Washington, D.C., August 31, 2001

As reported by observer Gerald W. Bracey

At a sometimes-raucous press conference today, President Bush announced the results from his Select Committee to Find a Scapegoat for the Recession. While most observers expected the committee to try and lay the blame on the Clinton years, Bush took time more time-honored tack by saying that the principal problem is the abysmal performance of the American public school system. Bush denied that the failure of Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill to ram his $7.2 trillion dollar tax cut through the 107^th Congress was a factor, although he acknowledged that the decision of Federal Reserve Chairman, Ralph Nader, to raise interest rates might have played a small role.

As evidence, Bush pointed to the results of the follow up to the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, released December 5, 2000. That study, like the first, found American students to be average compared to students in 37 other countries. Bush said the principal implication of the findings had been well captured in a New York Times op-ed piece from December, 8, 2000 by Secretary of Education, Louis V. Gerstner, then CEO of IBM, and Deputy Secretary, Tommy G. Thompson, then Governor of Wisconsin, from which he quoted: "The message here is extraordinary and irrefutable: Every day our public schools are open, the gulf between our children and the world's top performers grows wider."

The first questioner pointed out that when the test scores were analyzed by socioeconomic status, our suburban districts scored as high as the highest nation while poor urban areas outscored only one of many countries. The reporter wanted to know, "should we indict the entire system given such divergent results?" Bush replied that it was a national problem, but added, "We're gonna close those failing schools."

Another reporter asked if the performance of 13-year-old children on multiple-choice tests was in any way related to the state of the economy. After all, he noted, 13-year-olds are nowhere near entering the labor force. In this country, eighty-five percent of them will graduate from high school and two thirds of those will attend college. Bush acknowledged that more Americans attended college than in any other nation, but denied that one purpose of college was to keep too many young people from entering the labor market at one time. "We cannot continue with such mediocre performance," he said, "and expect to maintain economic supremacy."

At this comment, many hands rose in the air and Bush's gaze landed on ABC's Sam Donaldson. "Isn't it true Mr. President, that another Republican President, Ronald Reagan, declared that we were imperiled by mediocre schools? Did not his 1983 report, "A Nation At Risk," even contend that, and I quote, 'the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people?' And while it is true, Mr. President, that shortly after that report the nation did slide into recession, did it not recover in the early 1990's to create enormous amounts of new wealth with the longest sustained expansion in the nation's history?"

"That was then, Sam, this is now." He quoted from the Gerstner-Thompson essay again "What's at stake is tomorrow's economy, not today's."

Donaldson now grew impatient. "But Mr. President, that 1983 report was also concerned about 'tomorrow's economy.' Again I quote, "If only to keep and improve on the slim competitive edge we still retain in world markets, we must dedicate ourselves to the reform of our educational system.' Isn't this just an old song and dance? Isn't the health of the economy shaped by enormous forces far beyond the pale of what goes on in our elementary and secondary schools? Not even our best economists can predict economic cycles with any certainty."

"Sam, you know as well as I do that if you can make people fearful about their future you can control them. I probably shouldn'a said that, heh, heh."

Andrea Mitchell, NBC correspondent and wife of former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, leapt into the fray. "Isn't it true, Mr. President, that the schools were also blamed for letting the Russians get into space ahead of us when they launched Sputnik in 1957? And equally true that the schools received no credit twelve years later when America landed a man on the moon, an object the Russians could not even manage to hit with a rocket?"

"But as I said to Sam, Andrea, that is ancient history. We must keep focused on the future even though none of us knows--or is it "know?"--what it will look like."

UPI's Helen Thomas, recently come out of retirement, now objected. "Mr. President, that 1983 report labeled the schools as mediocre. And yet, the high school students of that era composed the generation that powered the great economic expansion of the nineties. The oldest students in high school in 1983 would be 36 now, and the youngest 31. Isn't this the group that has brought us the technology revolution that powered much of the boom?"

Bush acknowledged some merit to Thomas' comment but said again we had to look forward, not backward. "And not all of them succeeded. There's guys who started companies that never made a profit but whose stock soared until it collapsed. At least the guys who sold out when the stock peaked made a bundle, heh, heh. Those others must have learned fuzzy math in school."

"One final question."

"Mr. President, is it not true that in mathematics and science, Japan has consistently scored among the highest nations in the world? But is it not also true that Japan has been mired in recession for eleven years now and cannot even today see its way out? Given that Japan is at the top in test scores and at the bottom in economic growth, how can we link test scores to the economic health of a nation?

"Actually, I think I've answered enough questions for one day."

Thank you, Mr. President.