American schools get 'F'

Watching Lou Dobbs on Monday night, I was intrigued with his feature subtitled "The system. Quiet Crisis."\nWith the election of Pope Benedict XVI, the Michael Jackson trial and Social Security reform dominating the news, it's easy to overlook other concerns. But "The Quiet Crisis" is an issue that bears important weight and will affect the future of the United States.\nThe quiet crisis is about education. According to Shirley Ann Jackson, the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Lou Dobbs' guest, American students are expressing declining interest in mathematics and the natural sciences.\nSome of the problems she outlined for the future included economic decline because of lack of technological innovation.\nThere is no doubt that scientific advances affect the economy in an important way, so why aren't we paying more attention to this issue?\nWe do not think about anything past the immediate future. What else could explain why so little effort is put into making our educational system effective?\nThe inefficacy of American public education is well known. According to the April 16 Houston Chronicle, most students score at the basic level or even below on every subject on the Education Department's assessment of proficiency, where basic is the lowest level of comprehension. Also, 70 percent of high school freshmen read below their grade level. \nAnd our lawmakers seem to agree about its inefficacy -- that is why we have No Child Left Behind. Think what you may of Bush's reform plan; it is only the most recent in a series of failed campaigns to reform education during the past century. \nYes, American public education is performing grossly below its potential. The leading philosophy of the past few decades has been that completely reforming the system is the only way to make it effective. We've all seen what a disaster that has been.\nAs much as Americans like to be revolutionaries and reformers, we need to recognize when reform is not effective and even detrimental to a system -- education is a prime example of this.\nJackson brought up a good point on Dobbs' show. She said American scientific prowess and high educational achievement during the sciences peaked in the Cold War period because of the space race. Competition with the Soviet Union gave us a national goal that motivated legislators, teachers and students to contribute to advances in the sciences. She also suggested energy problems could be a current-day fuel for progress in these educational fields. \nJackson is dead-on in her vision of how to revitalize interest in the sciences, but her views can be broadened to the entire educational system. Rather than reforming it again, give both teachers and students motivation to succeed in their study beyond meaningless statistics. A concrete goal, especially one that focuses on competition or solution of a problem, is a much better solution to our current education problems.\nThe problem is that this motivation needs to come from the highest authority possible, because it takes the form of an exhortation for the entire nation to achieve something. The current mindset of our leaders of both parties is not one that plans to give focus, but one that plans more drastic reforms. Past experience has shown all attempts at education reform to fail dismally, so it seems we're stuck in a rut until either their mindset changes or a disaster comes along that finally motivates the necessary changes.\nAnd judging by what happened with Oklahoma City and 9-11, it looks like it'll take a disaster, or at best a national embarrassment, to finally get our legislators to make public education effective.