America’s Poor Reading and Math Skills

American adults perform poorly when measured against adults from other leading economic nations in math and reading skills!
by Charlie Leck

How do American adults (aged 16-65) do when compared with like adults from 21 other nations that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OEDC)?

Jack Buckley said we are “weaker in numeracy and problem-solving skills than in literacy, and average U.S. scores for all three are below the international average and far behind the scores of top performers like Japan or Finland.” Buckley is a commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (part of the Department of Education) here in America.

My curiosity was alerted. Was the American sample made up of members of the current U.S. Congress?

Getting serious for a half-second, this kind of international study should worry us. The story about it in the Washington Post is very brief. You can read it here!

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Is this the Selfish Generation?

Schools don’t have enough money! Just a few days ago I wrote about ExxonMobile’s call to return U.S. schools to greatness. The public doesn’t seem to want to respond.

by Charlie Leck

Schools in Minnesota, short of funds, are beginning to look at ways to survive without cutting back programs. One solution several schools are considering is a shorter week and longer days.

If one were to propose, over in the State Legislature, raising more money for the schools through an increase in taxes, the proposer would be run out of town and symbolically tarred and feathered as well.

Are we living in the selfish generation? Are we unwilling to make sacrifices – a few less coffees at Starbucks and a slightly less expensive sport coat – in order to provide our school districts with enough money to appropriately pay teachers and finance a top-notch education for our kids and grandkids?

Education in America was once something we could brag about. Now we rank, in many categories, far down on the list of nations producing the best educations for their students. We may not feel the severity of the consequences of this for another generation or two; but then the penalty will become severe.

We need a great awakening in America! What, or which, great person can convince us to spend invest more money in order to build a greater future for our children’s children?

America needs heroes more now than ever – great patriots who will call America to greatness again!

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If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

HARLEM CHILDREN'S ZONE

Changing children's lives one kid at a time!
by Charlie Leck

I had the extraordinary good pleasure of listening to Geoffrey Canada on Minnesota Public Radio today. He was talking about something I've written a lot about here on this blog; that is, the education gap among minority and lower income children in America's school. Cleveland's topic was "How to close the achievement gap in America's schools."

America will never achieve its full potential as a democratic society until it figures out how to handle this problem. Canada is committed to achieving it in one section of Harlem -- student by student and teacher by teacher.

This was an extraordinary presentation and I urge you to listen to it.

You will enjoy this fine gentleman as much as I did. When he tells you his "Green Eggs and Ham Story" it will touch your heart and you will wonder how we can get other children to have such life changing moments.

This is a gift I am giving you today. An extraordinary and wonderful gift. Don't lose it.