Americans devalue education

Dallas Morning News: Stanford University is one of the world's great research institutions, so when the school's president talks about American universities in the 21st century, it pays to listen. In a discussion about China and India outstripping the United States in math and science education, Stanford's John Hennessy was asked whether U.S. universities should give preferential admission to American students in those fields.
"Maybe so," said Hennessy, himself a distinguished engineering researcher, "if we could get these students in the first place."
The National Science Foundation warns that America is not producing enough researchers to maintain the country's leading role in science and technological progress. As Hennessy indicated, U.S. graduate applications in the sciences and engineering are down. True, mediocre K-12 education plays a big role in this crisis.
The bigger problem
But the Stanford president told us that there's a more fundamental problem the American people have yet to face: a widespread loss of faith in education's value. Immigrant communities used to be especially devoted to education, he said, but "now you only really see it among immigrants from Asia."
He mentioned Condoleezza Rice's grandfather, a sharecropper who worked hard to get a college degree and who, by instilling in his descendants a deep belief in the transformative power of education, produced within two generations one of the most powerful women in the world. This is what education can do for those who believe in hard work and scholarly self-discipline.
That used to be most Americans. How did we fall from a nation that respected teachers and treasured learning into one with an entitlement mentality? Lawmakers can tool with education policy all they like, but no tax will require lazy students to do their homework, and no law can make self-indulgent parents care deeply about their children's education.
Parents in China and India aren't making the same mistake.