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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

What an ignorant statement. Its never a waste to read classic literature when you're in school.[/quote]

One does not read "classic literature" in school (or out of school). One reads specific books, short stories, etc. And yes, I actually think it is a waste of time to assign a book that students are going to get very little out of, when one could instead assign a book that students will get much more out of. For example, my kid, at age 11, was assigned My Brother Sam Is Dead. (That was a Newbery Honor book, not to mention a very good book in my opinion, but maybe you don't consider it "classic literature".) Still plenty to think about and be challenged by -- but much more at an 11-year-old's level.[/quote]

I think its sad how dumbed-down the educational system in this country has become. I don't know if its related to the "leave no child behind" policy or what, but 20-30 years ago public schools were so much more rigorous and a parent making a statement like that above, would just be laughed at.[/quote]

Please explain which parts of the statement are laughable.

Also, 30 years ago (more or less) at least two things happened:

-I read Cannery Row, as a junior in a public high school.
-the report "A Nation At Risk" came out. Here is how it describes the rigorousness of public-school education at that time: "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament. Our society and its educational institutions seem to have lost sight of the basic purposes of schooling, and of the high expectations and disciplined effort needed to attain them."

https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html

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