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IPFS News Link • Education: Unschooling

Why Americans are Getting Dumber and How to Fix It

• fee.org by Annie Holmquist

Curious, I flipped through an archive of his many columns and stumbled on one entitled Education: Then and Now, written in early 2006.

One paragraph in particular caught my eye. Like many of the older generation, Sowell notes that the education he received in the New York Public School system of the 1940s was stellar and well-rounded, a far cry from that experienced by children enrolled in the New York Public Schools of the late twentieth century:

"Some years ago, when I looked at the math textbooks that my nieces in Harlem were using, I discovered that they were being taught in the 11th grade what I had been taught in the 9th grade. Even if they were the best students around, they would still be two years behind — with their chances in life correspondingly reduced."

Sowell's words are reminiscent of those from another individual well-acquainted with the New York Public School system: former teacher of the year John Taylor Gatto. In his book, Dumbing Us Down, Gatto declares:


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