competitiveness

Everyone has ideas about how to create more successful graduates: less homework. shorter summer vacations, and more computer science. Amanda Ripley, an investigative journalist for Time, traveled around the world to find out what really helps kids get ahead. Read more...

Harvard Professor Paul Peterson and Former Assistant Secretary of Education Chester Finn have been studying the American education system for a long time. What they've observed is a disturbing trend.

 "We had the greatest schools in the 19th century and the early 20th century," said Peterson. "We had elementary education before any other country. We had high schools before any other country. We built colleges before any other country."

But in the 1970s, the momentum changed.