Opinion | No, American schools aren't failing (opens in new tab)

"A claim so familiar, people no longer feel obligated to back it up with evidence." [archived: ] "The belief that American public schools are an international embarrassment, sites of endless failure, is one of the few things our polarized political system seems to agree on. After all, the transition from George W. Bush’s presidential education policy to that of Barack Obama was one of remarkable continuity, based on a shared premise: Our schools were in a broad state of emergency. Today, poli...