I'm afraid with systems like we have in Texas and the TACS or whatever the acronym is now for the standard tests, they primarily "teach to the test." Meaning they actually had a class during the day when all they did was teach kids how to take the goddamn test. They could have been teaching a civics class and talked about the the constitution and the branches of government and the importance of voting and learning about candidates, they could have been teaching sex education and helping kids know enough to not get pregnant instead of teaching that gawdawful "abstinence only." They could have taught art or music or something truly useful.

If my kids hadn't made it into the talented and gifted classes, and if they hadn't had a couple of smart parents who recognized teaching moments all through the day (without making it a ponderous process), then my children might be dumb enough today to buy into the Republican scare tactics that Bush and Cheney so loved to program into Americans. Scare them to vote your way, because when people aren't thinking, when they are frightened, they don't think so well. You can herd them along more easily that way.

You bet our educational system is flawed. It is dumbed down. Part of it is that they aren't insisting that teachers specialize in the subjects they teach. Part of it is that parents feel their children will get everything they need at school. Part of it is that people who don't have children feel they don't need to pay school taxes, and fight tooth and nail to get out from under them, because if they don't have kids, what is the point in paying to educate someone else's kids? But wait until you need a teacher or a doctor or a nurse or a lawyer--many of those kids in school today won't qualify to get into schools to become those things, or they'll be lacking in skills they should have learned early to do a good job.

I don't know about this book, it may be by a complete Limbaugh nut job. But I know schools aren't operating the way they could, and aren't turning out graduates prepared to face our complex world. High school graduates 50 or 75 years ago were a lot better prepared, I think, than today's graduates.

All opinion, of course, but I suspect I won't have to dig hard to find the statistics to back it up.

SRS