Recommended: Tiger Mom: Here's how to reshape U.S. education

Here is a great article by Amy Chua, the author of the controversial book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom. It is entitled Tiger Mom: Here's how to reshape U.S. education.  She points out that Asian countries are beginning to realize that their rote training isn't as effective as some things the US does, but nevertheless

The average American child spends 66% more time watching television than attending school. We have alarming rates of teenage substance abuse and the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the developed world. In the recent Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, American high school students ranked 17th in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in math — with Asian nations taking top marks. This is a problem across the board. Even America's top math students rank poorly compared with top performers elsewhere.

Clearly we have been doing some things right in the past, and clearly we are doing some things wrong now.  It occurs to me that the public education system of the past was well suited to producing hard-working factory workers, but is ill suited to producing the highly innovative technical workers needed in today's world.