Fox News Reporting: Fighting for Our Children's Minds

Sunday, Sept. 19 at 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET
Monday, Sept. 20 at midnight
Hosted by Tucker Carlson

America's ultimate natural resource is its children. And when it comes to education — from the elementary level to college — our nation finds itself at a turning point. Education is the key to success in American life, but after decades of reforms and counter-reforms, what have we really learned?

Since 1980, the federal government has spent more than a trillion dollars on public schools in this country. Yet, the United States doesn't make the global top ten list when it comes to literacy and has a high school dropout rate approaching 30 percent.

• Read Tucker Carlson's op-ed on America's schools

In 2009, Fox News Reporting dove into the world of textbooks and asked if you knew what your children were really reading. Now, in this second hour, Fox News brings you a snapshot of what's happening in classrooms today — what's being tried, what's being scrapped, and what the final grade could be. As in our first hour, the three major publishers that dominate the $9.5 billion textbook industry — McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt — again declined our interview requests.

The Fox News Reporting team visited seven states and the nation's capital over the span of five months to research and interview 30 individuals. Featured are interviews with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, mother of five and Fox News contributor Sarah Palin. You'll also hear from high school and college students, parents, current and retired teachers, school administrators, education experts and college professors.

Host Tucker Carlson will guide you through some of the current bureaucratic maze facing parents and children. These include:

• Standards-based achievement levels created in President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind

• President Obama's educational reforms as part of his Race to the Top

• The ongoing battle for social studies standards in Texas and what effect it may have in textbooks used across the country for years to come. Plus, the mistake found by a fifth grader in his history book about the Declaration of Independence

• The challenge of teacher evaluation, tenure and the teacher unions

• Charter schools and school choice

• The nationwide domino effect of restructuring and closing low performing schools like Fremont High in South Central Los Angeles

• The new and controversial trend of teachers selling lesson plans online via websites including TeachersPayTeachers.com and WeAreTeachers.com

• Project-based learning at the New Tech Network taking place in 40 schools across nine states

• Flocabulary — using rap music to teach English, history, science and even math

• The out of control, skyrocketing cost of attaining a college degree

Fox News Reporting dials in on American education as it stands at the crossroads. Shoddy schools, bad teachers who can't be fired and ineffective bureaucracy are partly to blame as the U.S. lags behind much of the developed world in basic reading, math and science. It truly is a fight for our children's minds.