One of America's most important entrepreneurs recently gave a remarkable speech at a summit meeting of our nation's governors. Bill Gates minced no words. "American high schools are obsolete," he told the governors. "By obsolete, I don't just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed and underfunded. ... By obsolete, I mean that our high schools - even when they are working exactly as designed - cannot teach our kids what they need to know today.

>> "What, Me Worry" by Thomas Friedman in the April 29, 2005 NY Times

Friedman goes right to the heart of the education crisis in America--which is no small accomplishment, given that most of the empty education rhetoric that flies around our country doesn't.  He doesn't, however, propose any practical solutions.  How do you redefine elementary and secondary education for the 21st century?  That hurdle jumped, how do you implement the changes necessary to make it happen?  Who foots the bills for all this?  Who goes first?

It occurs to me that the federal government, and quite possibly even government in general, isn't well-suited to this task.  The government is far from nimble enough to make dramatic changes in public education--a quintessentially local activity--and even if it could, it might not be appropriate or constitutional under our system of government.  To me, there are large structural changes that could help--taking on the powerful teachers' unions, for one, and restoring funding control to the local level, for another. 

The conceptual changes are the harder changes to tackle, and here's where recent federal and state government efforts may do more harm than good.  Our political leaders have adopted a mantra of "it’s the results, stupid" so far as education policy.  Anything that boosts the numbers--graduation rates, standardized test scores, whatever quantifiable figures you can cook up--is good enough for politicians to pat themselves on the back for a job well done. 

The critical mistake is rushing to stand behind the silly notion that quality education can be quantified in numbers.  As many are quick to point out, how much is that high school degree worth if the person who earns it can't really read, can't really understand basic arithmetic?  Worse than that, there is no love of learning or intellectual cultural in our country--no drive to learn more and be the best educated country in the world.  Looking to the future, you can't like what's on the horizon if Gates, Friedman, and so many others are right about what's happening in other countries.

Personally, I'm a product of private secondary and post-secondary schools, but I can recognize that there are many good public schools in this country.  And it's also plain to see that there are far, far too many mediocre or worse public schools in this country--that's the reality.  Friedman's right.  Tinkering here and there, pushing a couple test scores up, cranking out a couple more diplomas--it won't fix anything.  The system is fundamentally flawed and those who need it the most pay the price--those who will depend on public education because they don't have any other choice, no other way to a better life, no American dream.

Perhaps the market will ultimately take its course and "correct" American education, but by that point, it'll be too late.  For international economic forces to prompt us to change our crumbling education system would mean that our economy crumbled to the point where we have no other option than to confront doing "something hard", to borrow Friedman's words, head on.