Military sets bar for US schools

Have top scores in reading, math

FORT MOORE, Ga. — Amy Dilmar, a middle school principal in Georgia, is well aware of the many crises threatening American education. The lost learning that piled up during the COVID pandemic. The gaping inequalities by race and family income that have only gotten worse. A widening achievement gap between the highest- and lowest-performing students.

But she sees little of that at her school in Fort Moore.

The students who solve algebra equations and hone essays at Faith Middle School attend one of the highest-performing school systems in the country.

It is run not by a local school board or charter network, but by the Defense Department.

With about 66,000 students — more than the public school enrollment in Boston or Seattle — the Pentagon’s schools for children of military members and civilian employees quietly achieve results most educators can only dream of.

On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal exam that is considered the gold standard for comparing states and large districts, the Defense Department’s schools outscored every jurisdiction in math and reading last year and managed to avoid widespread pandemic losses.

Their schools had the highest outcomes in the country for Black and Hispanic students, whose eighth grade reading scores outpaced national averages for white students.

Eighth-graders whose parents only graduated from high school — suggesting lower family incomes, on average — performed as well in reading as students nationally whose parents were college graduates.

The schools reopened relatively quickly during the pandemic, but last year’s results were no fluke.

While the achievement of US students overall has stagnated over the past decade, the military’s schools have made gains on the national test since 2013. And even as the country’s lowest-performing students — in the bottom 25th percentile — have slipped further behind, the Defense Department’s lowestperforming students have improved in fourth grade math and eighth grade reading.

“If the Department of Defense schools were a state, we would all be traveling there to figure out what’s going on,” said Martin West, an education professor at Harvard who serves on the national exam’s governing board.

The schools are not free of problems.

Despite their high performance, Black and Hispanic students, on average, still trail their white peers at Defense Department schools, though the gap is smaller than in many states.

But as educators around the country are desperately trying to turn around pandemic losses, the Defense Department’s academic results show what is possible, even for students dealing with personal challenges. Military families move frequently and, at times, face economic instability.

Defense Department schools are well-funded, socioeconomically and racially integrated, and have a centralized structure that is not subject to the whims of school boards or mayors.

The schools look a lot like regular public schools. Students arrive on yellow buses. Classrooms are brightly decorated with crayon drawings and maps of the United States. The sidewalk in front of Faith Middle School is painted with bear claws, a nod to the school’s mascot.

But there are key differences. For starters, families have access to housing and health care through the military, and at least one parent has a job.

“Having as many of those basic needs met does help set the scene for learning to occur,” said Jessica Thorne, the principal at E.A. White Elementary, a school of about 350 students.