Dumbing Down Our Kids

Been reading Charles J. Sykes book Dumbing Down Our Kids. Its a stark indictment of our schools. Its specific examples of what is goofy about our schools strike me as the most egregious examples rather than representative ones, but I can attest from within the beast that the differences are only of degree, not of kind. I have since gone ahead and ordered Diane Ravitch's book Left Back. Typical teaching methods are so riddled with utopian fantasy, that I'll have to seriously examine contemporary practice and the long history of educational practice to devise a more reliable classroom practice.