"Gary H. Lucas" wrote in message
news

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
. net...
"strabo" wrote in message
...
s

Your posts in this thread imply that those who graduate from HS
today are brighter and better educated than in 1965.

I don't know if they're brighter; I doubt if there's any difference. As
for
"better educated," they have a better curriculum and better specific
content. Compared to the history books my son is using, for example, the
ones we used back in '65 were the Classic Comics version.


While no one here knows the academic achievements of your kid, he
is apparently not representative of the general population of
high schoolers.

The typical college graduate today knows less of the basics than
did the typical high school graduate of 1965.

I seriously doubt that, strabo. What's the basis of that assertion?

--
Ed Huntress
(remove "3" from email address for email reply)


I suspect that kids today seem less smart simply because as WE get older
our
accumulated knowledge that we compare to has gotten much greater.

"Kid, I've already forgotten more that you know! That's too bad, because
it
means I've really forgotten a lot!"

The older I get the better I used to be.

Gary H. Lucas



Haha! Yes, I wonder sometimes how we could have been so smart, and today's
kids so dumb, when I read things like the contents of strabo's post. g

It's also true that the education in other countries has gotten better a lot
faster than ours has. That's the pinch we feel about our education system,
which certainly needs a lot of improvement.

But it's simply not true that kids are not as smart. For example, the
decline in SAT scores that have been reported off and on over the last few
decades have been accompanied by a higher *percentage* of kids actually
taking the SAT. More kids who are down the line academically take the test.
It used to be mostly the top kids who even took it. They don't often mention
that.

Ed Huntress