THE DOWNSTREAM COSTS:
How K-12 Failure Imposes Trillions on Universities, Employers, and Democracy Itself The complete failure cascade from classroom to economy to civilization—and how a 2-year problem became a 50-year catastrophe BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) K-12 education's failures don't end at the schoolhouse door—they cascade through every institution downstream. Universities spend billions remediating students who arrive with diplomas claiming competency but performing at middle school levels. Employers waste billions training workers in basic literacy and numeracy that high schools should have provided. Democratic governance suffers as civically illiterate citizens make uninformed political decisions that perpetuate the very educational dysfunction that undereducated them. The system we have produces the system we have—a self-reinforcing failure loop that may be the most expensive policy disaster in American history. The pandemic learning loss response crystallizes the complete failure ca...