The myth of bad american schools

Bad schools are not going to sink the American economy. Despite what the headlines say, U.S. students fare well in international comparisons. It’s the schools serving the poor that demand our attention. Our best public schools are first-rate, producing more intense, involved, and creative A- plus students than our most prestigious colleges have room for. That is why less-known institutions such as Claremont McKenna, Rhodes, and Hampshire are drawing many freshmen just as smart as the ones at Princeton. The top 70 percent of U.S. public high schools are better than they have ever been, thanks to a growing movement to offer Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses.

Our real problem is the bottom 30 percent of U.S. schools, those in urban and rural communities full of low- income children. We have seen enough successful schools in such areas to know that many of those children are just as capable of being great scientists, doctors, and executives as suburban children are. But most low- income schools in the United States are simply bad. Not only are we denying the children who attend them the equal education that is their right, but we are squandering almost a third of our intellectual capital. We are beating the world economically, but with one hand tied behind our back.