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Guest Thinkers —

The hits just keep on coming

To quote Casey Kasem: ‘the hits just keep on coming.’ Only in this case, the hits aren’t so good (at least not for American education).

In case you haven’t been keeping track, here’s a list of some recent reports that bemoan our schools’ inability to prepare globally-competitive citizens. Continuing our country’s long-standing tradition, committees, commissions, and task forces have been scrambling over each other to issue the latest update on our schools’ ineptitude:

  • 2006 – Committee for Economic Development – Education for Global Leadership: The Importance of International Studies and Foreign Language Education for U.S. Economic and National Security
  • 2006 – Council on Competitiveness – Competitiveness Index: Where America Stands
  • 2006 – New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce – Tough Choices or Tough Times
  • 2006 – Partnership for 21st Century Skills – Are They Really Ready to Work? Employers’ Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce
  • 2006 – United States Department of Education – Meeting the Challenge of a Changing World: Strengthening Education for the 21st Century
  • 2007 – Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century – Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future
  • 2007 – ETS – America’s Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation’s Future
  • 2007 – Phi Delta Kappa – Education in the Flat World
  • 2007 – United States Chamber of Commerce – Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness

    • This doesn’t include magazine articles, speeches, interviews, and other activities along these lines. We might be in danger of losing our global lead on some measures, but I’m guessing we’re still ahead of everyone else when it comes to task force and commission reports!

    Did I miss any? Are we seeing similar activity in other countries?

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