Declining K-12 achievement adds up to a lifetime tax on students

Eric A. Hanushek is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

Though no one has suggested it, the government’s fiscal problems could be solved by an 8 percent income tax surcharge. Nobody has suggested it because it is an absurd idea, but we have already imposed a comparable tax on K-12 students. The declines in student achievement over the past dozen years work out to similar lifetime income reductions.