The National Center for Education Statistics has released its Nation’s Report Card for 2025, and the results are devastating. The data confirms that learning loss from COVID-19 was not a temporary dip, but a long-term crisis. For instance, in 2024, only 22% of high school seniors were proficient in math, and only 35% were proficient in reading. Since the pre-pandemic years, chronic absenteeism is significantly higher, and both math and science scores for fourth and eighth graders have declined. These struggles coincide with a nationwide teacher shortage that has left districts scrambling to staff their classrooms, especially in high-need subjects such as math, science, and special education. America’s education system is in crisis, and with the rapid spread of artificial intelligence in classrooms, the challenges ahead are only mounting.

Yet at the moment when the nation needs quality teachers most, WashU has chosen to eliminate its teacher education program. In an August email, the Education Department at WashU informed students that, “due to ongoing challenges and budgetary constraints,” the department will be discontinuing its teacher education programs for students entering WashU in fall 2025 and beyond.

WashU may point to the increase in federal taxes on wealthy endowments in order to explain this change. However, with an endowment exceeding $11 billion, it remains among the wealthiest universities in the nation. Invoking “budgetary constraints” is not a necessity but rather a choice that reflects misplaced priorities.

This decision is especially troubling because it is rare for a student to come to WashU with the intention of becoming a teacher. Many WashU Teacher Education students discover their calling to teach only after participating in the liberal education WashU provides. Earning a teaching certification is a tangible incentive for students who find a desire to teach. Without such an incentive, it will be harder to attract potential future teachers to the department’s Educational Studies major, which does not grant students a teaching certificate.

Additionally, having students who aspire to be teachers is beneficial for everyone’s education. If we are only surrounded by future lawyers, doctors, engineers, and consultants, our campus will lose vital diversity of thought. What makes WashU great is the diversity of interests and passions among its students.

As a student majoring in Political Science and Educational Studies with plans to work in criminal justice education reform, I have grown significantly from taking classes alongside Teacher Education students. I have been able to view issues from new perspectives, and as a result, I have developed meaningfully as a person. Future students will lose this benefit. By cutting off this pathway, WashU risks narrowing the diversity of thought on campus and depriving the country of precisely the kind of teachers it urgently needs.

Chancellor Andrew Martin declared in his 2025 State of the University Address that “at WashU, we believe that leadership is not reserved only for those who hold formal roles or positions of status. Rather, each person has the capacity to lead.” The Nation’s Report Card makes clear that America’s students are falling behind at historic levels. If WashU truly believes each person has the capacity to lead, then it must lead where it matters most, preparing the next generation of teachers. Anything less is not leadership. It is abandonment.