Free Republic

Abe’s own grandfather, Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, was stabbed in the thigh in 1960 and severely injured during a reception at the Prime Minister’s Office. That same year, Inejiro Asanuma, then head of the Japan Socialist Party, was fatally stabbed by a 17-year-old rightist while making a speech at a public hall in Hibiya, Tokyo. In the years that followed, Prime Minister Takeo Miki, Deputy Prime Minister Shin Kanemaru and Prime Minister Morihiro Hokosawa were either attacked or shot in 1975, 1992 and 1994, respectively. They all survived the attacks. Local-level politicians have also been attacked. In 1990 — two...

The United States will become a second-rate economic power unless it can match the educational performance of its rivals abroad and get more of its students to achieve at the highest levels in math, science and literacy. Virtually every politician, business leader and educator understands this, yet the country has no national plan for reaching the goal. To make matters worse, Americans have remained openly hostile to the idea of importing strategies from the countries that are beating the pants off us in the educational arena. The No Child Left Behind Act, passed four years ago, was supposed to put...

The United States will become a second-rate economic power unless it can match the educational performance of its rivals abroad and get more of its students to achieve at the highest levels in math, science and literacy. Virtually every politician, business leader and educator understands this, yet the country has no national plan for reaching the goal. To make matters worse, Americans have remained openly hostile to the idea of importing strategies from the countries that are beating the pants off us in the educational arena... ...Lurking behind these test scores, however, are two profoundly important and closely intertwined topics...