American Schools in Crisis
If you read the news magazines or watch TV, you might get the impression that American education is deep in a crisis of historic proportions. The media tell you that other nations have higher test scores than ours and that they are shooting past us in the race for global competitiveness. The pundits say it’s because our public schools are overrun with incompetent, lazy teachers who can’t be fired and have a soft job for life.Don’t believe it. It’s not true.
So begins one of the most important pieces on education written recently. It appears in The Saturday Evening Post, which according to their circulation statement has 350,000 paid subscribers, and with a pass-along rate of
“My death was inevitable,” he said, “but I am alive thanks to God and NATO.”
That is the final line of a remarkable column in the Sunday New York Times by Nicholas Kristof, with the title A Libyan Prisoner Lives to Tell His Story. It is about Salem al-Madhoun, a Naval officer who was a key source for Kristof, a man who was prepared to defect, to take his ship to Malta rather than obey orders.
There is too much richness to fairly represent the column with a few selections. It is a must read.
Al-Madhoun and his family represent some of the best among those who opposed the regime. He was captured by the regime's forces, and had his torture overseen by one of Qadaffi's sons. Kristof assumed he had been