The magnificent Renaissance artist, architect, and poet Michelangelo once warned, “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark."
As soon as I read this quote, I thought of America's failing education system. Public schools in particular have become little more than woke propaganda mills, dispensing almost nothing of value and glorifying the most pernicious ideas, while continually lowering standards. And that latter point is the one that connects Michelangelo's quote with our modern-day U.S. educational crisis; namely, that public education — and some private education — in the United States does not fall short of a high goal, but rather aims low and achieves that mark.
I am not saying, of course, that every public school student is illiterate, or that every public school teacher is unqualified (in fact, I know more than one public school educator who is highly qualified). But by and large, it is undeniably true that American students are much more ignorant than their ancestors were 30 or 50 or 100 years ago, and the majority of teachers and administrators are woke and overly tolerant of poor performance.
In fact, according to the Educational Freedom Institute, "Of the 437,783 campaign contributions made by educators during the 2022 election cycle, 84% supported Democrats. Among professors, 93% of contributions went to Democratic candidates or committees compared to 68% of those from K-12 teachers." That would indicate that the overwhelming majority of American educators are Democrat/leftist, and professors are even more egregiously biased in favor of leftist ideology. This is precisely what is wrong with our education system.
Trans teacher freaks out because some students don’t want to call him by his preferred honorific “Mrs” because he’s actually really a dude
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 5, 2026
He escalated this to human resources
The kids are all right!
Nobody should be forced to affirm the delusions of mentally ill people pic.twitter.com/PH6QmjNJlo
Read Also: Heroes of the Battle of the Alamo
Students at @nyuniversity held a vigil today for their dear leader Ayatollah Khamenei who’s responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americanspic.twitter.com/W6GrBWaT4J
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 6, 2026
That educator wokeness translates into the increasing ignorance and ineptitude of students. The National Assessment Governing Board reported in September:
The Nation's Report Card released today shows a 4-point drop for 8th graders in science and a 3-point decrease for 12th graders on both math and reading since 2019, echoing declines seen in other subjects and grades after the pandemic...The lowest performers, students scoring at the 10th percentile, saw declines in 8th-grade science and 12th-grade math and reading, trends which pre-dated the pandemic, but worsened between 2019 and 2024.
The reason America is no longer producing great writers, artists, composers, and thinkers is not because children are born less talented, but because our entire culture values mediocrity, and our education system is designed to encourage laziness, entitlement, racism, and disregard for truth and quality. A society that goes wild over Taylor Swift and lets barely literate commie activists teach its children is not going to produce the equivalent of a Michelangelo, a Beethoven, a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, or an Alexander Hamilton.
Until teachers ditch the Gender Unicorn and Antiracist Baby for grammar books, great art, classic literature, Euclidian geometry, and unbiased biology textbooks, until parents and grandparents demand higher standards and higher morals from our nation's educators and students, the American educational crisis will continue to get worse. Michelangelo was absolutely right.
