Current Wisdom

“Over the last thirty years, America’s test-prep companies have grown from almost nothing into a $5 billion annual industry, allowing the affluent to provide an admissions edge to their less able children.”–Ron Unz, The American Conservative, December 2012

From the blog of John Ray, Education International comes the following: Keynes did get some things right. His comment on education seems positively prophetic: “Education is the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.”

“What other conclusion is possible when, to reach for the handiest exhibit, it is seen that the Republican Party has been able to rule only by becoming a socialist party, and there is a strong likelihood that it will be voted out of power in favor of the more knowingly socializing Democrats?”—Whitaker Chambers, 1957.

“What we call basic skills are only ‘basic’ because they are one aspect of the cultural capital of the middle class.”—Southern University Professor Lisa Delpit

“Utopia: That’s more of an ideal than a reality.” Sally L. Kitch, professor of women and gender studies, Arizona State University at ASU symposium, “Are we losing our humanity?,” National Press Club, September 7, 2012.

“In college, the views academics impress upon their students are all too frequently based on partisan progressive politics, radical professorial notions or hypotheses masquerading as well-established theories — for example, anthropogenic global warming.”— meteorologist Anthony J. Sadar.

“College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”—U. S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc.

“I’ve spent most of my life in academia, and can say with some conviction that most professors have no friends or colleagues who are out-of-the-closet traditionalists.”— Robert Maranto (rmaranto@uark.edu) , 21st Century chair in Leadership at the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas.

“You know that a lot of people don’t have a big imagination, even with sixth-graders, their imagination is slowly dying, so you have to continue to dream big and you can do great things in life.”—Imaginative sixth-grader Gabrielle Williams

“The ‘everybody gets a trophy!’ school of thought does not make students confident, but renders them cynical.”— Douglas B. Reeves, founder of The Leadership and Learning Center

“Students build self-esteem through the confidence acquired as their work improves their results.”—Douglas B. Reeves, founder of The Leadership and Learning Center

“It may be summer time, but some college campuses never take a break from P.C. indoctrination.”—Michelle Malkin