A Report Card on Education Reform - NYTimes.com

A Report Card on Education Reform - NYTimes.com:

A Report Card on Education Reform

By DAVID LEONHARDT

Danny Moloshok/Reuters (left); Charles V. Tines/Associated PressMitch Daniels, president of Purdue University, left, and John Engler, president of the Business Roundtable.

I sat down last week in Washington with Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, and Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana governor and current Purdue University president, after they had met with several dozen chief executives of big companies to talk about education. Their meeting was at the office of the Business Roundtable, the corporate lobbying group, and joining us for the conversation was John Engler, the former Michigan governor who runs the Business Roundtable.

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images, for The New York TimeEducation Secretary Arne Duncan

Mr. Duncan is a Democrat, of course, andMr. Daniels and Mr. Engler are Republicans. But they all sympathize with many of the efforts of the so-called education reform movement. I asked them whether the country’s education system was really in crisis and what mistakes school reforme