It looks like we’re making a little bit of headway in our education system. According to the Education Department reading and math scores among third and forth graders have made improvements over the last couple of years.
In 2005 only 36% of fourth graders were proficient in math and only 31% were proficient in reading. I don’t know about you but those paltry numbers make my jaw drop. Monday, the Education Department said those numbers have improved to 39% and 33% respectively. At least there’s some improvement but those numbers at still pretty abysmal.
The goal of the No Child Left Behind legislation is 100% proficiency on both math and reading by 2014 so we have a long way to go and this policy is clearly not effective enough. Also, we don’t know if proficiency standards have been lowered to produce even these modest gains and critics are saying that scores were rising faster before the No Child Left Behind legislation was enacted in 2002.
Having unrivaled education is really the only way America is going to stay competitive in the long run. It used to be that being born in America gave any individual enough advantages that no one from anywhere else could compete. The odds were stacked against them no matter how talented, smart and gifted they were. Those times are gone. Smart people are born all over the world and now they have many opportunities to succeed and to compete with us on the global stage and even in our own country.
Today many of the industrialized nations in not only Europe but also in parts of Asia and Latin America have rising middle classes, education systems that consistently produce students that out-perform our own students and the ability to accede to jobs and business opportunities that used to be only within the grasp of those in the so called first world.
In the long run, consequences of this could be huge. If high stakes geoeconomics / geopolitics is the game and we’re not producing the best players with the best moves and the most effective strategies how can we possibly win?
Fortunately, America still has the best secondary education system in the world. Our universities and other institutes of higher learning are second to none. How long we can hold that distinction is unknown but there is no doubt that other countries, namely India and China have us in their sites and they are gaining fast.
As election season approaches these are some of the things we should be thinking about.
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