Perhaps, but we can't be sure because Secretary Alexander's little book doesn't explain. Celebrating results like these is like fiddling while Rome burns because firemen have one or two buildings under control. There's another problem. In addition to knowing how well our kids perform in relation to our own levels of achievement, we must know how they compare with students in other industrialized countries. We adopted, as one of our education goals, being first in the world in math and science by the year 2000.
Nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news.
But if we are to believe what we hear about education from our leaders, they need to tell us the bad news as well as the good. During the early days of World War II, the BBC nightly news was full of details about how many miles the Allies had retreated that day, how many Allied soldiers had been killed, etc. Some listeners thought the BBC was crazy for reporting all that bad news, but when the tide eventually turned, people had confidence in BBC reports. If the BBC told the truth when times were bad, it could be trusted now. We need leaders in American education who can establish that kind of trust.