Panel Proposes Major Changes to American Education System

[David S]

One part of the competitiveness picture which they did not discuss is cost. There are well educated people in India and China who will work for a fraction of what American's get. Unless that problem is resolved the jobs will flow out of America.

That's part of the problem yes, but due to the problem of non tradables (homes, haircuts, dinner etc), they can afford to work for a fraction of what their american counterpart works for.

Wages are downward rigid (who in their right mind takes a pay cut), especially so when the cost of goods is high.

I agree with you and I'm not suggesting that Americans take a pay cut. But we do need some way of equalizing things. Right now goods and services are flowing into America while dollars and jobs are flowing out. In the short term things may look good because of the abundance of low cost imported goods and services. In the long term though it looks bad as we lose not only jobs but whole industries.
Looks like we're getting off topic. Sorry about that.

[Nym90]

"Among other things, the report proposes starting school for most children at age 3, and requiring all students to pass board exams to graduate from high school, which for many would end after 10th grade. Students could then go to a community or technical college, or spend two years preparing for selective colleges and universities."

I'd strongly support both of those ideas. One of the biggest problems with education is a one-size-fits-all philosophy; we need more local control and more individuality in the curriculum to tailor it to meet the needs of the students.

I strongly believe there is nothing wrong with education that cannot be fixed by what is right with it. Overall we have one of the world's finest education systems, but the key to improving it is ensuring that parents take more responsibility for their children's education and making it a priority from a young age (which involves in large part ensuring that the parents themselves have educational opportunity, it's essentially a long term 20-30 year project), and also more individual control for the districts to put the power in the hands of the residents of the district rather than Washington bureaucrats.