Education as the cure-all for any adverse economic condition is everywhere. But this contention exaggerates the role of schools in the economy, and it conflates two issues: First, how can American firms increase productivity to improve their ability to compete? Education can help in the first area, although it is far from a silver bullet. As to the second, education deficits have had very little to do with the changes in the distribution of wages. In this article, the authors trace the history of the rise and decline of wages among high school graduates and college graduates in America. The authors analyze the causes of the decline of wages among high school graduates.