As the child of a high school teacher, a close friend of several others and the brother of a college professor, I highly value education and have access to various anecdotes of the American system’s failure. My assorted personal sources tell me that the American education from kindergarten through graduate school needs swift and drastic reform more than the general population realizes. Moreover, if we as a nation neglect to enact change soon, the U.S. will accelerate its cession of global leadership to other nations with more effective, if less egalitarian, systems.

President Bush’s attempt at progress unfortunately fails to advance education reform. Admirably, the No Child Left Behind Act seeks to hold schools and administrators accountable for their inability to educate their students (a stunningly new concept in education).

Unfortunately, it fails because it attempts “to apply a market economy model to education,” as Chris, a high school social studies teacher in North Carolina, observes. Moreover he notes, measuring a good education stretches beyond test scores; the well-educated think quickly and analyze situations in addition to drawing on taught facts and processes.

Chris should know the failing status of American education because he teaches on poverty-stricken Tobacco Road. While some on campus may claim to have gone to rough school districts, few had 13-year-old classmates with 2-year-old children, as Chris’ students do.

Additionally, his pupils cannot even locate Russia on a global map or explain what political parties are. The United States cannot hope to maintain its global leadership when some of the next generation grows up in schools and sociocultural environments like where he teaches.

Fortunately, the news is not entirely bad. Chris observes that his fellow teachers, many of whom also recently graduated from college, dedicate themselves to helping their students.

Likewise, Dan, an Illini alumnus student-teaching in suburban Chicago, recounts a story of working with a student who was a classroom disturbance. The student could not read and so obviously did not follow the science lectures, choosing to act out instead. Dan worked with the boy who, over time, started to behave better and more importantly, understand the material.

Dan’s and Chris’ total experiences differ dramatically and highlight the underlying problem with the American education system.

While many of us at UIUC came from school districts like Dan’s, we fail to grasp that a school like Chris’ is not uncommon. This disparity exists even within states and manifests the problems with the current funding system. We need a national dialogue to explore all options for reforming the education system, including options such as school choice, federal funding, revised state and local funding, administration accountability and teacher licensing protocol.

Many argue that while education is a nice issue for armchair liberals to debate, we have more immediate concerns like national defense and industrial progress.

Those people fail to realize that we can only survive the imminent crisis point of American global leadership by having well-educated people to command both public and private sectors.

Unfortunately, as Dan observes, while “the rest of the country may also ideologically place high value on education, they may be blindly placing a higher value on their pocketbook.”

Unfortunately, we are willing to drive our country into debt to pay for an egomaniacal, poorly managed war and not invest in the future of American progress.

The way to solve the problem is the same as with all major issues: we need to hold our local, state, and national officials responsible.

They need to serve the country and write progressive bills, not line their wallets and campaign coffers with pork.

While our electoral system mandates expensive election cycles and rewards those who secure government projects for their districts, our society needs to mature and value national progress over short-term local growth. If education is the first priority, as it should be, our votes must demonstrate our commitment to our children and our future.