Everything about our education is not just fine. However, learning who Charles Parker is is not going to raise the general quality by a 10th of a percent.

There is education and there is training for job skills, which is urgently needed. So is education. Both are needed. Both are failing many students. For everyone who ridicules an intellectual, there is an intellectual ridiculing (with perhaps more sophistication) the kids in shop class, if you can find shop classes any more.

Start with occupational education for each and every student, so that students will either have employment upon graduation, some of whom will pay for further education through these skills, or will at least have skills to barter in a bad economy. Let them know that they really need exposure to Charles Parker etc., provide as much as they can absorb, and tell them that if they don't learn things now, they really should make an effort to in the future...

Read Stuff White People LIke..or perhaps its sequal...it talks about the Cycle of White Life..and it is the most profound observation on USA education I have seen..ENglish teachers preparing students to work in law, media, something else and to become English teachers..the Cycle of White Life..or was it the White Cycle of Life or something..too profound to be funny. mg