The public education system in the U.S. is in trouble. It has been for years, regardless of who was in political power at the time. It pays lip service to nurturing every child’s “special gift,” but in practice, it’s preparing them to take orders. Critical thinking is discouraged. New programs, standards, and modalities are introduced all the time, but they’re generally just the same arguments rehashed over and over again.

Rinse and repeat, and our country is in trouble.

Who’s to blame? Probably all of us, frankly. Students often don’t respect their teachers because parents don’t respect teachers. There’s only so much you can do within the framework of public education. But regardless of whose fault it is, our students are graduating into an increasingly technical world without knowledge of how to be a good citizen.

The only way we’re going to fix this is by getting clear on what’s going on in schools today, and deciding as a society what we want schools to be. This blog is part of the former. I hope it can inspire the latter.