Peter Berkowitz has a proposal.

Unfortunately, with our current educational system, the problem starts long before students get to college.

[Mid-morning update]

Are we sending too many kids to college?

…the needless pressure to get educational credentials draws a large number of academically weak and intellectually disengaged students into college. All they want is the piece of paper that gets them past the screening. Most schools have quietly lowered their academic standards so that such students will stay happy and remain enrolled. Consequently, they seldom learn much

Charles Murray thinks so. I don’t have a strong opinion on it–I never took it.

Some thoughts on writing, good and bad, from John Leo.

Henry Cate notes in email that the latest Carnival of Homeschooling is the largest one yet, with over sixty links. Which makes me wonder–are homeschooling parents (and home schoolers) more likely to be bloggists?

Frank Tipler says that not only are English majors no longer required to know Shakespeare, but physics majors are no longer required to know general relativity:

The basic reasons why modern physics is not covered in required courses are identical to the basic reasons why Shakespeare is not covered: (1) the faculty in both cases want to teach their narrow specialty rather than the basic courses in their field, (2) the faculty members in both cases no longer understand the basic material in their own field, (3) the faculty no longer believe there are fundamental truths in their own disciplines. I’m sure that many members of typical university

My long-time (which is a better phrase than “old,” as in, “known since college”) friend Lynne Wainfan is trying to sell her children’s middle school on upgrading their technology. She made a video.

I don’t know about the New York Times comparison, though. Yeah, it may be more info than Jefferson got in his lifetime, but a lot of it’s probably wrong or misleading.

Also, it’s a little exaggerated–I don’t think that half (or even a tiny fraction) of basic physics knowledge and math will go obsolete in two years, and that’s what kids in technical majors in college spend most of their time learning. But the point remains that things are accelerating at a frightening pace, and the educational system is going to have to do things differently, or the future will be very scary. Of course, it may be anyway, for other reasons. But either way, it’s where we’re going to be spending the rest of our lives (yes, I know it’s trite, but it’s true).

At least the boys (though perhaps the girls as well). Horrible History.

…and idiots. Univeristy [sic] idiots.

The wonderland that is Durham continues. I have the same question as the commenters–what kind of a university would hire a loon like this to teach young people? Is this a problem unique to Duke, or does every university have such creatures among its professoriate? I fear the answer.

I hope that they take the pro bono offer in comments and sue him for slander.

At an American university.

Move along, folks, no suppression of dissent to see here.