Education system, like intelligence agencies, has systemic failures

Sadly, many people in positions of responsibility care more about their careers and their organizations than they do about achieving the goals they are paid to achieve. I've seen this attitude from the top to the bottom of the education system. Sadly, the shake-ups in both systems have been very limited. Why weren't top CIA and FBI officials fired for reprimanding agent Colleen Rowley for asking for access to Zacarias Moussaoui's laptop, and for ignoring flight students who didn't want to learn how to land an airplane?


Plot exposes fissure in U.S. intelligence community
Reuters
Dec. 31, 2009

Last week's failed plot to bomb a U.S. passenger jet has exposed lingering fissures within the U.S. intelligence community, which had information from interviews and clandestine intercepts but did not put the pieces together, officials said.

Turf wars between U.S. spy and law enforcement agencies are nothing new. But lapses that allowed a Nigerian suspect to board a Detroit-bound plane with a bomb on Christmas Day, and the finger-pointing that followed, have raised questions about sweeping changes made to improve security and intelligence- sharing after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

President Barack Obama has ordered preliminary findings by Thursday into what he described as a "systemic failure" by federal authorities for allowing the botched December 25 attack.

A senior aide said Obama would seek accountability at the highest levels, stoking fears in the intelligence community of a shake-up...