President Obama Needs To Do More Homework On Education
by James Glaser
March 11, 2009

President Obama was telling the country his ideas for our education system yesterday. He said a lot of good things, and many of his ideas are needed, but he never mentioned the thing that I believe is the most important.

Obama, talked quite a bit about how important a college education is and how he wants to make it possible for every young American to attend college if that is their goal.

That's great and that's good, and it's even desirable, but it isn't the goal we should be working on right now. What we as a nation should be working on is to get our young people to graduate from high school.

Worrying about getting kids into college when more than half of the kids in most major metropolitan areas fail to finish high school is putting the cart before the horse.

Maybe it is because President Obama went to one of the best Prep schools in the country and then went on a full ride scholarship in college, that he failed to see first hand the number of kids who don't finish their high school education. The goal for those drop-outs is to get a GED diploma, not a sheepskin from a university.

If we want to be honest with ourselves, we had best admit that millions of Americans can not read or write. I know, I know, nobody wants to admit things like that, but here is another thing we should admit to ourselves. There are millions of Americans who can not count money or numbers. Forget about calculus or geometry, I'm talking about addition and subtraction.

Try working a cash register at a fast food restaurant or at a convenience store for a while, and you will see what I mean. Many of the people who work at those fast food places can't add either. The food industry knows this is a huge problem because instead of numbers on the cash register, they have pictures of a small, regular or large of what every they are selling.

President Obama wants America to catch up with the rest of the world in education—ok, fine. However, you can't catch up from the top. You have to bring every one along if you want real lasting education improvement.

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