Drop NCLB And Focus On School Choice

It is getting to be too late to shift gears and still catch up with those who are eating our lunches in the classroom. Cal Thomas has a good column on this.

Spellings cited one major reason for underperformance I had not considered. When I was in school, she noted, I was taught mostly by bright and accomplished women. As opportunities for women in other professions opened up, many of the best and brightest teachers - and potential teachers - left or chose other professions because they paid more. "The teachers' unions," she said, "always negotiate the same pay raises for everybody and the superstars say 'forget this, I'm going where I will be recognized as a superstar.'"

Education in the United States continues to lag behind that of other nations. "When you go to China or India," Spellings said, "they don't sit around arguing about class size. They're starving to death and are motivated for education. We take all the advantages we have for granted." And while America focuses too much on nonacademic subjects - sex education, driver's education and the environment - and not enough on what employers are looking for, some other nations are graduating young people with real knowledge and skills of the kind we once produced.