Liberals did not destroy the American school system.

[HoreTore]

This would perhaps justify its own thread, but....

Is solidarity an alien concept to yanks?

[Adrian II]

What Panzer wrote seems pretty convincing to me. I'm a total outsider when it comes to American education, but some of the things he mentions sound very familiar. The irony is that the American public school system which he laments was the result of a deliberate drive around 1900 to break the hold of private (religious) schools on American education. Schools were expected to contribute to the melting pot, not to social isolation and mental parochialism. Centralization was effective in curbing the influence of religious lobbies, local party machines and corruption.

Since the 1960's education throughout the western world has come to be regarded as a vehicle for social transformation. Schools and teachers are now burdened with all sorts of policies, programs and targets with regard to health, crime, drug abuse, animal rights, gender issues, domestic violence, global warming, world poverty, you name it. Discipline has been discarded as obsolete, authority as oppressive, knowledge as an elitist fad.

Call me old fashioned.

AII