Joseph Schreiner: Author and Columnist

Teachers in the USA – Inherent Conflict of Interest

Beaver Moon, 05 November 2025

The ills of the so-called American education system are legion. I cannot comprehensively discuss these ills in a single commentary. I can, however, discuss an aspect that I think is neglected. That aspect is that teachers perform two inherently incompatible functions. The first is that teachers are expected to facilitate a student’s acquisition of knowledge or skills. The second is that we expect the same teachers to assess that student’s acquisition.

This amounts to a teacher grading him- or herself. A powerful incentive exists for the teacher to signal his or her success or indispensability. These two functions (teaching and assessment) need to be separated. Teachers are inherently biased in this respect.

I am not referring to immediate feedback that teachers provide to a student. Feedback is essential for the process of learning. What I am referring to is the evaluation of the student’s overall competence, and, by implication, the teacher’s overall effectiveness.

This segues into the issue of standardized tests, which have been discussed and thoroughly demonized in the contemporary United States. This demonization is an irrational reaction to the reality that blacks, as a whole, score lower than whites, as a whole, on realistic tests of knowledge and ability. And, that this occurs because blacks, as a whole, are less intelligent and less disciplined than whites. Those who make their living pandering to racial delusion cannot allow this reality to be publicly acknowledged.

Asians, at least in the United States, on the whole, score higher than whites on intelligence tests. The race-pandering industry, however, refuses to recognize this fact as discrimination against whites. Myriad excuses are proffered for the subpar performance of blacks, but I do not have the space to counter such excuses here.

What I would like to further discuss are the deleterious results of scorning objective assessment of knowledge and skills. The first such result, of course, is the employment of less qualified or blatantly incompetent individuals at the expense of the more qualified and competent. This goes by various names: affirmative action; diversity, equity, and inclusion; rectifying systematic racism … The names change over time as they rightfully accumulate ridicule as barnacles on a ship.

The federal government of the United States has made it essentially illegal for employers to administer tests of ability to job applicants. The government knows, everybody knows, that blacks, on the whole, will score lower. The regime must suppress all indicators of this reality.

This forces employers to use a ridiculously expensive proxy, a college degree, as an indicator of competence. This, in turn, forces young adults to waste at least four years of their lives and become debt slaves to obtain employment. All because the government forbids the use of a simple standardized test.

Even this proxy, however, is losing its efficacy as college curricula are dumbed down and admission standards lowered, or even eliminated. It is quite telling that the average IQ of college undergraduates in the United States is no higher than that of the general population. A shocking number of college students are functionally illiterate. Colleges are forced to offer remedial courses to incoming freshmen.

All the above is the exaltation of the incompetent. What is often ignored is the degradation of highly intelligent and/or motivated students. The rigid public school system (and even private schools) does not allow them to advance beyond their age cohort. If teaching were separated from assessment, then these students could learn subject matter on their own initiative, take appropriate assessments, and avoid 12 years of imprisonment in a stultifying government institution.

So what is to be done? I see no change in the immediate or intermediate future, despite the hype of the internet and online learning. There are too many vested interests that will make certain that this dysfunctional system continues. Teachers, of course, are one such vested interest. Once students realize that they don’t need all these so-called teachers to learn, the system would collapse. Another vested interest is school administrators. A vast bureaucracy depends on the enslavement of the young. A third, and not so obvious vested interest, is the government itself. The real purpose of government-run schools is not education, but rather to inoculate conformity, compliance, and submission to the regime.

So how will it end? One scenario is financial collapse. The United States runs on debt, and some day that debt will overcome the economy. There will be no money, no wealth, to waste on the current system. Another, more ominous, possibility is the rise of another country or civilization. A country that rewards ability and success rather than suppressing it could displace the United States on the world stage. East Asia is a possibility. They are not delusional regarding race as is the United States. They would, however, need to loosen up their authoritarian educational systems.

A third scenario is more hopeful. Eventually, enough people will just work around the decrepit system and create a viable, parallel alternative. What would this involve? Homeschooling, tutoring networks, and most important of all, independent assessment and credentialing. I see a legal loophole that could be exploited. The government forbids employers from administering their own tests as a condition of employment. An employer, however, can still use a credential issued by an independent company as a hiring criterion. The technology sector is a pioneer in this regard, with certifications offered by CompTIA, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. One must hope, however, that the thereby threatened regime will not make these credentials illegal.

Just as the Soviet Union finally gave up on suppressing its own people, the ruling regime of the United States may just give up trying to enforce mediocrity and incompetence.