Challenge for the Next President: Education

In the third of four articles, Boston Consulting Group's Harold L. Sirkin offers an education lesson plan for the U.S. in the world of globality

By Harold L. Sirkin

Dear Senators McCain and Obama:

Politicians at all levels of government, from local school board members and state legislators to those seeking the highest office in the land, realize that an educated body politic is what helps bind us together as a society, enables us to compete in the global economy, and provides the upward mobility that makes America uniquely America. And that's why we need to ensure that every U.S. child receives a proper education.

Measured by the amount of government money spent on K-12 public education each year—an estimated $526.6 billion in 2006, for an average of $9,138 per student, according to an April, 2008, Census Bureau report, we take our commitment to education seriously in the U.S. (Other government sources place the figures higher.) Measured by the uneven results we see, however, another picture emerges: that of a troubled system that is inadequately serving the interests of our children, taxpayers, and country. In a global economy where the U.S. must compete with everyone from everywhere for everything, including talent, our leaders can't let this continue.

Clearly one of your challenges as the next President is to revive American education. The key is not how much we spend, but spending smarter. If we don't, America will find itself falling further behind those countries that can and do properly educate their children. And we will have to import more talent, a challenge in a global economy already struggling with talent shortages. There needs to be a sense of urgency here, the kind of focused resolve that gripped the U.S. after the Soviet Union surprised the world with its Oct. 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 satellite launch. We accepted the challenge then and can do no less now.

Inspiration from the Space Program

How can we do this? For starters, the U.S. needs to commit to a basic level of education for all of its citizens. To have a workforce that can compete in the new world of globality, basic reading, writing, math, and science skills are a must. Every child needs to obtain these skills, whether they are destined to become Nobel prize-winning physicists, HVAC service technicians, or fast-food jockeys. In particular, American students are falling behind in math and science, the same critical disciplines President John F. Kennedy stressed in the early 1960s. He inspired us to reach for the skies, literally and figuratively—proposing in a May, 1961, address to a joint session of Congress that the U.S. commit itself to "landing a man on the moon and returning him back safely to the earth" before the end of that decade.

Yet almost half a century later, we once again find ourselves falling behind our competitors, many of which have far fewer resources than we do. According to the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, which researches and publishes the "Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study," U.S. eighth graders are being outperformed in math by eighth graders from 14 other countries, including Belgium, Estonia, Hungary, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Slovak Republic. In science, U.S. eighth graders trail their peers from Estonia, Hong Kong, Hungary, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.

According to a September, 2008, report from the nonpartisan Alliance for Excellent Education, our public education system not only squanders current human and financial resources, but exacts a price for doing so long into the future. More than 1.2 million high school students who should have graduated with the Class of 2008—about 30% of the total—dropped out instead. The Alliance estimated that the lost lifetime earnings for this "class of dropouts" would be more than $319 billion. The situation is worse among minority students, with 42% of Hispanic children dropping out, 46.6% of African-American children, and 51.7% of American Indian and Alaska native children.

Beyond Basic Education

These losses add up. If all heads of households in the U.S.