other countries have outeducated us. they've outinvested us. big part of what i'm trying to do is raise the profile of education and get america to wake up. i think you're seeing signs that america is starting to wake up. it's not so much... it's interesting. college graduation rates. we've gone from first to 9th. it's not that we dropped. we're exactly where we were nine years ago. sorry. a generation ago. we're just flat lined. we haven't moved. other countries haves paed us by. they're outworking us and outcompeting us. we have to wake up and start moving. what do we do starting today as fast as we can to get to the next level? we have a reel really clear game plan of k-12 reform. invest in early childhood education. weave a cradle-to-career strategy to dramatically change those numbers. >> ifill: there are some people who say that part of the stagnation in u.s. test numbers has to do with what we call the diversity excuse. there is a preponderance especially in a public school system of immigrants or people of color who are not performing.

putting more resources behind the children in the community that need the most help and they are outeducating us today. that's the brutal truth. >> reporter: education analysts stress the scores are not just a measure of learning by rote. instead, the pisa tests imagination, creativity and thinking outside the box and experts say it could take less than a decade for shanghai's success to be replicated across china. >> the rest of the world had better be aware that china in the future is not just going to be producing cheap plastic toys. they are going to be outcompeting us in everything that requires brain power. >> and one analyst says china's results on these tests could be likened to the russians launching sputnik in 1957. that was a wake-up call to the united states and a call to action. >> i'm tempted to ask how many wake-up calls we need but we'll leave that for your next visit. scary story but a good story tonight, thank you. >>> when we come back, we get it. it's supposed to snow in december. but tonight, some folks are already saying -- okay, this is ridiculous! i'm off to the post offi

money from a country that is not just outsaving and outhustling out us but is also starting to outeducate us. we need a plan." i couldn't agree with him more. i was part of the deficit commission. have taken a lot of criticism for saying weengdzed to have that debate on the -- we needed to have that debate on the senate floor. still think we need to have that debate on the senate floor. but this body won't even agree about having a debate about having a plan. last week the members of the debt commission refused to even debate the plan -- the members refused to even debate the plan in congress. we didn't get 14 out of 18 votes. we only got 11. and i want to congratulate senator durbin and senator conrad and senator crapo and senator gregg for their efforts on that commission. you see, they think we need a plan. senator conrad had a wonderful statement about it. and he said this: "the only things that's worse than being for this plan is being against it." because what he was really addressing the fact is that we're not willing to make the hard choices. we won't come together and do what's best