On 7/16/2011 1:56 PM, Ed Huntress wrote:

And look at all the rest of us, too. Sheesh.

As for today's education, I've seen how good it is when it's done well. My
wife is a teacher and my son is a think-tank researcher, going for a
Master's degree in math at Georgetown next month. I follow it all very
closely, and was very active with the school board and so on.

My town's schools are well above average but I'm impressed. It's so much
better when when we were in school. And I graduated from what was then one
of the top-ranked public high schools in the country (Princeton High School,
full of Princeton University sons and daughters).

The problem is not how or what they teach today. The problem is that we've
so debased and demeaned public education that only the best schools, with
involved parents, can really take advantage of the resources and the
teaching skills that represent the best of American education. The rest are
suffering from a profession that's generally held in lower esteem than ever,
and an over-politicized scheme of management and decision-making.

The books are much better, except where state school boards have dictated
that stupidity and ignorance will be the ruling principles. Thus, my
references to Texas and Kansas.

I am the older of two CNC programmers where I work. The other day, I
explained to the other programmer, in his early 30's, that there are two
cups in a pint, two pints in a quart, and four quarts in a gallon. I
learned this in second grade, although it was covered several times
again when I went to school in the mid '50's. He was taught in the
Milwaukee Public School system and didn't know basic English system
measures. My German girlfriend, about his same age and raised with the
metric system in Germany, knows the English measures.

David