> The state of education is not great I agree, but imo somehow we have created generations of students who don't care or are less able to do critical thinking,

> The state of education is not great I agree, but imo somehow we have created generations of students who don't care or are less able to do critical thinking, and certainly that impedes and/or unravels the progress any educator could hope to do. Thanks for posting this. I agree with everything you said. Real problems are never about a single magical variable that fixes everything. They always consist of sometimes complex graphs of parameters (issues, control points, rules, laws, politics) that need to be address to a sufficient breath and depth to make things change. I am intrigued about ideas such as eliminating the Department of Education. I haven't really given it any thought, so I can't speak about this to any depth, for or against it. I do, however, reject big government (that does not mean "no government") and tend to believe that the more you rip out of government claws the better off you might be. When I get vocal about the state of US education it is easy for many to only think about my criticism only applying to top tier schools. That's not the case at all. The problem is systemic, and it starts with the sad state of the K-12 education.