There's a nastiness to conversations about U.S. education reform, which are characterized by the kind of stark taking-of-sides that's usually reserved for debates over guns or abortion rights.
After high school, I moved to the U.S. and studied music in Boston, at the Berklee College of Music.
In the 1940s, about 20% of people in the U.S. had graduated from high school, but less than 5% continued their education to get bachelors' degrees or higher.
I'd love to study in the U.S. I visited Vanderbilt in Nashville, and I've been told to check out Ole Miss. There are so many schools that I don't really know where to start. But I do love the U.S. and have met so many supportive and enthusiastic people here while I've been on tour. I could definitely live here!
About half my work in education is U.S. political reform around school districts and charter schools, and creating more room for entrepreneurial organizations to develop. And about half on technology, which I look at as a global platform.
In fact, NSF was the leading successful efforts to improve U.S. math and science education long before the Department of Education was even created.
I was later to receive an excellent first two years' graduate education in the same University and then again was able to pursue my studies in the U.S. on a fellowship from the aforementioned fund.
The language skill in the U.S. for the most part has been awful. Many Americans don't learn any foreign language.