Europe is better at educating its children . . .

Susan Jacoby said in the podcast something about schools not being very good. She seems to specifically believe that children who live in poor areas are going to attend bad schools that have teachers with bad training.

The following is from an article in The New York Times:

“In Europe,” she writes, “the subject matter of science and history lessons taught to children in all publicly supported schools has always been determined by highly educated employees of central education ministries. In America the image of an educated elite laying down national guidelines for schools was and is a bête noire for those who consider local control of education a right almost as sacred as any of the rights enumerated in the Constitution.”

Maybe that's why she says that, "America is dumbing down." If it is, then I agree with her. It's not the childrens' fault that they don't know facts. Nobody is there to teach them; nobody qualified. Some of those children may actually want to know the three branches of government or the name of a Supreme Court justice.