SCHOOL'S OUT

Yesterday, MSNBC hosted a town hall meeting with students and then one with teachers. I was very interested to hear several genius students who had studied abroad sum up the good and the bad in other education systems. An American kid who had studied in Asia (I forget which country) noted their excellent idea of not allowing students to use calculators until they were at a high (almost calculus) level of studies. This forced them immerse themselves with numbers and be fluent in their language. And DO NOT GIVE THEM CALCULATORS YET is very cost-effective to implement, ain't it? Teachers also had interesting solutions. I'm glad that Melissa Harris-Perry hosted these--it's an informative thing for a news channel to have on. No one in either party would ever openly come out and say "We want bad schools" or "We want our kids dumb in this country." They may not say it with words, but why is a channel known also for it's prison reality tv attempting to hammer out ways to improve our schools and not the government? Shouldn't that be the government's job? Every politician in every party brays about how important good education is if the US is to remain competitive--yet our students are slipping for more than a decade. Politicians all stress education when campaigning, but in office they cut school budgets and we're failing the kids. Oh, they're also concerned with rewriting history along party lines. Anyone remember in 2010 how Texas textbook manufacturers successfully deemphasized Thomas Jefferson's role in US history in school books? In that case, it is the express wish of the Board Of Education to mislead kids rather than educate them, "stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light." Thanks for looking out for the students, Melissa. Seems you're doing more than our government is. Hmmm. I wonder why the government might want to keep us undereducated? So that we can't figure out their bullshit? MORE: NYTIMES