American Notes VOICES

Vartan Gregorian, newly installed president of Brown University, last week decried the poor quality of America's public schools. An excerpt:

"Now, in the midst of the explosion of information, knowledge and complex challenges facing us, the American university cannot afford the luxury of transforming its first two years of instruction to meet the woeful inadequacies of our public school system. We cannot afford to relegate 50% of the university's time and resources to remedial work . . . The universities in two years cannot do justice to twelve years of neglect in learning. We are our high schools' keepers. The nation must take preventive measures to reform, strengthen and in some instances rescue our high school system."