America’s military schools are ranked the best in the nation. California should take note.
The U.S. Department of Defense, through its Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) program, operates 160 K-12 schools in the U.S. and overseas. These schools at American military installations serve around 67,000 very diverse students who are children of service members or of civilian employees of the military.
DODEA’s success is undeniable. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as the nation’s report card, its schools rank No. 1 in reading and math results.
It is instructive to note the performance disparity between military schools and public schools in California.
Both spend roughly the same amount per student — around $25,000 per pupil. Yet military school students hugely outperform public school students in California.
For example, on the 2024 eighth grade NAEP reading exam, 54% of DODEA students met or exceeded the proficiency benchmark. In contrast, only 28% of California eighth graders hit the proficient mark.
Among specific demographics, 51% of Hispanic DODEA eighth graders scored at or above the proficient level, compared with just 19% of California Hispanic eighth graders who met the mark.
In addition, 42% of DODEA Black eighth graders scored at or above proficiency, more than double the 20% of California black eighth graders who scored at that level.
With students at these DODEA schools far outperforming similarly funded public schools in states like California, the question is why the difference?
A 2024 report on military school performance by the National Center for Education and the Economy said research shows: “DODEA stood out as a particularly well-run school system, notable for its clarity of mission; coherent and well-communicated policies; careful use of data to inform its decision-making; effective use of resources; smart investments in high-quality staff development and support; close attention to student and community needs; [and] high academic expectations for every student.”
Those looking for differences between California and DODEA schools will actually find several similarities.
Both systems use learning standards based on the Common Core standards pushed by the Obama administration in the early 2010s. As a consequence, both systems use curricula aligned with similar standards.
However, The New York Times has noted that the standards and curriculum rollouts in military schools were more effectively planned than in most states, including focusing on one subject at a time, substantive teacher training and global coordination across all DODEA schools worldwide.
A key reason for the high performance of DODEA students, however, is the emphasis on teaching students the quality of resilience.
Resilience involves understanding and managing one’s emotions, building strong relationships and making responsible decisions. This is an essential quality for U.S. service members that allows them to overcome challenges.
According to a 2025 article published by the Army, “In DODEA classrooms, resilience is seamlessly woven into daily instruction.” Thus, math lessons may emphasize persistence in problem solving, while science experiments teach “students how to navigate setbacks constructively.”
DODEA’s director for student excellence, Judith Minor, Ed.D, explained: “Helping students develop resilience has been integral to our mission for decades. It’s not an add-on or a trend — it’s how we approach education.”
She noted that since children from military families must constantly move from one school to another as their parents are rotated to different assignments, “resilience equips students with critical skills like self-regulation, perseverance and collaboration, all of which translate to the classroom and beyond.”
Finally, she said, “By prioritizing resilience, we’re building leaders, innovators and productive citizens,” plus ensuring “our students are not just academically capable but emotionally strong.”
In contrast, Derek Larson, a history professor at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John, has observed that the broad trend among young people “is simply toward declining resilience,” and that “students who earn even a few poor grades disengage from class, stop attending or even drop out and fail to progress toward their academic goals.”
The bottom line is that America’s public schools can learn vital lessons by studying the DODEA schools, which are one of the few public school systems that actually work well. Gen. Douglas MacArthur famously said, “There is no substitute for victory.” His observation certainly applies to educating our children.
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Lance Izumi is senior director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute. He is the author of the PRI book “The Great Classroom Collapse: Teachers, Students and Parents Expose the Collapse of Learning in America’s Schools.”
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