Wise Words
Making Education a Priority in Every Political Campaign
September 15, 2008
In the latest installment of "Wise Words," Alliance for Excellent Education President Bob Wise alerts us that as Americans begin to focus on their election choices, they should know what their candidates for the Presidency and Congress will do to improve the nation’s middle and high schools.
See the Alliance’s Five Priorities that all candidates should have to answer, and read the Alliance’s new report, Dropouts, Diplomas, and Dollars: U.S. High Schools and the Nation’s Economy, to understand what the economic impact will be if education policies aren’t changed to support schools and students.
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The Democratic and Republican National Conventions
August 25, 2008
Now that the Olympics are over and the lights have dimmed on the Bird's Nest Stadium, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, turns his attention to another set of world-affecting events: the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.
In the latest installment of "Wise Words," Wise offers a list of five things that the next president could do to ensure that America's students are prepared for college or the modern workplace.
Wise also says that both Barack Obama and John McCain need to talk much more about education-a critical issue for the economic and social future of the United States. To help you keep track of how often Senators Obama and McCain refer to education in their convention speeches, the Alliance for Excellent Education has brought back its popular Bingo game.
As a reminder, Senator Barack Obama's acceptance speech is scheduled for Thursday, August 28, while Senator John McCain's acceptance speech is scheduled for Thursday, September 4.
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The 400-Meter Race and Science Scores
August 21, 2008
In his last report from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, compares the performance of America’s fifteen-year-olds in science to the 400-meter.
In Beijing, three of the eight finalists in the 400-meter are Americans, including the two fastest qualifiers. But when it comes to scores on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in science, the United States ranks twenty-first.
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The High Jump Competition and Math Scores
August 19, 2008
In his latest video report on the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, compares the performance of American fifteen-year-olds in math to the high jump competition.
At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Matt Hemingway brought home the silver medal in the men’s high jump. Unfortunately, American students are not faring nearly as well on international tests in math, ranking twenty-fifth out of thirty countries that participated in the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment in math.
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The 1600-Meter Race and College Graduation Rates
August 15, 2008
With a lot of the high-profile track and field events set to begin in Beijing, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, uses a track analogy to describe how well the United States performs in graduating individuals from college, noting that the United States was fast out of the blocks and a world leader for most of the 20th century.
Even as recent as 1995, the U.S. ranked second in the percentage of individuals who had a college degree. By 2005, however, several other countries have caught up and surpassed the United States, including Canada, Japan, and Korea. As a result, the United States has fallen to fifteenth.
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Basketball and High School Graduation Rates
August 13, 2008
With stars such as Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, as well as a roster of NBA All-Stars, the U.S. Men’s Basketball team is favored to take home the gold medal in Beijing. But imagine if the vaunted U.S. basketball team finished thirteenth?
In his latest report from Beijing, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, talks about how the U.S. ranking in high school graduation rates has fallen from first in the world in the 1960s to thirteenth today.
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Gymnastics and Reading
August 11, 2008
In the second video in his series of reports during the Summer Olympics in Beijing, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, compares the performance of U.S. gymnasts against American students’ performance in reading. He notes that although the 2004 U.S. men and women both earned the silver medal in the Olympic team competition in Athens, Greece, American students finished a dismal 15th place in reading comprehension at the international level.
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Wise at the Olympics
August 6, 2008
Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, appears at the front of the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing comparing the performance of U.S. athletes at the Olympics against overall American academic performance in education.
For a comprehensive view of where the U.S. stands in international academic performance, please see "How Does the United States Stack Up? International Comparisons of Academic Achievement."
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A Graduation Rate For All
July 1, 2008
In the latest installment of "Wise Words," Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, examines what corporate fraud, mail package delivery, the IRS, and high school graduation rates have in common.
And more importantly, Wise discusses what we can do now to improve both graduation measurements and results for hundreds of thousands of students, referencing the recent Diplomas Count 2008 report, the Alliance’s state cards, and a letter that the Alliance and others sent to the U.S. Department of Education on how to better calculate and report graduation rates, and how to hold schools and districts accountable for graduating all students.
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High School Diploma Best Economic Stimulus for the Nation
June 10, 2008
In the latest installment of "Wise Words," Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, talks about the 1.2 million students from the class of 2008 who will not graduate with their peers. He says that these students will cost the nation over $300 billion in lost wages and revenues over the course of their lifetimes.
Wise also argues that the best economic stimulus for the nation’s economy is a high school diploma. “More students graduating may lengthen the commencement line, but it also shortens the unemployment line,” Wise says.
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Raising the Grade by the Alliance's Bob Wise Released
May 2, 2008
On May 2, Raising the Grade: How High School Reform Can Save Our Youth and Our Nation, written by Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia was released.
In the latest installment of “Wise Words,” Governor Wise draws attention to the reason why he wrote Raising the Grade -- the crisis in America’s high schools that sees over a million students failing to graduate every year.
Raising the Grade describes the alarming cost of the high school crisis and informs citizens, educators, and policymakers about what they can do to ensure that all students receive a quality high school education that prepares them for a successful future.
Click here to order the book.
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Alliance's Bob Wise On Secretary Spellings's Grad Rate Regulations
April 22, 2008
On April 22, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced new regulations that will establish a uniform high school graduate rate that will more accurately measure how many students receive diplomas.
In the latest installment of “Wise Words,” Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, explains that the Secretary’s announcement is a step in the right direction, but one that needs to be accompanied by Congressional action requiring that high schools actually improve their graduation rates each year.
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Alliance Debuts New Video Series
April 2, 2008
Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, delivers the inaugural installment of "Wise Words," a monthly video addressing issues related to high school reform and the dropout crisis.
This month, Wise discusses the Alliance's updated fact sheet “How Does the United States Stack Up? International Comparisons of Academic Achievement.”
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