At a time when both U.S. parties paint the other as a threat to the country’s future, both are ignoring one of the gravest threats of all: student achievement levels that are abysmally low.

The only thing worse than failing to teach students basic skills is not knowing how bad their test scores really are, because that ensures nothing will change. And yet that’s exactly where the country is heading, if the White House continues its efforts to shrink the Education Department’s research and statistics operation.

After decades of steady improvement, thanks to concerted bipartisan efforts to improve public schools, test scores plateaued in the 2010s, as both parties retreated from the issue. After the pandemic, scores fell through the floor. Some five years later, they remain dismal. The lack of political attention to this problem is a disgrace, but at least the data is there for all to see. That may soon change.

Among a barrage of executive orders issued last year was a directive to close the Education Department “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” Half of the agency’s employees got fired, including almost 90% from the Institute of Education Sciences.

The institute was founded in 2002 by President George W. Bush as........

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