But the lack of ideas and drive to improve reveals a deeper rot.
Science teachers say the same.
Only one in five said their friends thought it was important to get good grades. Our schools, whatever their flaws, are still quite capable of educating. Maybe science-education reformers need to think less about teaching and more about students' social environment. Curriculum reform is the fashionable way that scientists try to help schools, but teachers say the handy handbooks and reworked workbooks wither on the shelves. Role models help, but professors must also lobby their universities to tighten admissions requirements and eliminate remedial courses.