Truth in Education | By Rhonda Thomas | October 2, 2026
U.S. Education Spending Up, Scores Down: Time for Change
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organization that works with more than 100 countries to shape public policy. It administers the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which released its 2025 findings on September 8, 2026.
Despite a steady increase in education spending, the United States was not among the education systems ranked in the top 10 across all three PISA subjects. U.S. reading scores dropped 14 points, reaching their lowest level since PISA testing began. We are spending more money on technological and psychological approaches to education, yet these investments have not produced the academic results students, or the foreseeable future of the United States, require.
It is time to stop what is not working and return to what helped make the United States a safer, healthier, more creative, productive, prosperous, compassionate, and generous place to live. A nation whose 250-year-old Constitution is based on an eternal Biblical Worldview.
What areas can be effectively addressed? What is described below is not happening in every home or every public or private school. It is, however, pervasive enough that we need to be aware and active.
Several areas needing change are interconnected: excessive use of education technology (EdTech), psychological “nudges,” short and rapid digital-reading designs, students’ declining interest in reading for pleasure, and reduced proactive family engagement in schools, with parents increasingly treated as “clients of the school” rather than essential participants in their children’s education.
Reading is a linchpin of learning. It intersects with EdTech, psychological nudges, digital-reading design, and the decline in reading for pleasure.
EdTech includes digital learning programs and platforms, often in the form of curriculum packages that incorporate Social Emotional Learning (SEL). SEL emphasizes behavioral outcomes based on diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, and restorative practices. often through psychological manipulation, which may use Artificial Intelligence (AI) monitored biometrics to assess students’ emotions, attention, or engagement, and generate prompts or “nudges.”
Behavioral nudges prompt students during their coursework. Depending on their design and frequency, these prompts can impose additional cognitive demands and create distractions while students are in the middle of a lesson. Although devices such as cellphones can be major distractions, embedded nudges may be intrusive in a different way. Research examining the psychology of EdTech nudging warns that poorly designed or excessive nudging can increase cognitive load and eventually produce diminishing returns in learning.
Persistent prompting from nudges can imply to students that human value is based on meeting the external expectations of professionals and peers. This opens the door to anxiety and exacerbates other issues in the child’s life. The more EdTech SEL in the schools, the more anxiety and depression. Even though SEL markets itself as having behavioral and mental health benefits, a correlation seems possible.
A 2026 study by Angelica Ronconi, Lucia Mason, and their colleagues compared eighth graders’ reading of informational texts on paper and on tablets. The researchers found an advantage for paper when students were asked to identify a text’s main idea. They also found that students reading on screens were more likely to overestimate how well they understood the material. Boys read faster on screens than on paper and showed greater miscalibration between perceived and actual comprehension.
These findings raise concerns that rapid digital reading may encourage students to confuse recognizing data points with possessing deeper knowledge or understanding. A slower pace may improve accuracy, recall, and critical reflection on the material presented. It could help shift the emphasis from behavioral training to intellectual education.
Additional research comparing print and digital reading indicates an overall, though sometimes modest and variable, advantage for reading on paper. Outcomes depend on factors such as the student, the type and length of the text, time constraints, and the task being measured. Current EdTech “remedies,” therefore, may sometimes exacerbate the very problems they are intended to solve. Reading affects nearly every area of learning.
The OECD’s PISA report also found that fewer children are reading for pleasure. Given the way reading is often presented through EdTech and rapid-response digital assignments, students may develop an avoidant response to reading. That response could also dampen curiosity, which is an important incentive for learning.
One of the most revealing findings came from a survey conducted alongside the primary PISA assessment. Compared with the 2022 PISA cycle, students in almost all participating countries reported a decline in family support. This measure included how often parents or guardians showed interest in their children’s learning, discussed school activities with them, and talked about their future education. The decline was particularly noticeable among boys. Decades of evidence point to the importance of families in student motivation, engagement, and educational outcomes.
Research discussed by Brookings has also found that parents can overestimate the quality of the learning experiences their children receive at school. According to the research cited, the way parents interact with their children at home was twice as predictive of students’ interest in learning as their socioeconomic status.
This is usually not the fault of parents, who must depend on school-generated reports and limited parent-teacher meetings. With growing institutional conflict over parental rights and school authority, the flow of information from schools to parents about their children is not always adequate or reliable, despite the requirements of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 34 C.F.R. Part 99 (FERPA).
A comprehensive SEL curriculum may also ask parents to participate in behavior-oriented activities at home. When schools direct parents to use psychological or behavioral methods with their children, the line between family authority and school authority can become blurred. This is not the same as a parent helping a child complete an assignment in mathematics, English, science, or another academic subject.
Improving academic outcomes will require more than increased spending, new technology, and expanded behavioral programs. This generation of K–12 students is part of a broken government system that is failing them academically and breaking them down emotionally and spiritually.
These are the questions we, as parents, should ask ourselves: Is this God’s best? Am I fulfilling my God-given calling to educate my child by providing an environment that keeps them safe and prepares them academically? Is that environment leading my child toward Christ—or away from Him?