Who is to say that American Public Schools are failing?  I have 2 questions to ask: 

1.  What criteria are you using in deciding that Public Schools are failing? 

2.  Why do you say the it's the schools that are failing and not the students (and parents)?
Let's take a deeper look at both of these questions.

What criteria are you using in deciding that Public Schools are failing?  Personally, I don't care where we rank in comparison to other countries.  I have seen some of the educational systems from around the world and they do not even attempt to produce a well-rounded student, they simply teach to the test they are going to take at the end of the year.  Is that what you would want for American students?  We could certainly forego all electives and make the students take three math courses a day.  This would send our math scores through the roof but at what cost?  And what reward?  So that we can say our students score higher than Italian students?  Who cares what Italian students are scoring on math exams which may or may not be the same exams American students are taking.  I am well aware of the "global economy" but it is not our math scores that are sending jobs to India and other countries, it's the cheap labor.

If you do accept the theory that public schools are failing, why do you say the it's the schools that are failing and not the students?  At what point do we admit that it is ultimately the kids who take the tests and the results need to shared.
Is it possible that the schools are doing everything they can for these students and it's really the students failing and not the schools?  Today's students are different than they were 20 years ago.  Schools and teachers have to compete with video games in the home (when I was a kid (I am 37 years old) we did not have video games in our house, we had to go the arcade and spend our hard earned quarters), ipods (when I was a kid not only were there not even walkmans but no one was marketing music to children like the Disney Channel does with Hannah Montana and The Jonas Bros), cable television (when I was a kid there were only 2 channels that aired kids programming after school), the internet (when I was a kid... you get the picture).  With so many other options to occupy their time are we really surprised that students are studying less at home?

Some studies have the national high school graduation rate at about 70%.  Is that failing?  How many of those students wanted to graduate?  How many of those non-graduating students had families urging/supporting their graduation?  Do the public schools get knocked for not graduating kids who have no interest in graduating?  Are we placing the responsibility of motivating kids on the schools and not the parents?

I am not suggesting that our schools are perfect, I just get aggravated at the media's presumption that our schools are failing when most people who write these articles have not stepped foot on a school campus since they graduated.  So the next time you are in a discussion about our "failing" school system take a second to ask the person "what makes you say they are failing?"

Like Mark Twain said “There are three kinds of lies:  Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics.

I would love to hear you thoughts on this...