Another reason to care about how well American schools teach math: a country’s math skills are directly tied to its future wealth. By Eric A. Hanushek and Paul E. Peterson.

Eric Hanushek and Terry Moe, Hoover senior fellows and members of the K–12 Education Task Force, discuss Moe’s recent book on teacher union power titled Special Interest. Moe’s analysis pinpoints the self-interest of unions that leads them to block many education reform ideas. He concludes that “reform unionism” is unlikely to lead to any major policy changes and that improving schools requires curbing the power of unions.

Eric Hanushek and Terry Moe, Hoover senior fellows and members of the K–12 Education Task Force, discuss the role of economic growth in dealing with current deficit problems. The breakdown of congressional fiscal discussions over the balance of spending cuts and taxes completely neglects the third option of increasing GDP growth, a policy that would deal with long-run Medicare and Social Security issues. Improving long-run growth, however, will take significant changes in school policy–something that is difficult to achieve politically. (6:06)