Textbook battles are legendary in Texas, where conservative critics frequently complain of liberal bias, and liberals counter with charges of censorship. The outcome has far more than regional interest. After California, Texas is the biggest buyer of textbooks in the United States, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the national market. In fact, conservative activists in Texas say they have already received calls from leading publishers anxious to discuss the forthcoming history and social studies adoptions. Many publishers write their books with the Texas and California markets in mind, but complain of political pressure.

''I think there is a very great danger of self-censorship,'' said Byron Hollinshead, the president of American Historical Publications, the New York company that produced ''The History of US,'' a middle school textbook distributed by Oxford University Press. ''If a big publisher produces an edition specifically for Texas and then hears from these groups that they want a series of changes, they are going to make them.''

The technology industry claims the United States doesn't produce enough technologists. This claim is specious at best. Wages for information technology workers have been relatively flat while the career risks for the profession have skyrocketed. The industry's track record of attracting female and underrepresented minorities to technical professions has been woeful. By giving the industry a steady diet of cheap labor, there is no reason for companies to expand the domestic talent pool they draw from and invest in American workers to fill these jobs. And it also gives the companies ample opportunities to replace older workers with younger ones, fueling age discrimination.

A more sensible set of solutions would be twofold. First, significantly increase investments in U.S. students and underemployed workers so they can fill these job openings. Second, let the market work. If technology workers are as scarce as companies claim, then wages would be bid up and talented workers would choose engineering instead of more lucrative and safe fields in finance, medicine or law.

First, we must reform the way we educate the next generation of workers to ensure that our nation stays competitive. We should require all students to receive one year of training and education after high school -- be it at a community college, technical school, or a four year university.

Second, we should ensure that all Americans have quality, affordable health care. Helping older workers and employers manage the health costs of early retirees will make it possible for entire sectors of the U.S. economy to get back on their feet.

Third, we must support the development of new, energy-efficient technologies that will make energy less expensive for consumers and businesses, help protect the environment, create millions of green-collar jobs, and make our nation energy independent.

Finally, we must become a nation of savers again with a universal savings plan.

The next president has a unique opportunity to start from scratch in education policy, without the deadweight of a failed, inherited No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. The new president and Congress can recapture the "small d" democratic mantle by restoring local control of education, while initiating policies for which the federal government is uniquely suited -- providing better achievement data and equalizing the states' fiscal capacity to provide for all children. This opportunity exists because NCLB is dead. It will not be reauthorized -- not this year, not ever.

Is there not perhaps a middle course between the imposition of, and acquiescence in, mandates, on the one hand, and outright indifference or open defiance by faculty and administration alike, on the other? There is, and it is being followed already in such leading Catholic universities as Notre Dame and Boston College and in so many other Catholic institutions like them.

Catholic higher education in the United States has not been a failure, and it is not in danger of becoming so. Nor is it in danger of losing its Catholic soul. It has produced the best educated laity in the entire history of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church in the United States is a more spiritually vibrant and faith-full church because of this high level and quality of education.