Bill Bennett reacts to new data showing the US is behind in math: 'Consensus has broken down'

Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett said the country must focus on teaching children basic skills as math scores plunge to a new low.

During an appearance on "America’s Newsroom," Bennett reacted to new data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) showing how the U.S. compares to other countries in educating students on math, reading, and science. 

The former education secretary explained that the main problem was a "collapse" of what used to be a consensus on math, English, history, arts, music, and science.

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"That consensus on math, English, history, and science has broken down, and we now do not know what's going on in our schools. It's a catch-all, anything might be taught. We need to focus on those basics, or we're going to fall further behind," Bennett said.

PISA tests 15-year-old students in math, reading, and science to assess whether a student can apply those skills outside the classroom.

According to PISA's website, 81 countries and economies participated in a math-focused test in the 2022 assessment. The data was released on Tuesday.

The results found that U.S. students were behind in math compared to their counterparts in other countries, according to PISA. The results also showed a decline in reading.

FOX 45 reported that the U.S. math results were the "lowest" they have ever been.

"We're falling further behind China and maybe even falling further behind Iran in some ways, which would be a disaster. But that's one of the problems," Bennett said.

Bennett added that another factor in the plummeting of math skills in the U.S. is that colleges are lowering standards.

"There's another factor: The schools started to get bad. The high schools start to get bad. At the same time, colleges and universities stop expecting people to know things in order to get in," he said.

"That you had to know trigonometry, you had to be in calculus. But as you saw in the testimony of those college presidents, Shakespeare would say 'Don't trouble the poor with begging.'"

The results came after Oklahoma state superintendent Ryan Walters called on Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to resign in a statement posted on social media in response to the latest PISA results. In a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, he wrote that Cardona "only wants to indoctrinate and not educate." 

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Cardona, responding to the PISA results on Tuesday, said, "There's much work to be done."

Fox News' Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.