This summer I had my first opportunity to visit Ireland.

Ireland has had a remarkable “revolution” in its society in the past 15 years as it has changed from a rather poor country without a lot of resources to a pretty prosperous member of the developed world.

Sheep raising in the past had to have been the principal activity and this hasn’t made people rich in a few centuries.

The Potato Famine caused massive starvation and outward migration in the 1850’s.

The transformation of Ireland has been due to, you guessed it, having the best educated English speaking workforce in the Common Market, if not in the World.

As a member of the Common Market, “European Union,” it has attracted many US firms that wished to sell in the EU.

In the Program for International Assessment (PISA) which is a measurement of the academic skills of 15 year olds Ireland ranked 14th.

The news for America isn’t quite so good. America has lower than the average score than 31 education systems (23 OECD countries and 8 non-OECD education systems).

This is a polite way of saying that America is 32nd in the rankings. Croatia and Azerbaijan do a little better than we do with far less resources!

Ireland has a nationwide assessment system that rates all “School leavers” (graduates) each year. This procedure in a large part determines the potential for college and university admissions much as the SAT and ACT do here.

The Irish government has used these scores to attract a great deal of growth to Ireland in software, pharmaceuticals, and other high paying industries. One only has to look at the kinds, and prices, of houses that either are being built, or have been built, in Ireland to see the impact that this has had on Ireland. Expensive cars are quite prevalent also.

In the “Irish Times,” the major paper of Ireland while I was there, the latest scores for “School leavers” were posted, and they were causing great concern among the political leaders of Ireland, as it is their belief that “education” is the keystone to continued Irish prosperity.

There was, you guessed it, a decline in scores particularly in mathematics. Looking at some of the sample questions on last year’s exam I would guess that most American “School leavers” would be “unqualified” for any higher education in Ireland.

Unfortunately the Irish haven’t done much better than Americans at figuring out why their students are not doing as well in mathematics.

I would contend that the answer is pretty simple. Mathematics takes practice of basics until they are mastered. I can’t begin to enumerate the number of “math programs” that seem to believe that mathematics can be “learned” without practice.

Of course the individual schools in Ireland are compared to each other to give all parents a clear understanding of the success and failures of each school.

The Irish politicians believe that a “New Curriculum” that is more “discovery based” will solve their problem! Perhaps they haven’t been reading some American literature on mathematics instruction!

As I read the local papers about the WASL score results, I am troubled by the comparisons that we can make in Federal Way. This state is now ranked 43rd in this nation based upon high school completion and the nation is ranked 26th internationally, in academic achievement by the PISA.

Who, in their right mind, would be looking at this area to locate an employment center for living wage jobs?

Local papers talk about individual school districts that “are better than the state averages!” Hardly something to be proud of! Federal Way has 50% of its 10th graders in the lowest level of achievement.

Federal Way has now moved a step downward in the “No Child Left Behind” rating system due to the continued lack of any significant progress in academic achievement.

While the school district will point out that many other school districts have similar levels of “progress,” I don’t believe that this would impress either a college admissions officer or a potential employer.

What will it take to change this? In my mind there is no short cut to changing this ongoing trend. It is only when we enlist all parents in changing the habits and activities of the communities’ children can we master subjects such as foreign languages and mathematics.

You only have to talk to some of our kids, including those who are doing “well” in our schools to discover that they are “clueless” on many topics that were considered “basic” 40 years ago. I discussed European History with an Advanced Placement student who had just finished the course and found many gaps in his knowledge of European History.

I have asked students to explain the first line of the Marine hymn, I repeated it to them, and found that they have no knowledge of either of these two events.

Why is this so? Distractions galore! If you want to learn the definition of “Cosine” you cannot be distracted.

I think that the Irish are right about prosperity, but not math. Our country’s greatest successes may have come when we had the best-educated workforce in the world. If this is the case 26th won’t cut it!

The President of the University of Washington puts it, “We are educating our children to be the “Carwash attendants” of the next generation!”

It just wouldn’t be that hard to change this.