Anyone who has been paying attention for the past 20 years knows by now that, in America, Asian students perform the best, white students perform just below them, and Latino and African-American students are performing on the lowest rung of the academic ladder. Anyone who has been paying attention in the past 10 years knows that, worldwide, American students stack up very poorly against the students from most advanced nations, and, in  particular, they look very bad indeed when compared to students in China and Korea.

So what the heck is going on in Asia, or in Europe, Finland? What are their schools doing for their students that we are not doing here in America? When one actually examines schools in Asia and schools in America, one discovers that there is not a gap in methodology. What one discovers is that there is a gap in respect and reverence…