>I'd be interested in what Dr. Brin has to say about the dumbing down of >education in america, how we went from the top in math and science to >dead last.
Aha. Arguing to an assumption that I consider fallacious in the first place. As a parent of elementary school kids, I can tell you that school hours are going up, standards too. There's more homework by far than I ever had at that age and the levels of math and science etc being covered are several grades earlier. For example, my 5th grader is doing pre-algebra. There is a simpler rebuttal, though. If our schools are so bad, how come 95 of the worlds best 100 universities are in North America? There is another explanation for those poor test comparisons. Many other countries encourage rote memorization of facts. We consider that to be a gross and evil use of students' minds. In USschools, the emphasis is on process and on class discussions and on encouraging initiative. Guess which approach prepares kids for tests better? Guess which better prepares agile minds? Guess which approach creates citizens with a fierce independent streak and the resiliency to rebel, if they find themselves aboard a hijacked airliner? Don't get the wrong idea! There are many things we hate about the public schools. Teachers are now "teaching to the test". The steadily rising test scores reflect this more than actual improvements. And so on. But I do think this is another area in which a lot of people get off from contempt for the masses. Public education lifted us to the level where we send half of all teens to some kind of college and graduate fully 1/4! A military officer once needed a high school diploma. Then a bachelor's degree. Now you can't rise above Captain without a masters and it's hard to reach admiral without two. ======== On a separate matter, let me weigh in with an opinion that the present Iraq frenzy is the most blatant 'wag the dog' I have ever seen. Dig this. I hate Saddam and I'm no peacenick. I'd love to go in and correct the horrible blunder that Bush Sr left us saddled with a decade ago. (Notice that no one in politics is even mentioning that root of today's problem?) We should do it calmly and carefully and legally and ruthlessly, spending as little precious international political capital as possible. The present "war" is exactly the opposite. Powell is flying around promising the moon and billions$ while offending everybody with threats, just to bully reluctant allies into an effort that NONE of them see as urgent. Turkey and Saudi hate this thing. Even the Brits don't want to fight, and when have you ever seen THAT? Chief effect, giving Al JAzeera an excuse to claim we're on an anti-Islamic 'crusade" - picking off islamic regimes one at a time. We need to do this right, in a way that gets us kissed. (And I'll admit that happened in Afghanistan.) Let's put this in perspective. We lived for 40 years with 5,000 Soviet weapons of mass destruction aimed at us, with far better delivery systems than Saddam could ever dream of. Calm patience and determination served us well then. Yes, he MIGHT someday get some dirty bomb and a way to deliver ONE. Yes, that's bad. But it ain't so urgent we gotta blatantly mess with our elections, making congress choose between two simplistic and obviously put-up positions under the glare of trumped up "appeasement" accusations. A statesman would have deferred this decision till elections were over. There is no other explanation for the frenzy, and if you think this is anything but an attempted Wag, I am amazed by the power of self-hypnosis. And if the GOP gets away with it this time, can you imagine the war they'll spring on us in 2004? No, folks, punish this. Punish it at the polls. Vote the economy. Then let's turn our attention to solving the intricate problem of a complex middle east. If Saddam is this bad, he'll be just as bad in late November, and a nation can deliberate calmly on what to do. ----- Please verify this got posted. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
