Third Session

For the third session we are watching Gov. Roy Romer's "America's Public Schools: A Crisis and an Opportunity" here again, are a few highlights

-If the US is going to maintain the economic advantage that we currently have we need to rank higher than 24th in Math among industrialized nations.

-The number of drop outs in American schools is at 1.2 million

-There is a need for more rigorous national standards across the country

-The States would be able to come up with the tests, but the Federal Government would pay for them.

-The most important quality for any school system is teaching. The best way to improve this is by recruiting better individuals, currently teachers in the US generally come from the bottom third of their graduating classes.

-To keep the best teachers there should be some form of merit pay based on their student's performance

-Currently the US has 13 fewer class days a year than the top countries in education, and that needs to be fixed

We have now voted to switch to Porter Gross' "Defending America Requires Fixing our our Intelligence System" We picked it up in the middle, so this will only reflect what I have been able to view.

-The Israeli intelligence is the best in the world because they believe that any mistake on their part will cause an explosion or death to their people. The US does not act with that same kind of urgency.

-Our system is not efficient enough in turning intelligence to acting on it.

-The US can't retreat back behind the oceans, they must get the info from the direct sources, not hearing it from global news

-The US military and intelligence needs to have greater freedom to act on information, and not have to worry about Washington.