Steve

Thomas Sowell's commentary on December 10, 2004, dovetails well with Lance's posting on January 7, 2005.

Educational priorities seem to have long ago gone astray.

As I have related before, in the ten years that I taught in a private school, we used a standardized test with 1962 norms that compared our students to a much higher standard than that which was the norm in the 1980's. The standards had plummeted to such a degree in just two decades that we couldn't justify using the newer ones. We wouldn't have learned too much about our students' progress had they been scoring at a 12.9 grade level while only in the 6th grade.

As it is now, I would consider great increases in public school funding as requested by the 'professionals' as the Texas Oilman's saying, 'Money down a dry hole.' There's not much profit in a barrel of dust. The lack of money is not the problem, the lack of educational content and technique are.

What we could have done with $9,000 per student. (Oh, yeah, we had plenty of lower income, single parent home, and minority students, too.)

In another article, Sowell recommends a book by Daniel J. Flynn entitled, Intellectual Morons. I just might find and read that one.