Education Law

New Ad Causes a Stir

BoardBuzz applauds Strong American Schools' campaign to put education on the front burner of this year's presidential campaign, but their new ad paints an unfair picture of American schools. The ad shows a young boy raising flags of various countries that out score the United States in math and science on the international assessment called PISA. BoardBuzz suggests that you check out the Center for Public Education's summary of the PISA results here.

While on the Center's website also check out their guide to international assessments called More Than A Horse Race. The report will show you what the various international assessments are actually measuring and how they should be used. The Center cautions that international test scores may show which countries came in ?win,? ?place,? and ?show,? but they are not clear about how much better one country is than another. The Strong American Schools? ad misses this point completely.

The ad paints a bleak picture for our nation's youth and our future economy saying that if education in this country doesn't improve, the job market and our economy will dry up. Of course, education is important to a nation's workforce and economy, but to claim that our children will not have any job prospects when they graduate is just fear mongering. It takes away from the real challenges that face our nation's schools.

The old ?Nation at Risk? rhetoric doesn't work well anymore for public education. A better message would provide a focus on how the public can support schools to bring about needed changes--changes that would ensure our children and grandchildren leave school with the knowledge and skills needed for the quality of life every parent desires for their child. Many call these 21st Century Skills and narrowly focus on math and science as the Strong American Schools ad does. But the skills students will need when they graduate are more than math and science. That is why the Center for Public Education is taking a broader look at the skills students will need when they graduate high school, not only so students can get a satisfying and lucrative job, but also so they can operate successfully in their daily lives and be good citizens. So keep checking the Center for Public Education in the coming year for more information on 21st Century Skills.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on July 17, 2008 (boomark / email).