No Country Left Behind: US Education in the Globalized World (Interview‪)‬

Is the fact that US math and science education is trailing behind other nations the biggest threat to the future power and status of the United States? I think it is threatened; I really do. We go around saying that the American higher education system is the finest in the world. That may be true, but that is not the question. The question is: Is it fine enough for the way forward? We do a very, very poor job of getting minority students in and out of college. If you are Hispanic, you have about a one in ten chance of having a baccalaureate degree by the time you are 30 years old. Especially if you are from a state like mine, Texas. That is worrisome. A clear problem exists when half the population has very little education in the state that, if considered a country, would have the 14th largest economy in the world. We are not adequately meeting the needs of all of our citizens, and we are not apparently--as evidenced by all of these rankings--providing enough rigor or high enough levels of skill to those who are already in college, particularly in math and science.