Nearly everyone agrees that major improvements must be made, in how our children are educated. However, there is not a consensus in how the American education system can best be organized to do so.

In the reformation of the system in a reasonably short period of time, the undertaking is an appropriate candidate for the complex systems/project management approach. These are the techniques, that permitted our nation to set and meet a commitment, to land a man on the moon within the decade of the 1960s. Variations of the management approach have been utilized, for the development of most of our successful space and defense systems, in the last forty years. Lesser versions are frequently used in more mundane, but complex undertakings (e.g., major transportation infra-structure projects).

Some will scoff! True, there are no engineering nor manufacturing breakthroughs required. Yes, there is no ominous singular threat, from an adversary, that we must counter within a specific time period. Regrettably, none of the "education" candidates or Presidents in the last 12 years has committed the nation to solve its education dilemma by the end of a decade.

However, in a number of respects our education challenge is more complex than putting a man on the moon, or creating the first nuclear submarine, or developing a multi-mission multi-service weapon system. Collectively, the national programs that utilized the systems/project management approach ran the gamut of complexities that justify its use. Singularly, only a few complexities were entailed.

The education challenge, on the other hand, is rife with complications. Most of the complications are associated with people, and organizational entities, involved in education. Others involve politics, unavailability of resources due to the squandering of the last 12 or more years, competition with other national priorities for available appropriations, overlaps or interfaces with other national programs, prior constraints due to misapplications or misinterpretations of the Constitution, resistance of the status quo, etc.

Starting at the top, an entity within the federal government would serve as System Program Manager. There would be 50 major subsystem managers, one in each state government. Each school district would serve for local administration and coordination of component contractors. Each school (public, private, and parochial) would constitute a component contractor.

The overall organization would be "lean and mean", overcoming the impediments of education bureaucracy cited by some critics, as the principal cause of present educational deficiencies. The System Program Office would have the responsibility to set overall performance parameters, time and cost constraints, and funding sources. This would be accomplished in consultation, and cooperation, with users of the education system output (government, business and industry, technical and trade schools, colleges and universities), lower tiers of education system management, and other affected entities (religions; anti-crime, anti-substance-abuse, anti-gang, anti-poverty programs, etc.).

Some latitude would be permitted to adapt the standard performance parameters, to state peculiar conditions. As recommended by some critics, maximum latitude and responsibility should be left to the component contractors (principals, teachers, and parents) to conduct their schools, to meet the system requirements.

The nation cannot wait for the necessary reforms to be effected, for kindergarten through twelfth grades, before attacking the problems in post high school and college education. Even if we presently had "a sound system of public schooling", the values created therein would tend to be undone, in the immoral and undisciplined conditions, presently existent on most of our college and university campuses. For one treatise on the subject, the reader is referred to Dinesh D'Souza's book "Illiberal Education--The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus".

The message must be gotten across, that enrollment in post high school educational institutions is not for "fun and games". Admission requirements must be reestablished, and maintained, at levels sufficient for mastering the courses leading to the certificates and degrees to be awarded. The courses offered, and the contents of the courses, should be limited strictly to meeting educational goals. They should not be offered for extraneous purposes such as: easy credit hours, instruction in immoral living, bowing to demands of special groups for reasons other than quality education, etc. Admission, passing, and graduation quotas should be strictly taboo. Quotas do not serve well the favored individuals, the parts of society that they represent, the educational institutions, nor the nation.

Although by law in most states, eighteen year olds are recognized as adults, in fact in the immediate post high school years, most individuals are going through the transition from family dependent to adult. They are quite vulnerable to being led astray. Missteps at this time can compromise, if not destroy, the values sought by the parents in the upbringing of their children. The students, and their parents, should be able to count on the educational institutions to maintain conditions on campus, that are conducive to the continuing fostering of family values. More often than not, it appears that students run the campus rather than the administration.

Quantity without quality is no advancement in education. Before the GI bill, at the end of World War II, and the later introduction of federally subsidized and guaranteed student loans, a post high school education was to be aspired to only by the few. A trade or technical school certificate, or a college degree, was something to be earned and treasured. Truly persons having them were prepared to earn a living for the families they would have, and to make as much of themselves as possible. Our educational institutions, and the support they receive from federal and state governments, need to return to that orientation and discipline.