What are we the best at being?

I want to comment on blogs criticizing our schools, especially those who want to cut music and other programs for the reason that we need to focus on competing with China and Taiwan in math and science. What do we do best in the U.S.? Are we the best mathematicians? No. Are we the best scientists? No. Our mathematicians and scientists are immigrants. That is how we beat the Russians to the moon. What we do best in America is not mathematical or scientific but social. We are entrepreneurs. We start businesses. We manage businesses. We negotiate business. These are all social enterprises that depend upon the social element of our public schools. In the beginning, the public school system was not intended to produce mathematicians and scientists. Originally, it had a social agenda: To put children of different backgrounds into the same classrooms so that they might learn to get along with each other as children and so get along with one another as adults. Our schools would also teach children to read (so that they could read the Bible) and arithmetic (so that they could be accountants and businessmen—not mathematicians or scientists). This social agenda made America great. In addition, we have the best singers, dancers and actors in the world. Cutting school budgets is a big mistake. Progressive income tax (not property tax) is the best way to fund everything. Any other solution to our current financial problems heads America into the third World and gives China the 21st Century. K.J. Walters Monroe