A quote and a thought

All who have meditated on the art of governing humankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. –Aristotle

This is related to Vox Day's column this week on teaching children to read. And Aristotle (despite not being my personal favorite philosopher) has it right. The fate of any country depends on its schools and education.

And it is this blogger's opinion that government-run schools are ruining this country. I may be a bit biased; I haven't been in a public school since the first grade but the data is there. Test scores are among the lowest in the western world. A large percentage of incoming freshman have to take remedial courses in college because they aren't prepared. The high school graduation rate hovers around 60% in some parts of the country.

I believe it is a conspiracy. A stupid, non-critically thinking population is easier to control.

More testing is not the answer, Mr. President. What we do need are teachers who are educated in their content areas (i.e. english), less relativism in the class room ("Well, 2+2 does technically equal 4 but, Timmy, 6 was close.. and maybe in your world it does equal 6."), solid answers (2+2=4 in any world), less politically correct theory, and actual athority given to the teachers.

Heaven forbid a teacher discipline a student; the parents would sue. But that's another topic.