That said, much which you're advocating deserves attention. Yes, it's important (for some) to develop "high" skills. Yes, the quality of international competition is rapidly improving. Yes, effective leadership demands a "deep vein of creativity" which is "constantly renewing itself." Yes, innovation requires a "high level of preparation" not just in the disciplines currently getting attention, but in fields of study being neglected. Yes, today's standardized tests aren't up to the challenge (are, in fact, appallingly, even criminally, counterproductive). Yes, education monies could be spent more wisely. Yes, our education and training systems were designed for another era. And yes, it isn't possible to get where we need to go by tinkering with what's now in place.

But I'd suggest that where it counts most—in the curriculum, in that part of the system "where the rubber meets the road"—your proposals do, in fact, merely tinker. Notwithstanding what the Executive Summary's Step 4 says about the need for "right" standards, "right" syllabi, and "right" assessments, what comes through loudest and clearest to an audience powerfully predisposed to resist change is your earlier declaration, "We do not need new programs."

Your support of the curricular status quo is underlined, reinforced by your emphasis on greater rigor, your positive references to Advanced Placement courses and the International Baccalaureate program, and by your assumption that market forces can work the wonders in education they sometimes work in the marketplace. You list ten problems which must be addressed to improve education, and none even mentions the curriculum.

Adopt the changes you propose. Change governance, finance and organization. Raise salaries. Attract better people to the profession. Tighten the rigor screws. Tighten them again. Bring to bear every market force you can think of. Do it all, and yes, there'll be some improvement.

But not much. You argue that "the system" is flawed, then all but ignore the one part of that system most responsible for bringing us to our present state—the traditional "core" curriculum (which some now want to freeze in place by nationalizing it). Consider: That curriculum has no agreed-upon aim. It denies the seamless, systemically integrated, mutually supportive nature of knowledge. It fails utterly to capitalize on that which makes civilized life possible—human variability. It lacks criteria for determining the relative importance of content. It has no mechanisms for adapting to social change. It ignores vast and exceedingly important areas of knowledge. It emphasizes recall to the neglect of all other thought processes. It has no comprehensive organizing conceptual framework. It dumps information on students at an intellectually unmanageable rate. It fails to progress smoothly through ever-increasing levels of complexity. It lends itself to ridiculously simplistic modes of performance evaluation. It relates only tangentially to life as it's lived.

Any one of these problems is serious enough to warrant calling a national conference. The curricula currently in place in America's schools and colleges suffer from all of them.

I know you conducted a worldwide program of research and analysis, know you engaged a staff of 19 as well as consultants, know you did five major economic and labor market studies, eight international industry studies, and a series of comparative education studies on four continents. I know you commissioned papers, convened focus groups, interviewed experts here and abroad, and brought to the effort your own vast collective experience and expertise.

All of which very likely leads you to believe you overlooked nothing of significance. It may also lead you to believe that it's presumptuous of someone you've never heard of to ask you to at least skim the enclosures.

But that's what I'm asking.

Staying the course with any version of the present curriculum doesn't just invite societal disaster; it assures it. I'm not suggesting you take on the task of rethinking what's taught. That calls for broad (long overdue) societal dialog. But you could do the nation and the young an enormous service by helping change the minds of those in Congress who sincerely believe that a little tinkering with the No Child Left Behind law or a boost in funding will cure education's ills. Tell them to stop trying to be America's school board. Tell them to respect the Constitution and give education back to the States. Tell them to note the self-serving nature of many (most?) education "reform" proposals. Tell them to use federal funds to encourage broad participation in a fundamental, start-from-scratch overhaul of our primitive, 1892, general education curriculum. And finally, tell them to encourage the States to give working educators and students a real and continuous voice in education reform.

Thank you for your attention.

Enc: Quotes from 22 nationally or internationally known and respected scholars and two higher education study committees, and three of my Knight-Ridder/Tribune columns