We need year-round school to compete globally

May 10, 2011|By LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor

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Jing'an School schoolkids helped make Shanghai students No. 1 in the world in reading, science and math in the study.

As a nation, either our kids are getting dumber or everyone else's are getting smarter. American 15-year-olds ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math in a study of students in 34 nations and nonnational regions.

The Program for International Student Assessment study, coordinated every three years by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, definitively shows U.S. students are no longer ready to compete against the world's brightest.

Which brings me to this: Why are we still giving them the summer off?

As it stands, only eight of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries that took part in the study in 2009 have a lower high school graduation rate than we do. It's so bad in some schools, educators have a nickname for them: dropout factories.

That's a national crisis with a potential for significant economic impact. The organization estimates that by boosting our scores for reading, math and science by 25 points over the next 20 years, the United States would gain $41 trillion over the lifetime of the generation born in 2010. As cash-strapped as we are, can we really afford to leave that kind of money on the table? Instead of year-round school as curiosity, I think it's time it becomes a government-enforced standard.

Remember recently when the nation got all in a tizzy after the International Monetary Fund reported China would pass us as the world's largest economy in 2016? Well, considering Shanghai ranked No. 1 in the education report, that shouldn't really surprise anyone.

To make matters worse, our kids have no idea just how far behind they really are.

When the results of the test were released in the winter, Arne Duncan, U.S. Department of Education secretary, pointed out that despite not being in the top of any of the subjects tested, "U.S. students express more self-confidence in their academic skills than students in virtually all OECD nations. This stunning finding may be explained because students here are being commended for work that would not be acceptable in high-performing education systems."

It's as if the United States were cast in one of those cliché Hollywood movies as the 29-year-old dumb and balding jock who still wears his high school varsity jacket.