'F'

What other institution can fail one-third of the time and survive? | Joel Belz

If any pharmaceutical company in America were discovered to be regularly marketing a product that a full third of the time killed those who ingested it, it's hard to know who would be the first to camp out on that company's doorstep: Morley Safer and an investigative team from 60 Minutes, New York prosecutor Elliott Spitzer, or an ominous cadre of agents from the Food & Drug Administration.

Or if some hospital system in America were discovered to be inflicting an incurable disease on a third of its patients, look for the same gaggle of visitors to show up very soon—maybe even by tonight.

Well, with a cover story indictment from Time magazine now a matter of record, you'd think that Safer, Spitzer, & FDA would swing into action. Time reported last week that only two out of every three young people who enter America's high schools complete enough of their work to graduate. The other third just disappear into society's wasteland.