According to a recent article in the Personality and Social Psychology Review, this disconnect stems from the much touted self-esteem movement in schools, where some teachers even lead entire classes in self-affirming chants such as, “I am lovable and capable.”Whether the students can spell “lovable” or “capable” apparently doesn’t matter.

This trend is nothing new.In the third annual international math and science tests, American high school seniors scored near the bottom of all nations – behind the Czech Republic and Lithuania.In advanced math our students were tied for last place and in physics they captured sole possession of last place.

Nevertheless, American students report feeling better about themselves than virtually anyone else.So much for self-esteem.

Dr. Jean Twenge of San Diego State University notes that, “it is more important that a child actually accomplishes something than that he or she have high self-esteem.

Once a child accomplishes something, self-esteem will follow naturally.”

That sounds like the common sense my parents drilled into my head many years ago.

How did we get so far afield that a university professor has to proclaim what used to be common sense?Kids – or anyone for that matter – get self-esteem from accomplishing something, not the other way around.

It’s enough to make you cry – or laugh.A college professor recently published a book entitled, "Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students."From 20 years worth of college term papers, we learn that the first airplane was flown by the “Marx Brothers,” Hitler shot himself in the “bonker,” and the Reagan Administration suffered through the “Iran Hostess Crisis.”

While it may be tempting to chuckle when we read that Julius Caesar was assassinated on the “Yikes of March,” this really isn’t funny.

We do our students and ourselves no favor when we turn them out into the world unprepared to compete.Either they fail miserably or, if our society makes accommodations and lowers our standards, America fails miserably in global competition.Already high-tech companies in Washington that need people proficient in science and math have started importing professionals from other countries.

Despite these warnings, critics continue to take potshots at Washington's stringent new education standards and complain that the WASL, the state's standard achievement tests, are too difficult.

Nonsense.Our students can and must do better.Their future – and ours – depends on it.