A $5 Billion Bet on Better Education

Albert Hunt:

Over these next few weeks, 56 million American kids will start kindergarten through 12th grade. Even before an assignment or test is handed out, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has a grade for the system: B.

"We've stagnated," Mr. Duncan says of the U.S. educational system. "Other countries have passed us by."

Few dispute that. An evaluation by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranked the United States 18th among 36 countries in secondary education. Almost 25 percent of U.S. students fail to graduate from high school on time; in South Korea, it's 7 percent.

More money, in the absence of structural reform (in my mind, more charters to start with) will not work. Two useful articles here and here.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 9, 2009 1:33 AM
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