Government schools in Jacksonville lag other districts in Northeast Florida when it comes to educating children. The latest Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) scores for 2022-23 tell the story. Children are tested in math, science and language arts in grades 3 through 8. They are tested three times a year, to gauge progress. Duval County is not even in the top 50 among 67 districts in the average grades on the third test. Nassau County comes in first, with 78 percent of students showing proficiency. St. Johns is second, at 77 percent. Clay County is tenth at 65 percent. Duval is ranked51st, with half the students showing the ability to do math at grade level. The usual excuse offered by teacher union bosses for poor performance is “underfunding,” which is nonsense. Spending is high and rising rapidly. Florida’s state government is spending a record amount this year. Spending on schools in the United States is 37 percent of the average among tested nations, at $15,623 per child. That doesn’t even include substantial costs such as unfunded pension liabilities. The students actually do better than many other nations in math performance at grade 4, but the longer they stay in school the worse they do, plunging to the bottom 20 percent by the age of 15. One likely reason is that other nations don’t harm their children by spending valuable time teaching them sex and racism. It is important to teach children critical skills, especially reading, by fourth grade. But America needs to do a better job at keeping them at a higher level. Local educators also need to find out why surrounding school districts are doing a better job of helping their children succeed.