Education and Recession

Poor student performance is taking an economic toll in America. So says Laura Vanderkam in her recent USA Today column entitled "The Permanent Recession." Her thesis is simple: American schools are not producing students with high academic achievement, and researchers have estimated that these schools are costing us more than a $1 trillion each year.

Her first point has been well documented. Most Americans think the U.S. schools are lousy. One poll found that only 22 percent of Americans give the nation's public schools an "A" or "B" grade. But here's the catch: they think the problem lies with other schools. A full 72 percent give their eldest child's school a good grade.

But the real comparison should not be between America's schools but with U.S. schools and the rest of the world. We live in a global economy, and American students will be competing with students around the world. And currently the top students in America score way below the top students in other countries.

One management consulting company found that if U.S. children did as well as students from these other nations (such as Finland or South Korea), our economy would be much larger. This means that our schools are costing us $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion every year. In essence, our educational failure has given us a permanent recession.

Laura Vandekam believes we should not only attempt to address lagging achievement in our poorer students, but we should also push our brightest students to achieve their full potential. She points out that the idea behind No Child Left Behind was good but unfortunately the states often created tests that were so easy as to be meaningless.

She suggests we use tests that can be compared internationally and publicize the results. America's students are not being challenged at anything near the level they can handle. Not only is it affecting our place in the world, it is also costing us. There is an economic cost to failure and mediocrity. I'm Kerby Anderson, and that's my point of view.