The U.S. educational system recently took another public flogging. This time, the U.S. Senate's education committee was holding hearings in preparation for rewriting the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the foundation for federal education policy. The panel heard from several education experts and from business people who often experience the shortcomings of our educational system.

Andreas Schleicher, an education expert with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, testified about the results of an international assessment of educational achievement. Every three years the OECD administers standardized tests in math, science and reading to 15 year olds in 70 countries. The results for 2006 showed that test scores by U.S. students fell below the average for the OECD. In mathematics, the U.S. ranked 35th. In science, a lackluster 29th. (Finland, by the way, held the top spot or shared it in every category.)

The usual response to such evidence is that U.S. teachers are underpaid, they work in difficult social environments and they endure substandard facilities. "Want better educated students," the oft-heard mantra goes, "then increase funding for education."

While that line may be popular with teachers and with politicians garnering their votes, the U.S. already outspends most other countries. In 2006 only Luxembourg spent more per elementary student than the United States. And the U.S. ranks fourth in spending per middle and high school student. Spending more did not produce better student performance according to the 2006 testing, did it?

Because the U.S. educational system is fairly atomized -- authority over outcomes and inputs often resides with state or local boards of education -- there is no panacea to universally raise educational attainment. But general steps could be taken to improve the quality of education.

One is to adopt more uniformity in educational objectives. A recent announcement focused on one approach: the Common Core State Standards Initiative developed by a panel of educators convened by the governors of 48 states (Alaska and Texas did not join in this effort). The goal is to create a common set of standards or minimal expectations that all students would be required to achieve.

Writing in The New York Times, Sam Dillon notes that current state and national standards often give conflicting achievement outcomes. In 2005, for example, only 21 percent of Tennessee students scored at or above the proficiency level on a federal math test, even though 87 percent of these students met that standard on state tests.

An important outcome of such goal setting would be to realign expectations. The OECD study revealed that students facing high expectations and who were expected to work hard to achieve them, scored the highest on standardized tests. Even though the quantitative evidence suggests otherwise, the OECD study found that U.S. students generally consider themselves as higher achievers.

Attend many high school graduations today and an astonishingly high percentage of graduates leave with honors. My experience, corroborated by colleagues at many schools, is that this perception of educational superiority migrates from high school to college. Students today expect -- and unfortunately too often receive -- high grades for what is in reality mediocre work. In many private universities, the "gentleman's C" has ratcheted up to become a B or even an A.

The incentive faced by faculty is often captured by the following: Give everyone an A, no one hassles you and you get good teaching evaluations. According to one national survey, the average GPA at private universities increased 7 percent between 1991 and 2007, rising to a 3.30. In public schools, the average GPA today is over a 3.0. Such grade inflation must stop before a college degree is totally undermined and cheapened.

Another area to improve the educational system is to remove inefficient faculty from the classroom. Unionizing a workforce protects workers' rights, but it also protects the least qualified. Tenure in K-12 education, as in universities, often leads to an increase in the number of underperforming faculty. Doing away with this archaic form of employment protection would alter the incentives faced by faculty who decide to "check out" since they cannot be fired.

Yet another proposal is to allow for school competition. The evidence on charter schools does not provide overwhelming support for their effectiveness in consistently raising student achievement. If the answer is not building more charters, perhaps it is incorporating their most successful characteristics into the existing public system.

Until entrenched interests are overcome, our educational system will continue to promote mediocrity. Only when those barriers are broken down will U.S. students realize the educational potential that their peers in the developed world enjoy.