The 'Education' Mantra

Thomas Sowell
posted May 10, 2011

One of the sad and dangerous signs of our times is how many people are enthralled by words, without bothering to look at the realities behind those words.

One of those words that many people seldom look behind is "education." But education can cover anything from courses on nuclear physics to courses on baton twirling.

Unfortunately, an increasing proportion of American education, whether in the schools or in the colleges and universities, is closer to the baton twirling end of the spectrum than toward the nuclear physics end. Even reputable colleges are increasingly teaching things that students should have learned in high school.

We don't have a backlog of serious students trying to take serious courses. If you look at the fields in which American students specialize in colleges and universities, those fields are heavily weighted toward the soft end of the spectrum.

When it comes to postgraduate study in tough fields like math and science, you often find foreign students at American universities receiving more of such degrees than do Americans. the rest

Added:
Closing the Door on Education Innovation
You haven’t heard about it, but for over a year the U.S. Department of Education has been quietly working behind the scenes to establish national control of K-12 education curriculum. Their plans are coming close to fruition as Congress prepares to debate the renewal of the main federal education law, which the administration plans to use as a lever to force states to “voluntarily” adopt a national curriculum and even a national test that all students would have to take multiple times per year.

Historically, national control of education has come up as an issue about once every ten to fifteen years. In the past, it has usually produced a lot of fireworks but burned out pretty quickly. This year is very different. The nationalizers have learned from their past mistakes; they understand now that the American people don’t want the federal government to control schools. So they’ve adopted clever tactics to disguise what they’re doing and misdirect public attention, and as a result, they are already dangerously close to getting everything they want...