Transforming Business: Big Data, Mobility, and Globalization

The New Civil War

In 1964, American 13-year-olds took the First International Math Study, ranking eleventh on a list of twelve countries.¹

“Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by com-petitors throughout the world.”² Those words were written in 1983 by an independent commission tasked with evaluating the current landscape of education in the United States and recommending a prescriptive path forward. The 65-page report gave a blistering account of America's eroding position in the global education race. The opus was laced with incendiary language, intended to provoke response and action:

What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur—others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments. If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves.... We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.³

At the time, this might have been perceived as a commission's flair for the dramatic (or a well-crafted piece of propaganda designed to convince then President ...