Report: U.S. Schools Not Making The Grade

(CBS)  A bipartisan panel is warning that America's students are falling behind those in even some of the poorest countries, CBS News correspondent Thalia Assuras reports.

"I am really worried about where this country is," says ex-Sen. Bill Brock, a former Secretary of Labor. "We've got an information world, we're networked to the rest of the world, it's a global economy and we're not preparing our young people for that world."

Students from Asia to Europe outperform Americans on tests. Thirty years ago, the U.S. boasted 30 percent of the world's college students. That figure is now 14 percent. Meanwhile, most other industrialized nations educate their 16-year olds at a college level.

Neha Sharma is 16. The daughter of a diplomat from India, she's in an advanced college-level program in Virginia, rare in U.S. public high schools.

"I hate to say this, but the education system over here is worse than it is in India," Sharma says.

Emerging giants like India are churning out college graduates who often have more advanced skill sets than American graduates. Many go on to take U.S. jobs.

"That is going to drive the standard of living down in the United States," says Commissioner Mark Tucker.

The commission calls for a radical overhaul to stream all students to college.

Public schools would no longer be run by local districts. Instead, schools could be managed by groups of teachers or private companies. Teachers would need to pass rigorous assessments ... and be paid a lot more. All 4-year-olds and all low-income 3-year-olds would enroll in universal pre-K. Finally, high school students should be prepared to pass college-level board exams by age 16, like Neha Sharma and her classmates.

Do students think they are ready for what's going to be the new globalized world? "Absolutely not, no!," Sharma and her classmates say, laughing.

It's not the answer any parent or teacher in this country wants to hear.

[olgreyghost]

"We need to have the teachers in charge (they and their unions aren't already?!?), the parents supporting and backing the teachers (that's required by law, isn't it?!?), the kids in uniforms, sitting quietly and attentively at their desks..." - marcpcbs

"I saw this in a black-and-white film once. I couldn't understand the narrator though. He was speaking in German." - George Carlin

Hey, keep your government schools if you want. Let's just make it that those who don't use them, don't want to use them, and never will use them, don't have to pay for them. Let them who use them pay for them by user fees or some such pay-as-you-go money making scheme. But that would make them too much like private schools, wouldn't it? Freedom of choice, gotta love it!

[budsturone]

Go to freedomofeducation.net and read what they have to say about education in America. Some real good ideas there.

[samthetvcat]

I haven't really studied this issue much with regards to what can be done to achieve lasting gains, but this story makes me feel like this really needs to be a top priority.

[bellal-2009]

The current system completely ignores the independent creative thinker. And standards based education is dumbing kids down faster than if they had no school at all.

[bellal-2009]

You can throw as much money as conceivably possible at the broken school system and it still won't fix the problem. I've seen homeschool kids literally educate themselves and go onto the best colleges, completely shattering the myth of more money equaling better education. The child has to be inspired to learn and our system is not designed for inspiration nor does it offer support for those teachers who do inspire. I'd like to see it go private and cut high school to two years for those not college bound. Those two years would be the basics math, science, history, English. If the govt. wants to have facilitate an apprentice program that would be nice.

[marcpcbs]

Abolishing the educational system is a terrible idea. Most of the parents in Mendocino who say they are "home schooling" their kids couldn't spell their own name and are really keeping the kids home to help with growing tones of pot, most of which gets sold to school kids across the country and destroys education. It's a downward cycle.

We need to have the teachers in charge, the parents supporting and backing the teachers, the kids in uniforms, sitting quietly and attentively at their desks with no electronic games or cell phones to distract them. The school isn't supposed to be a place with no rules and kids do anything they want. It's supposed to be a place where "students" come to follow the rules for the purpose of getting a education.

When I was in school and the bell rang, you were quietly in your seat with your book open to the proper page and your home work ready to hand in and if you acted up both the teacher and your parent were in your face.

[olgreyghost]

Sylvan does a fine job of helping students catch up on materials they seem to be missing in the public indocrination centers at a reasonable costs for parents. How unfortunate they don't expand to a full course schedule but if we let the free market handle the case a better product would be available than the substandard on we have come to accept from the government near-monopoly on the education industry.

Imagine an apprentice program where children, particularly those who are not so good at "book-learning," earn while they learn and good grades are rewarded with bonuses and pay raises. Imagine some smart entrepreneur developing the Wal-Mart of primary and secondary education that delivers the quality of product the consumer (parent and/or student) wants at the lowest price ("Always"). If they fail to deliver, they go out of business.

What is needed is for the government to get out of the way and drop all these programs of minimums which force teachers to teach to a test and not the subject they are supposed to be teaching. And requiring that teachers are educated in the subjects they teach and not just trained teachers, as if that was enough education in itself, would certainly help.

In just about every subject, the private sector can provide a better product at a lower cost for the end consumer than anything produced by a government monopoly. Imagine how much better the mail would run if UPS and Fed-Ex were allowed to compete with the USPS...

[firststate]

Can we really put education back into the hands of parents? The current crop of parents of children of school age consists of many who are a product of the broken system. Many who did graduate from high school are among those with a diploma and an eighth grade education. As well-intentioned as they might be, they aren't capable of handling their children's educations themselves and many of them readily admit that.

The education system in the US didn't just go to He llovernight and fixes won't be quick, but changes need to start. At this point, it's time to try almost anything. How much harm can be done by any reasoned approach for changing a system in such disrepair? It is approaching the point where further harm is unlikely to result from any genuine attempt at improvement.

I had planned to train new quality control employees for an industrial startup operation a few years ago. I thought I could cover concepts specific to the industry and brush up on some basic statistics. I wound up having to put together a remedial math course, first. Several of the employees who had bachelor's degrees had no concept of fractions, decimals or basic math operations. If the level of math skills among high school graduates is lower then we should be grateful that today's cash registers calculate the change due a customer. Otherwise the fast food and convenience store sectors would crumble under the complexity of making change.

[inaparidyne]

Everyone seems to be pointing in differnt directions on this subject.I have three teenagers myself. I would like to fire all the teachers and staff.
But that would not solve a thing.
The way I see it, the way of the world has changed.We have to change our way of thinging or teaching.To keep the students interested enough to learn.It takes a certian type of person to keep things interesting and teach.The cost of books,paper&pencils ect. per student. A laptop is probly cheaper. I guess what I'm saying is we need to change our school structure.to catch up,or surpass the rest of the world.

We are a world leeder lets stay on top

[olgreyghost]

Abolish the public indocrination system and we can all enjoy the savings by not paying unnecessary taxes. Then the responsibility and control of a child's education is back where it belongs - in the hands of the parents. One thing that leads to the declining efficiency of the public schools is that they have no real competition to force them to prepare and provide a better product and they enjoy a near-monopoly on the market with the force of the law to require their clients to have to go to them.