This is a bold challenge, and a difficult one. Many of our school systems face entrenched and persistent problems that will be very difficult to solve. But great causes are never easy, and as Congress writes its fifth consecutive balanced budget we know that many things once thought impossible can indeed be accomplished. In our part of Pennsylvania we are blessed with exceptional schools. College admission rates and SAT scores are well above the national average.
Families move here, just so they can send their children to our schools.
But in other places things aren t so rosy. Thousands, perhaps millions, of American children are trapped in schools that seem completely incapable of providing a decent education. In nearby Philadelphia, almost half the students who enter ninth grade never graduate. At one school, Strawberry Mansion High School in North Philadelphia, two-thirds don t make it to graduation. In an age when gainful employment is hard to find without a college diploma, it is hard for most of us to imagine how hard it must be for someone without even a high school diploma.