In 1995, America’s college graduation rate was second in the world. Ten years later, it ranked 15th. As so many nations around the world continue to improve their systems of education, America can no longer afford to maintain the status quo. In an ever-changing, increasingly competitive global economy, is the U.S. doing all it can to prepare its students to enter the workforce of the 21st century and ensure our country’s place as a world leader?
WHERE WE STAND: America’s Schools in the 21st Century, premiering Monday, September 15th at 10pm on PBS, examines the major challenges for U.S. schools in the face of a changing world. Divided into five segments, topics include globalization; measuring student progress; ensuring that all students achieve; the current school funding system, and teacher quality.
Hosted by Judy Woodruff, Senior Correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, the documentary visits a range of socioeconomic and geographic school districts. The program features schools in Ohio, an important swing state, but this program is about all of our schools and where they stand.
WHERE WE STAND introduces students, parents, teachers and administrators whose stories illustrate the overwhelming odds and shining successes of education in America. They include Bin Che, an educator from mainland China who teaches Mandarin in rural Ohio; Cherese Clark, principal of a high-poverty school struggling under the pressure of low test scores; Alex Perry, who, at age 16, has already taken three college-level math classes, and Finnish exchange student Anne Kuittinen, who earns no school credit for her year in the U.S. despite her straight-A record.
Nationally recognized education experts and leading proponents of educational reform will put these examples in context. They include Geoffrey Canada, CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone; Diane Ravitch, education historian; Wendy Puriefoy, President of Public Education Network; Chester Finn, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute; Rick Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies, AEI; Michael Rebell, Executive Director of the Campaign for Educational Equity; and Sharon Lynn Kagan, Associate Dean for Policy, Teacher’s College at Columbia University.
WHERE WE STAND is airing at a critical time in our country’s history. Along with its companion Web site and a variety of dynamic outreach activities across the country, the program will inspire a national dialogue in the weeks prior to the November elections.
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Ms. Spelling, There is a Doctor Stewart who is setting up an excellent program for helping all students achieve their best in education through intensive mentoring,counseling and practical applicaiotn. the organization is CCP (College and Career Pathways) and is a new start-up with great potential. the Executive Diretor of the progam is a PhD who has a history of working with underprivileged children to get them to ‘think college.” She has been very successful in the past and is striving now to start a new business to perform the necessary work to get underserved children involved in their education process and thinking college. You might do well to contact her for your term as well as passing her name on to the incoming secy of education. Dr. Stewart has a great program together to help these students who are considered the “least of these.” They do have a web site and it is very informative for the reader: http://WWW.CCP.ORG
I gave you the wrong web address for College and Career Pathways. Corrected: http://www.collegeandcareerpathways.org This is the correct web address. Please check them out for the good they do.
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