Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Monday, April 10, 2006
Oprah: Schools worse than you think
Oprah Winfrey this week will dedicate two shows to exploring the crisis in American schools on Tuesday and Wednesday. The program is working in partnership with Time magazine, which this week tells us the dropout rate in the U.S. is much higher than we think. The Time story is built around Shelbyvile High School in suburban Indianapolis.
The Oprah folks already are touting Bill Gates’ appearance, in which he says America is in grave danger if it doesn’t fix its terrible high schools.
It will be interesting to read Time (I’m going to try to pick one up today. I’m a Newsweek subscriber) and watch Oprah to see what they’ve got to say. I’m always wary when anyone starts arguing that American education is a complete disaster.
The “system” of education here, if you can call it that, has always been terribly uneven. America undoubtedly has some of the best public schools anywhere in the world. But there is no denying a large number of our schools are in crisis and Oprah, Bill Gates and Time may be correct that the problems are bad enough that some real urgency is overdue.
We’ve heard that before, but as a nation we generally prioritize education pretty far down our list of things we need to fix. Let’s see what Time and Oprah have to say this week and then I’d love to discuss it here.
In the meantime, how worried are you about the state of education in the U.S.? I’d rate my overall concern at about a 6 or 7 out of 10, but my concern for urban schools would be a 9 out of 10. How about you?
BTW, Oprah is on NBC, which is WDTN channel 2 in Dayton, at 4 p.m.
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