ABSTRACT
Books on education policy usually conclude with a litany of vacuous homilies peppered with good-sounding, endlessly repeated panaceas absolutely guaranteed to fail. National discussion of “educational reform” would differ radically if America were suddenly flooded with students from Finland, Korea, Japan, Australia, and Switzerland, all nations where students excel in math and science. Professional educators would be congratulating themselves on the dramatic turnaround and nearly all of reform agenda would quickly vanish. The prevailing wisdom is that America is bumbling along educationally. The predicament of viewing “educational attainment” in a rear-view mirror may be intractable. Scary rhetoric about the “need for a good education for a good life” aside, the modern and prosperous welfare state insulates dolts from catastrophe. Crime provides a viable alternative to holding a job requiring a decent education. America’s education woes vis-a-vis foreign economic rivals largely reflect the US having large black and Hispanic populations, both of which perform below average on tests.
