the U.S. has managed to do the most amazing thing. We once had the greatest educational system on the planet, a system that taught even the poorest among us and which brought children to levels that far surpassed many college graduates today. Consider the one-room schoolhouses of pioneering days, which taught students how to be literate, critical thinkers who then built America into a world power of agriculture, technology, medicine and science.
But once the federal government got its grimy paws involved, test scores plunged and immorality not only increased but was actively celebrated. Schools no longer were answerable to parents, either in matters of curricula or discipline. If a parent complained, he was marginalized and told he was the “only one” to have an issue. Bullies were rewarded, peer pressure became the driving behavioral force, discipline became nonexistent, and academic excellence went down the toilet. What an accomplishment!
Proof? Employers are having a hard time filling vacancies in their businesses because graduates are too ignorant to read, write and speak in an educated and civilized manner. William Ellet, an adjunct professor teaching writing at Brandeis International Business School, notes, “Recruiters and companies are saying, ‘Send us a writing sample, and if you don’t meet our standards for communication, we are not hiring you.’”
(To be fair, many parents worked hand-in-glove with this decline, unquestioningly turning over their children to the schools to raise and then browbeating teachers when Johnny failed his math test because he didn’t study. The blame runs both ways.)
I know of no other country in the civilized world – with the exception of despotic regimes – where education has been so actively and deliberately dumbed down and which seems to take pride in the production of stupid, uneducated, unaware and ignorant citizenry.
More @ WND
They also used to let people fail out of school. By insisting that everybody graduate high school, they had to dumb it down, and in the process devalue the HS diploma not just because of the lowered standards, but also because of the law of supply and demand. Now, first through twelfth grades are throw away education. You can't get a job with a High School diploma so if you're not going to college, you might as well drop out of HS.
ReplyDeleteThen they said everybody had to "earn" a Bachelor's Degree. Same result. I expect Master's Degrees are next if the funding holds out.
The best and the brightest tend to be autodidacts, anyway
My mother is a former teacher, she says the trouble makers and those not able to keep up academically or who are just disinterested should be shunted into trade school.
Agreed. The trades are the way to go.
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