WASHINGTON, SEPT. 2, 2008-One of every four children in America's public schools isn't going to graduate. And in many large cities, the graduation rate is twice as bad: two of every four kids will fail to graduate.

Staying in school doesn't guarantee a good education, either. Fewer than a third of 12th-graders can identify why the Puritans sailed to these shores. Only four in 10 know the more recent significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

These and other eye-popping facts make for compelling reading in A Parent's Guide to Education Reform, a new, 35-page booklet from The Heritage Foundation. Taxpayers, it makes clear, aren't getting much of a return on the roughly $9,300 a year they spend on each child in public schools.

Click here to see a downloadable copy of the booklet, or go to http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/
upload/EducationReform-web.pdf.

America's public schools earn an F in teaching science and only a D+ in math. Reason: 46 percent and 39 percent of high school seniors, respectively, scored "below basic" on the relevant National Assessment of Education Progress, or NAEP, tests.

Parents, educators, researchers, journalists -- anyone interested in the ongoing crisis in American education -- will find useful data along with Heritage's conservative policy remedies for what ails our schools in A Parent's Guide to Education Reform.

"School choice" and other solutions aim to help Americans bring about improvements and begin to reverse the staggering costs that mediocre and failing schools impose on families, the economy, government services -- even national security.

Parents, the guide advises, need to pay close attention. The big test is coming.

Note: Copies may be obtained by calling (202) 675-1761.