“Education seems to be in America the only commodity of which the customer tries to get as little he can for his money.”
                                                                             - Max Forman

Education in the United States has reached the point at which our future world leadership may well be in jeopardy.  Where once the U.S. held a major leadership position in education, we are not only falling behind other major nations, but we are falling behind at a faster rate.  Consider these findings -

• The 2008 Powell report found that almost half of the public high school students in the 50 largest U.S. cities fail to graduate.
• In 2007, the Lee, Grigg and Donahue report stated barely 30 percent of rising high school freshmen could read at grade level.
• In November 2008, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development placed the United States 18th in education among 36 nations examined.

The 2002 No Child Left Behind Act led many to believe the U.S. was tackling the problem of our floundering educational system.  That NCLB would have flaws was inevitable; that it would fail as miserably as it has should be alarming; that it has been in place for seven years with no sense of urgency to address its flaws borders on criminal negligence.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently stated, “The biggest problem with NCLB is that it doesn’t encourage high learning standards.  In fact, it inadvertently encourages states to lower them. The net effect is that we are lying to children and parents by telling kids they are succeeding when they are not.”

The great failure of the U.S. educational system under NCLB is the focus on teaching students to pass standardized tests.  This teaching approach ensures students master sets of facts at the expense of learning how to think critically.  The result is a growing portion of the population unable to effectively think for themselves.

The inability to think critically obviously affects the ability of students to pursue research-related vocations.  But it also affects their ability to function effectively in society.  Customer service representatives may be able to follow canned scripts, but they are unable to help customers who have questions not covered by those scripts; and high school graduates who lack adequate critical thinking skills fall prey to the fine print of subprime mortgages, ultimately losing their homes.

Facts alone, without the ability to think and assess, produce a robotic education.  What we require is an educational stimulus that promotes individual critical thinking skills.