> ...declining quality of education. I'd like to add some nuance to this. While student performance seems to be clearly declining (at least at the college leve

> ...declining quality of education. I'd like to add some nuance to this. While student performance seems to be clearly declining (at least at the college level, which I'm familiar with), I don't know how well we can distinguish the contributions of poor teaching and poor student preparedness. I'll give a concrete example from South Korea. For several years, the English proficiency of incoming university students was so high, there was serious talk of closing English language programs as no longer needed. Within the last few years though, student ability levels have plummeted, requiring drastic dumbing-down of the curriculum at the school where I work. I know many Korean primary, secondary, and college teachers, and I don't think the decline in student achievement is due to their slacking off. It seems to be due to something going on in society outside the schools.