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Last night, public television stations nationwide aired a one-hour documentary, Where We Stand, which evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. public education system.  While the noise of our current financial crash is drowning out news of the documentary, I do hope it will fuel robust conversations about public education.

The documentary's story line is already familiar to the education policy crowd:  The world is changing; our children will have to compete for jobs with their peers in Helsinki or Hong Kong; we're being creamed in international assessments of student performance; and our nation's prosperity depends in part on the fate of our schools.  Yet we have ample evidence that this message has not necessarily penetrated the public consciousness.  While just about everyone supports high academic standards in the abstract, students and their families alike often balk at ambitious coursework in, say, advanced mathematics or science.

If anything, Where We Stand brings home the need for much greater public engagement in these important issues.  That's why I was so disappointed by the New York Times' perfunctory review of the documentary. (Full disclosure:  I was on the documentary's advisory board, though I had precious little influence on its content.)  After complaining that the piece offers few "fresh insights," the reviewer opines that it does not provide "anything like a concrete suggestion as to what to do about" the nation's decline in international rankings.  The Times reviewer seems to expect a much more passive audience than we need.

In fact, the program invites serious discussion of solutions.  As a piece of civic journalism, however, it does not offer prescriptions.  The documentary's producers, to their credit, are promoting local outreach events to foster active discussion of the issues raised in the documentary.  (Several state affiliates of the Learning First Alliance, which sponsors this blog, are organizing such events.)  Personally, I wish Where We Stand had featured more successful American schools and districts to give viewers a sense of what's possible in their own schools.  (We needn't all learn Finnish to catch a glimpse of success.)  Still, I'm relieved that the documentary did not offer ready-made solutions for challenges that require serious public deliberation.

Certainly, news of spectacular failure at Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG Insurance will divert public attention from the health of our schools and cloud the message that our economic health depends primarily on quality of our schools.  After all, we should sooner blame Harvard MBA's than high school dropouts for our current financial mess. 

Yet our current economic trauma should ultimately make vigorous public discussion about public education all the more critical.  Yes, excellent public education can prepare many of our workers to compete with people in countries topping the international charts.  Perhaps more important, it can equip us to demand greater accountability from policymakers and business leaders who have avoided public scrutiny for too long.

Image from http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wherewestand/