School Reform's Establishment Turn
The Council on Foreign Relations endorses choice and competition.
The Council on Foreign Relations is the clubhouse of America's establishment, a land of pinstripe suits and typically polite, status-quo thinking. Yet today CFR will publish a report that examines the national-security impact of America's broken education system—and prescribes school choice as a primary antidote. Do you believe in miracles?
American schools have several national-security duties, the report notes. First is educating workers who can keep the U.S. economy strong and innovative amid global competition, which requires skills in reading, math and science, as well as foreign languages and cultures. The U.S. also needs to produce sharp intelligence officers, soldiers and diplomats, as well as techies who can guard corporate and governmental cyber networks. And don't forget a citizenry that understands how democracy works.
Performance on all these fronts is grim. Only a third of elementary and middle-school