=================================== As thought experiment, imagine what kind of environment you would create if your objective was to discourage the acquisition of
*ANY* useful academic knowledge, occupational abilities, and social skills, and if possible impart a life-long distaste for any learning.Now compare this to the so-called learning environments now existing in many of our public and private "schools."
The amazing thing is not that so few of our young people are now obtaining useful life skills, but that so many continue to do so. [Knowing how to pee in a bottle does not count.]
The academic community has provided what the politicians demanded. They cannot be held responsible when this is not what the people wanted/needed. If you don't like the results, don't beat up the teachers, change the politicians. Unfortunately, there is as much chance of this happening, as the stockholders replacing the directors to correct corporate problems.
FWIW -- more money will solve nothing, and may make things worse.
Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.
John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).