Things are not improving.

It’s time to talk about education again.

The latest data suggests that kids are doing fine in school, as long as you don’t ask them to take any standardized tests that would actually measure what they know against what they actually should know. The fact that kids entering college now know less than they did even ten years ago has now been documented by college professors, who are understandably alarmed. We’ve got junior high school students being forced to memorize pi to 52 digits instead of learning math.
Math isn’t the only problem, either. Clearly there are big problems with understanding English. How else can we explain how the Christian Science Monitor is actually able to print experts claiming:

“The picture is getting brighter,” and if there’s no recession over the next several years “there are going to continue to be some good strides made,” says Mark McMullen, a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com….

Let me get this straight: things will get better unless they don’t. Brilliant analysis. Furthermore, the nice folks at The Mess That Greenspan Made point out how the “experts” are trying to redefine basic economic terms. Perhaps they hope Joe and Jane Average are too stupid to notice.

Now we have arrived at the point where the basic inability to understand written English is going to be harmful to some people’s health. Ezra Klein points out that the average American is no longer able to read and understand basic information about their medical care. You really ought to go read the Washington Post article he references.

Nor is this problem limited to America. The BBC reports that poorly educated workers are costing their employers money.

Oh, do I have your attention now?

The saddest part of this whole mess is that we do know how to educate children using time tested processes. Effective programs like Direct Instruction and Kumon exist, and have been used successfully for decades. Fine, these programs may be a little dull for the instructor, but school isn’t about entertaining the instructor; it is about educating the student. More importantly, programs like these don’t require lots of extra money. They do, however, require starting with what the student already knows, and accepting the fact that some students will move through the material more quickly than others.

In closing: a man without whom few Japanese folktales would have survived; a unified No Fly List is so important to the Feds that it’s 5 years behind schedule; two items on how things are tough all over, but it turns out that’s because poverty is at a 32 year high; a mandatory health proposal from a hospital group that should know better, this one would cost $115,000 Million in federal dollars to “provide subsidies for individuals to buy insurance from their employer if they cannot afford it, or to buy tax-subsidized coverage in the open market”; some people are saying money spent on health care will double in 10 years, but I disagree and think the whole system will collapse first; must read from NYT on Making Martial Law Easier; you can’t find mad cow if you don’t run a test; and finally, “we don’t need no regulation, passengers don’t need no federal protections.”