There are straws in the wind on the terrifying subject of the Federal role in education.

* I often disagree sharply with columnist James Travers. But well buried in one of his columns in August was a trenchant line:

“What Canadians and voters need to know first is what structures are required to conceive and construct a national education strategy.......”

* On Sept. 25, John O’Leary, past president of Frontier College, interviewed on the CBC, said, “There is a pressing need for a national education co-ordinating body.”

* The OECD this year published the PISA results for 39 educational jurisdictions in the world that took part in its math tests, including nine Canadian provinces,. Alberta is virtually tied with Hong Kong for best in the world, scoring 550. Canada as a whole ranks 10th, scoring 535, and poor PEI ranks 30th, scoring 497.

* Preston Manning, several media including the Hamilton Ont. Spectator, and others have emphatically recommended that the education systems provide parents with choice of schools, one of the secrets of Alberta's success.

* Much closer to home was the Radio Shack clerk who exclaimed in amazement at my ability to do a simple tax calculation (“I’d need the machine for that”) and the Home Depot associate who was unable to multiply 4x20 in his head. The middle-aged and older clerks can do it: the young kids can’t. Is there a message in there?

This enormous difference in results among nations and within Canada is mirrored here in Burlington, in a “patch” of 25 schools. In a recent year, the highest performing school had 90% of Gr 6 math students passing, the lowest scoring school only 30% passing. Are PEI students dull, Alberta students brilliant? Is one Burlington school full of geniuses, another full of dolts? No and no, certainly not.

Then who is to do what about this inusfferable situation?

First, my customary disclaimer: I will never suggest that the Feds set up some enormous Education Ministry and invade provincial education turf. Heaven forfend.

But it is a dreadful fact that, lacking some unifying influence, our provinces’ performances on international tests of primary and secondary education will continue to range from one of the top two in the world to among the very poorest in this hotly competitive 21st century.

That unifying influence must surely have to come from a Federal initiative dedicated to researching, illuminating, jawboning, banging heads together, encouraging, informing educators and voters about the potential for improvement. This is the twenty-first-century world where Canada must improve or sink unlamented into international mediocrity and oblivion. We are already partway there, for our vaunted prosperity is based in no small measure, not on the well educated brains of our people but on the God-given wealth of natural resources. There is an ancient saying - perhaps Greek - “Whom the gods hate, they give abundant natural resources.”

The Feds have made a timid start on this and could readily reach further into a role of measurement and standard setting. The Canadian Council on Learning (CCL, http://www.ccl-cca.ca), a Federal body, in 2007 gave Calgary a “Composite learning index” of 93 vs a Canadian average of 76, but one wonders: So what? Do parents in PEI know that their schools score so low? Do parents in Burlington’s low performing school know it is low performing? What are the administrations across Canada doing to improve our mediocre international results? In this age of universally available knowledge on such things as effective education and effective teaching, how can such vast differences be allowed to exist?

The CCL’s charter is post secondary education; but promoting and financing that alone is like offering our young people a ladder with the bottom five rungs, their primary-secondary educations, missing. There HAS TO BE a national co-ordinating body as Travers has suggested. Enhancement of the CCL’s charter, while guarding fiercely Provincial autonomy, is the logical way to go.

Let useful debate begin!