Why American Education Is Failing

Two new, crucial, and interrelated skills will control the fate of American education: (1) How to more deeply motivate growing youngsters; and (2) How to systemically address parental growth and family issues.

Last year, the president of IBM called all U.S. governors together and got them to agree that establishing national standards is the way to solve America's educational woes. Clearly, they believe the problem is underachieving American teachers, students, and parents, who simply need to be held to a higher standard.

But the late W. Edwards Deming, who is credited with transforming Japan's industry into world leadership, brilliantly taught business leaders how to distinguish between problems caused by an underachieving system, as opposed to those caused by underachieving workers. When asked what he thought of America's educational system, he...