It is well understood that American educational standards are falling behind those of many other developed nations.  I have recently discussed this issue from the point of view of giving more public support to community colleges, as recently proposed by President Obama.
But the problem is much broader than this. American college students in general score very poorly in basic critical thinking and communication skills.  As the above chart shows, even college seniors are only 60% proficient in these skills and college freshmen do much more poorly.
A new book, “The Smart Society: Strengthening America’s Greatest Resource, its People,” by the political scientist, Peter Salins, provides a good description of the basic problem.  It starts long before college!  America actually has two different K-12 academic achievement gaps.  One, the “Megagap” is the huge test score disparity between middle class students and low-income students, who are largely minorities.  This achievement gap is best addressed with expanded early childhood education, as we are beginning to do in Omaha NE where I live.
But as Mr. Salins points out there is also a Mainstream Achievement Gap between what most non-disadvantaged American youth are capable of learning and what is actually expected of them in the typical U.S. public school.  It is this learning gap which is primarily responsible for America’s mediocre standing on international achievement tests.
Mr. Salins argues that the Mainstream gap is closable because there is such an enormous variation in achievement scores among the 50 states, as shown in the above chart.  In particular, in Massachusetts, a top state, the Education Reform Act of 1995 included the following reforms:

• The requirement for all state school districts to adhere to rigorous curriculum specifications.
• A new statewide diagnostic testing protocol.
• More rigorous testing of new teacher candidates.
• A statewide uniform high school graduation standard.

Reforms such as these are what make up the Common Core State Standards Initiative.  Such high standards are working well in the top performing states.  Other states need to seriously implement these same standards.  America’s competitive edge depends on it!