Progressive Education: Early August, and Kids Already in School
The fact that we are paying exorbitant taxes to fund a generation of illiterates is or should be clearly evident to anyone paying attention in America. I’ve decided to include a few thoughts from other concerned Americans who know a few things about this subject and who are of the same opinion:
“Physics, chemistry, and mathematics were now “taught to a shrinking proportion of students. Our standard for high school graduation has slipped badly. Fifty years ago a high-school diploma meant something. . . . We have simply misled our students and misled the nation by handing out high-school diplomas to those who we well know had none of the intellectual qualifications that a high-school diploma is supposed to represent—and does represent in other countries. It is this dilution of standards which has put us in our present serious plight.”
Arthur Bestor complaining in a U.S. News and World Report interview, 1958.
“During the past forty or fifty years those who are responsible for education have progressively removed from the curriculum . . . the western culture which produced the modern democratic state.”
Walter Lippmann shared this concern in 1940.
“40 percent of high school graduates could not perform simple arithmetic or accurately express themselves in English.”
The National Association of Manufacturers charged in 1927.
