Do we the courage to address flaws in our education system?

Alan Borsuk:

President Barack Obama said Monday in a speech about education that this is "our generation's Sputnik moment."

My first question is: How many high school students around here know what Sputnik is?

My second question is: Do you think there are things to be learned from the educational success in countries that are doing better overall than the United States?

The release last week of results from testing of 15-year-olds around the world, including in most of the world's industrial nations, was one of the main factors underlying Obama's statement. American students showed a bit of improvement, but overall were in the middle of the pack. That means, among the 34 countries at the center of the study, the U.S. was 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math. The U.S. standings were in line with other results in recent years.

While the rankings from the Program for International Student Assessment got a lot of attention, a set of accompanying reports got little. Among those was one focused on lessons for the United States.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 12, 2010 3:42 AM
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