CNN's "Don't Fail Me" Special Pinpoints Problems in U.S. High Schools

By A. Scott Walton

Soledad O’Brien’s latest documentary for CNN depicts what occurs when some of America’s best and brightest high school students compete to build multi-functional robots for a national competition.
What “Don’t Fail Me: Education in America” doesn’t show explicitly is how poorly “above average” American teens would fair in a similar contest against kids their age from China, India or Scandinavia.
But statistics spell out the likely outcome: since American high school students ranked 17th in science knowledge among 34 industrialized nations, and 25th in math, the results would be crushing.
“Don’t Fail Me”, which premieres Sunday, May 15 (8 p.m. ET) spotlights the glaring deficiencies in U.S. education that Xerox Corporation CEO, Ursula Burns, describes as a cause for domestic “panic”.
U.S. Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, that American kids are falling so far behind in math and science that foreigners are poised to claim millions of technology-oriented jobs in the U.S. very soon.
The special, which will re-air periodically, follows three teams of high school juniors and seniors from Tennessee, Arizona and New Jersey as they strive to prove their skills in robotics. Along the way, they must overcome isoloation and their parents’ apathy, cluelessness or expectations for over-achievement.
In each case, the featured students suffer disappointment and the itchy question, “What’s next?”.
On a positive note: CNN’s “Don’t Fail Me” special points out how dedicated and enthusiastic some U.S. teens are about making the best of all the educational opportunities available to them. But on the discouraging side, “Don’t Fail Me” spells out how few and far between such students are.