WHERE WE STAND: America's Schools in the 21st Century

Via a kind reader's email:

Monday, September 15th
9:00 p.m. on Milwaukee Public Television (Channel 10)
11:00 p.m. on Wisconsin Public Television stations

In 1995, America's college graduation rate was second in the world. Ten years later, it ranked 15th. As so many nations around the world continue to improve their systems of education, America can no longer afford to maintain the status quo. In an ever-changing, increasingly competitive global economy, is the U.S. doing all it can to prepare its students to enter the workforce of the 21st century and ensure our country's place as a world leader?

WHERE WE STAND: America's Schools in the 21st Century examines the major challenges for U.S. schools in the face of a changing world. Divided into five segments, topics include globalization; measuring student progress; ensuring that all students achieve; the current school funding system, and teacher quality.

WHERE WE STAND is airing at a critical time in our country's history. Along with its companion website and a variety of dynamic outreach activities across the country, the program will inspire a national dialogue in the weeks prior to the November elections. Nationally recognized education experts and leading proponents of educational reform will put these examples in context. They include Geoffrey Canada, CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone; Diane Ravitch, education historian; Wendy Puriefoy, President of Public Education Network; Chester Finn, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute; Rick Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies, AEI; Michael Rebell, Executive Director of the Campaign for Educational Equity; and Sharon Lynn Kagan, Associate Dean for Policy, Teacher's College at Columbia University.

WHERE WE STAND introduces students, parents, teachers and administrators whose stories illustrate the overwhelming odds and shining successes of education in America. They include Bin Che, an educator from mainland China who teaches Mandarin in rural Ohio; Cherese Clark, principal of a high-poverty school struggling under the pressure of low test scores; Alex Perry, who, at age 16, has already taken three college-level math classes, and Finnish exchange student Anne Kuittinen, who earns no school credit for her year in the U.S. despite her straight-A record.

Hosted by Judy Woodruff, Senior Correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, the documentary visits a range of socioeconomic and geographic school districts. The program features schools in Ohio, an important swing state, but this program is about all of our schools and where they stand.

Where We Stand: America's Schools in the 21st Century companion website (www.pbs.org/wherewestand <http://www.pbs.org/wherewestand> ) launches on September 15th in conjunction with the premiere. The program can be streamed in its entirety online.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 11, 2008 4:13 PM
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