Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary has blamed low math and reading scores in U.S. schools on unions.
“Our reading and math scores are the worst in the G7 and the G20 in terms of how many dollars we spend to advance our children,” O’Leary, who appears on Shark Tank, said during a discussion on CNN‘s NewsNight on Tuesday.
“Why? Unions. Unions that keep mediocre teachers in place in every high school in America when we should be firing them.”
Newsweek has contacted the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers and other unions for comment via email.
Why It Matters
O’Leary’s comments came during a discussion about the impact of mass layoffs at the Department of Education.
The department on Tuesday announced layoffs of more than 1,300 people as part of an effort to halve the agency’s staff. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Tuesday that the layoffs were the first step in the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle the agency, though eliminating it entirely will require an act of Congress.
Conservatives have long argued that the department should be abolished, pointing to data that shows reading and math scores have only modestly improved since it was established in its current form under former president Jimmy Carter.
What To Know
O’Leary said that unions were responsible for “mediocrity festering” in the country.
“I would like to fire teachers… and I’d like to pay a lot more to the teachers that advance Math and Reading scores that push our system forward… We have broken the system long ago through unions.”
He added that the “lowest paid person in America that deserves a lot more money is a great teacher… and we can’t in the system of unions in America, we keep mediocrity festering. We’re destroying the education system.”
Bakari Sellers, a political commentator and former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, told O’Leary that his comments were “misguided,” adding that there was “no direct correlation” between teacher unions and underperforming schools.
Sellers also said “the number one cause for children underperforming in schools right now” is “hunger.”
O’Leary’s comments prompted criticism on social media, but some supported his take.
What People Are Saying
Bakari Sellers said on CNN: “The bottom 10 states that are underperforming, those states that I’m talking about in the South, let’s take South Carolina for example, or Mississippi. You want to tell me one thing they don’t have? One thing they don’t have, strong teacher unions. So, there is no direct correlation.”
F. Joseph Merlino, president of the nonprofit 21st Century Partnership for STEM Education and author of a book called New Era — New Urgency: The Case for Repurposing Education, wrote on X that O’Leary’s comments show “how little [he knows] about math and science education and the various means of assessments.”
President Donald Trump told reporters before a Cabinet meeting last month: “We want to move education back to the states, where it belongs. Iowa should have education. Indiana should run their own education. You’re going to see education go way up.
“Right now, we’re ranked at the very bottom of the list, but we’re at the top of the list in one thing: the cost per pupil. We spend more money per pupil than any other country in the world, and yet it’s Denmark and Norway, Sweden.”
What’s Next
McMahon told Fox News‘ Laura Ingraham that the layoffs at the Department of Education was eliminating “bureaucratic bloat” and a “first step” on the road to shuttering the Department of Education.
“The president’s mandate as directed to me clearly is to shut down the Department of Education,” she said. “Which we know, we’ll have to work with Congress to get that accomplished.”
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