And now, a bit of perspective

1891, Harvard Overseers Report: "Only four percent of students who applied for Harvard admission could write an essay, spell, or properly punctuate a sentence."

1909, Plain Faces About Public Education (Atlantic Monthly): "Instruction has been displaced by "every fad and fance" and...the curriculum resembles "the menu card of a cosmopolitan restaurant."

1938, Walter Lippman: "Teachers...conspire against pupils in their efforts to learn."

1943, New York Times article: "Students...have virtually no knowledge of elementary aspects of American history."

1950: Quackery in the Public Schools, Atlantic Monthly: "If you find your child cannot read half as well as you could at that age...you can do what other worried parents have done: send them to a private institution."

1955: Why Johnny Can't Read and What You Can Do About it: "We have decided to forget that we write with letters, and instead learn to read English as if it were Chinese."

1961: Reader's Digest article: "Teachers have been brainwashed with slogans like: "There are no eternal verities," "Everything is relative," and "Teach the child, not the subject."