As all schoolchildren know, water freezes to solid, barren, cracked ice at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. So maybe it is more than a mere coincidence that 32 percent of U.S. public and private-school students in the class of 2011 are deemed proficient in mathematics, placing the United States 32nd among the 65 nations that participated in the latest international tests administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).President Obama, to his credit, has highlighted the problem repeatedly. But too many state education officials have done their best to conceal the low performance of their students. Under the educational accountability rules set down by the federal law No Child Left Behind, each state may set its own proficiency standard, and most have set their standards well below the world-class level. As a result, most state proficiency reports grossly inflate the percentage of students who are proficient, if we account for the fact that our students need to compete not just with others from the same state but also with those across the globe.When not complicating the problem, apologists explain away the depressing results with misleading arguments. Some point to the country"s large immigrant and disadvantaged populations, which, to be sure, do pose difficult educational challenges. Proficiency rates among African-Americans and Hispanics are very low. But if one compares only the white students in the U.S. with all students in other countries, the U.S. still falls short.Some also take false comfort in the belief that it takes only a limited number of high-flying students to fill the jobs at Google, Facebook, IBM, and all the other businesses and professions that need highly skilled talent. Still others say the low math scores are offset by a better record in reading. Admittedly the proficiency rate in only 10 countries is significantly higher than in the U.S. Nonetheless, the set of skills most needed for sustained growth in economic productivity—and the skills in shortest supply today—are those rooted in math competencies.It is easy for political leaders to shortsightedly put off considerations of effective school reform. The economic benefits from reform would not be felt immediately, as it takes time for an educated generation to become a productive workforce. But just as the continuing debt crisis, if not fixed, will escalate out of control only over the longer term, so the best available solution to that crisis—a fully unfrozen, high-functioning, constantly improving educational system—could raise the level of human capital to the point where resources would be available to address much of this future debt crisis. In the simplest terms, the impending fiscal crises with Social Security and Medicare are most effectively dealt with by enhanced growth of the economy, growth that will not be achieved without a highly skilled workforce. The author believes the solution to economic and financial crises ______

A. lies ultimately with an educated people
B. will come naturally sooner or later
C. is linked to Social Security and Medicare
D. can never be found by political leaders