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6 Harv. L. & Pol'y Rev. 1 (2012)

handle is hein.journals/harlpolrv6 and id is 1 raw text is: Foreword Julidn Castro* Knowledge is the new currency of success in today's global economy. How to improve our nation's schools to effectively prepare all young Ameri- cans for that competition is the subject of this Symposium, Education: Equality of Opportunity. I am honored to present this issue for three reasons. First, like many Americans, I have reacted with a mix of concern, disbelief, and resolve as scholars and pundits have debated intensely whether America's power rela- tive to China and other emerging nations is in decline.1 The United States, the story goes, cannot keep pace with China because, in addition to a fast- growing population, robust GDP growth, and an expanding military, China is producing more well-educated young people who are capable of under- standing and working with the technologies of the twenty-first century.2 Throwing salt on the wound are international rankings that place the United States firmly in the middle of the pack among developed nations for stu- dent achievement.' Worse still, the very idea that America is the land where anything is possible, a nation of unprecedented upward mobility, has been called into question.4 Whether these predictions come to pass or simply re- present a temporary fit of national anxiety remains to be seen. But there is no question that America's economic strength will increasingly depend on its ability to produce a well-educated workforce. Ensuring that all students, * Julian Castro, a Harvard Law School alumnus, is the Mayor of San Antonio, the nation's seventh-largest city. 1 The debate appears consistent with popular sentiment about America's global standing. The Second Annual State of the American Dream Survey, conducted in March 2011 by Xavier University's Center for the Study of the American Dream, found that sixty-five percent of Americans believe America is in decline, and fifty-two percent named China as the country the world increasingly looks to for leadership. CIR. FOR IHE STIDY OF LIE AM. DIAM, SECOND ANNUAL STATE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM SURVEY 23, 25 (2011), http://www.xavier.edu/ americandream/programs/documents/Final-American-Dream- Survey -PowerPoint.pdf. 2 See Arvind Subramanian, The Inevitable Superpower: Why China's Dominance ls a Sure Thing, FOREIGN AFF., Sept./Oct. 2011, at 66-67. 3 The most high-profile set of rankings is the Programme for International Assessment, which is conducted every three years by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and De- velopment (OECD), and the most recent rankings are based on 2009 data. OECD, PISA 2009 RESULIS: EXECUIIVE SUMMARY (2010), http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/34/60/46619703.pdf. Among thirty-four OECD partner countries, the United States ranked fourteenth in reading, seventeenth in science and twenty-fifth in mathematics. See also MCKINSEY & Co., How iHE WORLD's BEST-PERFORMING SCHOOL SYSTEMS COME OUT ON Top (2007), http://www.mckin- seyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/WorldsSchool-Systems-Final.pdf. See also Tim Walker, PISA 2009: U.S. Students in the Middle of the Pack, NEA TODAY, Dec. 7, 2010, http://neatoday.org/2010/12/07/pisa2009 (on file with the Harvard Law School Library). ' See, e.g., ISABEL SAWIULL & JOHN E. MORTON, ECON. MOBILITY PROJECI, ECONOMIC MOBILITY: Is THE AMERICAN DREAM ALIVE AND WrEL? 4-5 (2007), http://www.economic mobility.org/assets/pdfs/EMP%20American%20Dream%20Report.pdf (There is little availa- ble evidence that the United States has more relative mobility than other advanced nations. If anything, the data seem to suggest the opposite.).

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