Members of Rhode Island’s highly paid and powerful educational establishment are fond of declaring, year after year, that progress is under way in the public schools. Meanwhile, national surveys by groups that have a less direct personal stake tell a different tale.

Thus it is with a new report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called “Leaders and Laggards,” analyzing the performance of all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The report found that four New England states — Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut — rank among America’s top six in terms of their public schools. A fifth, Maine, fares very well, ranking 16th overall.

The performance of only one New England state is dismal: Rhode Island, which ranks 16th from the bottom, despite consistently finishing near the top in taxpayer spending per student.

Some of the survey’s results are shocking. Rhode Island:

• Ranks dead last in America — 51st — with an “F” in how much flexibility and freedom it gives its schools and principals, and in its hostility to charter schools. That clearly reflects the impressive political power of its teachers unions, which do not want educators to be free to use their judgment to implement best practices or parents free to choose between schools.

• Also ranks dead last — 51st — with an “F” in creating a 21st Century teaching force. “Rhode Island earns very low marks for its teacher workforce policies,” the report says, citing the state’s failure to test teachers in basic skills or allow alternative routes into the teaching profession.

• Gets an “F” in academic achievement of low-income and minority students. “Only 9 percent of Hispanic 4th-grade students score at or above the proficient level on the NAEP [National Assessment of Educational Progress] math exam,” the report says. “The national average for Hispanic 4th graders is 19 percent.”

• Gets an “F” in return on taxpayer investment. “Student achievement in Rhode Island is very low relative to state education spending (after controlling for student poverty, the percentage of students with special needs, and cost of living),” the report found.

• Gets a “D” in academic achievement. Its students rank 4 percent below the national average in the percentage of 4th and 8th graders who perform at or above proficiency on NAEP math exams.

• Gets a “D” in rigor of standards, given the state’s poor math curriculum and its failure “to align its high school graduation requirements with college and workplace expectations or to enact a rigorous graduation exit exam.”

• Gets a “D” in post-secondary and workforce readiness. “The state’s 11th and 12th graders perform poorly on core Advanced Placement exams, and only 40 percent of 9th graders who finish high school in four years go on to college.”

The only thing Rhode Island does reasonably well is measuring how poorly it is doing! (It gets a “B” in “Truth in Advertising about Student Proficiency” and a “C” in “Data Quality.”)

This report confirms what many others have found. It is the umpteenth warning that Rhode Island is failing its students and undermining its economic prospects. Teachers unions have their place, but clearly politicians have allowed the unions’ special interests to take precedence over the needs of students —with the results shown above. A radical change is necessary. Parents and taxpayers must demand it, and political leaders must come forward to lead it, putting students first.