This is not another pessimistic book about U.S. education. Yes,
American students fall short of the standards met by students in
many other nations of the world—nations we must compete with
economically. Yes, the drop-out rates in our inner city schools are
astonishingly high, and there is an alarming gap in achievement
between white and minority students. And yes, progress in curing
these ills has been slow and unimpressive, even as the need
for improvement has accelerated in the twenty-first century. But
there is reason for optimism—and the reason is technology.