Kolby Koberstein works out a math problem on a computer version of the state assessment at Molalla Elementary School. The Oregon school system got a B for its use of technology on a national report card released by the Institute for a Competitive Workforce on Monday, but mediocre grades on other qualities such as its use of data, hiring and firing of staff and preparation of students for college. The report said American schools are failing to prepare students for the rigors of the modern workplace.

Name:     Kolby Koberstein	Education:   State competitive tests
Relationship:	Country:     United States of America
http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2009/11/oregon_schools_gets_mediocre_g.html A national report on educational innovation released Monday gives Oregon mediocre grades for the way it prepares students and runs, funds and staffs its schools. "Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Innovation" is a follow-up analysis to a report two years ago by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for a Competitive Workforce and the American Enterprise Institute. The new report focuses on school reform and draws gloomy conclusions about the state of American education. "We believe our education system needs to be reinvented," the report says. "Our schools consistently produce students unready for the rigors of the modern workplace." That sounds a lot like the influential "A Nation at Risk," a 1983 presidential commission report that warned of a "rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation." Little has changed in U.S. public schools despite a quarter century of reform.   ...