I believe an uneducated electorate is one that is easier to wrangle and manipulate. I believe schools now are focusing ALOT on STEM education, and that is wonderful and all considering the future we are headed for. But what of the non scientific skills of applying logic and separating fact and data from opinion and propoganda?

so much of our world wide web is really completely unaccountable to any authority that I think its possible that there is much more propoganda and misinformation available without looking for it, than there is reliable data and facts that are accountable to verification and accreditation.


The above quote, (though just a meme of course, and maybe not accurate itself in its reference to source) is about how I have been feeling over the past decade in speaking with other 'adults' on line. There are plenty of issues for us to be focusing on in this country and this world, but is EDUCATION getting enough attention, outside of the push for technology?

We need education. We have an epidemic of starving zombies. We need to educate people in schools and at home and self educate.

You are absolutely 100% correct!! Our education system the last 10 years has shown it's a failure! I still see it with my 13 year old. Thank God a lot of schools are taking common core out! That's a start. But where the schools fail in teaching our kids, my daughter, I pick up at home and teach her commonsense and to respect everyone's opinion.

Education is definitely a major problem in the US. STEM education should help some in that it is based on fact and logic not opinion. I think the biggest failures are in english, civics, and history. You need to read, hear and understand the meaning of the english language. You need to know some history and see the mistakes that have been made in almost all areas. You need to apply logic to the actual facts and draw a reasonable conclusion. You need to understand the civics and its' history in the US. Then you are prepared to study some issue, understand the possible causes and explore possible solutions. Then you need to know how to apply your new knowledge to the political process.

How is that for unreasonable expectations?? Not a chance much will happen, schools are too occupied with social ills and teaching the fluffy stuff.

100% correct Oldkid!!!

absolutely. It takes a village. and when parents are expected to hand over more of their kid's 'waking hours' to education and media than they have for themself, it is significantly impactful for either one to drop the ball.

Actually, while my kids were in school, I didn't see any time being spent on "social ills and fluffy stuff." I didn't see NEAR enough work being done in requiring reading of any kind, and because of the huge addition of the need to train children to use technology, there wasn't a lot of time put in to other things.

The biggest thing I'm upset about this subject area, is that education has become so much of a political battleground, that education ITSELF takes a back seat to which political party gets to take credit for some slap-dash quick fix that they can "prove" is working, via some sort of computerized metrics.

That, and the problem I've always seen, where people argue about COST, more than they do about ACCOMPLISHING EDUCATION.

Just as an example (and this is NOT an anti-Bush attack), the still-born "No Child Left Behind" initiative a decade or so back was a classic case in point. It had lots of political SOUND GOOD words involved with it, but the insistence by the people pushing the idea out, on "measurable metrics," to prove that whatever money was spent, had been spent "wisely," utterly prevented the original goals of Bush's idealism from being brought to fruition.

In particular, the idiotic decision to make teacher pay, dependent on the percentage of children who passed standardized multiple choice tests, absolutely guaranteed that education would consist, not of learning to think, but of learning to memorize pre-written answers.

Whenever ANY goal is changed from "getting the task done," to "making sure the least amount of money is spent," the results will ALWAYS be the poorer for it.

Thomas Sowell is a brilliant man, and a great thinker. Knowing his frame of reference, he would absolutely be the first to tell you that the problem with education in America is that it has become a fascist enterprise of the left since the 80s and teacher's unions being taken over by socialist ninny's

That's why my kids have been homeschooled all their lives. Not only are they much smarter than the average kids their age, they are now productive members of society who don't fall for media propoganda.

I don't think we should be MORE WORRIED about anything.
Worry is not productive.
Action provides results.

Title suggestion:
Should we all take more action concerning education?
To that question I cheer YES!

interesting, very.

Indeed. Sowell has interesting perspectives. I obviously agree with some and not others.

I feel quite possibly there is a large leap between trying to do better and believing one can achieve perfection.

there is never enough anything for EVERY one, but that IMHO is no excuse to not try to do our best for AS MANY as we can.

Thank you Ms Harmony.

Sowell's first job as he says, was in the labor department and he saw firsthand that good intentions don't trickle down through government agencies to those in need.

Listening to him I thought he was talking about the situation we face here in India. For example, our government institutions fundamental purpose is to propagate their existence (authority actually) and listening to him as he uncloaks these; was like rain on dry earth.

But I digressed from the topic.

Sowell says, introducing pills and contraceptives in schools had a dramatic rise in school pregnancies in US; and here I was thinking of becoming an evangelist for sex education in schools.

yes. and if we take for granted that humans will always find ways to manipulate for the sake of greed , what are the solutions humans can achieve to do as well as they can for as many as they can, in spite of greed or misdirection?

I see how bad it is every day with my daughter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Humans are social animals.

School tries to teach us how to be effective social animals.

Primary school attempts to teach us how to interact with peer groups and authority figures.
Secondary school attempts to teach us how to interact with society.
The two merge together in many areas.
College (University) teaches us how to specialize.

My dad told me there are three "R"s of school.
'R'eading
'R'iting
&
'R'ithmetic.
The three "R"s are important because it gives the social group a foundation of commonality.
School's function is to get everyone on the same page about many things so the individual can function as part of a group.
If school is effective, the group lives in harmony.
If the school is ineffective the group lives in chaos.

The "Golden Rule" is to learn the common knowledge so you can effectively function in society.

Edited for typos: because a reply about education should be spelled right.