jurisdictions where over half of illegal immigrants reside, forcing ICE to conduct more difficult community arrests rather than picking up criminals from local jails. The article concludes that if Trump officials are frustrated with ICE's performance, they should consider the significant hurdles the agency has overcome, including chronic underfunding and widespread sanctuary policies that actively obstruct immigration enforcement efforts.

#Energy — The administration's very good war on wind energy continues: the admin has withdrawn a $716 million Biden-era loan for a New Jersey wind project.

#HigherEd — There's so much grade inflation at Harvard that the average GPA is 3.8. Weirdly, this makes the students even more stressed because they're terrified of getting a single, rare, B. And yet, they are working less hard than ever. More at The Atlantic.

#DEI #VibeShift — More from the war on woke: DOT has announced that funding for Tribal land infrastructure improvements will no longer be contingent on social justice and climate initiatives.

Friday Essays

The Wall Street Journal has a very good essay on how the United Kingdom's post-Covid experiment with nearly-unrestricted mass immigration went disastrously wrong. What was intended to be a skilled immigration surge made the catastrophic mistake of setting visa criteria based on college degrees and workers filling so-called "labor shortages," ultimately leading instead to a surge in low-skilled, rather than high-skilled, immigration. Post-pandemic Britain dramatically increased net migration, shifting away from the EU and towards migrants from outside Europe. Visa issuance went up across the board: work visas, study visas, and particularly dependent visas. Most damagingly, and tellingly, the system was then blown apart by businesses claiming "labor shortages." Rather than raise pay, businesses appealed for special carve-outs in areas like construction. Basing their visa programs on filling so-called shortages invited this kind of lobbying.

Few authors deserve the label "must-read," but Christopher Caldwell is one of them. Particularly when writing about Europe, where he is perhaps the single most insightful American commentator, particularly on France. At the Claremont Review of Books, Caldwell this time writes about, yes, the UK and immigration, and how the disastrous experiment has led to the political radicalization of that island.

We swear we're not trying to make this an immigration special, but, at Commonplace, Oren Cass has a good item on the economic impact of Biden's open borders experiment. There too, you can imagine, the news is not good. Mass immigration may boost overall GDP over the short run, but it basically degrades every other economic indicator.

You may have heard of Darryl Cooper, a revisionist YouTube historian who became (even more) famous after being invited on Joe Rogan. While much of Cooper's work is interesting, he has come under fire (to put it mildly) for his assertion that Winston Churchill was the villain of World War II, and his weird Twitter obsessions with Israel, Palestine, and Jews. Which is why it's a good idea to read this exposé by independent journalist Michael Tracey, who has identified ways in which Cooper deals, not just in tendentious-but-arguable interpretations of facts, but outright fabrications.

If you're not in tech, you may not have heard of "Stratechery." However, this newsletter, written by analyst Ben Thompson, is one of the most respected outlets in Silicon Valley, considered one of the very sharpest on everything having to do with the strategy of the technology business. Which makes it noteworthy that Thompson has written favorably—cautiously, but favorably—about the US government taking an equity stake in Intel. "The U.S. taking an equity stake in Intel is a terrible idea; it also happens to be the least bad idea to make Intel Foundry"—Intel's project to become a manufacturer, and not just a designer, of chips, one which has obvious implications for US national security—"viable."