European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - October 9, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse The stars and stripes Page 10 Coin Fri its. James j. Kilpatrick Friday. October 9. 1987 reports document failure of . Education let me keep pounding away if you will a iwo stunning reports on the failures of american Educa Tion. They Point to pro ticks that arc far More serious in the Long run than problems or farm policy Trade imbalance or the Public funding or congressional elections. Either we clean up the mess in our schools or come the nest Century we be had it. One report. American memory comes from inc National endowment for the humanities. The other. What do our 17-Vcar-Olds know is the work of scholars Diane Rajich and Chester e. Finn or. Both reports rely on findings of a lest administered to nearly 8,000 1 he graders. The students were examined in history and Litera Ture to was an easy isl they failed abysmally. Without rehashing the sorrowful figures suffice it to say that i desc students As a class proved lobe cultural numbskull. They had no sense of when particular events occurred they therefore had no sense of what events came before or Why consequence came the held of literature they demonstrated shocking ignorance of the cultural inheritance that every High school student should have received. As a people we must ask ourselves. Why Why and How did this happen what has gone so dreadfully wrong if we can answer those questions perhaps we can move on to what do we do about in Ravitch and finn offer some answers to fifty years ago the humanities shared equal Bil Ling with mathematics and the natural sciences. High schoo courses in English were heavily weighted wit literature. History was taught in solid chunks from the sixth Grade through the 12th. But 25 years ago. When the soviets sputnik shocked the Western world the balance abruptly shifted. The important literacy became computer literacy. History and literature were shunted aside. The traditional curriculum in literature fell into Dis array. Relatively few school continued to demand thai students read the hard the old tradition died and in its is cad the students were Ted merely cafeteria style literature including the written equivalent of junk in became educationally fashionable to teach skills or the educational establishment scorned the leaching of Mere facts and a High school graduate could not say when Columbus discovered the new world no matter Hewill know How to look in that won i do the concept of equal rights surely is important to any understanding of american Politi Cal history but to teach a concept without facts is to teach 3 kind of Cotton Candy history. The nationwide isl disclosed that half of the j lilt graders know Liti Cor nothing of nullification inc Missouri Compromise secession he civil War or reconstruction. Two thirds of those students dimwit edly supposed Hal Jim Cro taws were intended to improve the lot of Black citizens. George will the students were generally ignorant of Plessy is. Fer Guson and drown is. Board of education. Listen for a moment to Ravitch and finn to in extent Hal vec educators parents and citizens allow cultural literacy to Wane and to be reduced Only to knowl Edge of celebrities from people Magazine and the elec tronic Media then the audience for genuine literature will shrink material written or produced for a literate Public will dwindle and the Quality of Public discourse and de Bate in our society Wilt suffer. In is a tragic downward spiral that can Only erode the culture trivialize inc Intel Lect and in time Paupe Rize our civic what can be done about the is tuition the recommendations offered by the Neh study and by Ravi Ith and finn Call for no Radical reforms. They urge merely that our schools restore the humanities to the important position they once occupied. History should be taught from the Early elementary grades High schools should require at least two years of world history in addition to a solid grounding in american history. Greater emphasis should be placed on Geog Raphy. Reading assignments should Deal with important literary works. None of this is the stuff of revolution. Will anything be done about the situation the Hon est but pessimistic answer is no. Nothing significant will be done. The entrenched educational establish ment supported by timorous textbook publisher and by intimidated school boards has no enthusiasm for such old fashioned values. Fifty years hence the Stu Dent who is asked about the creeks and the trojans will be mystified. Fraternity men football players sorry cramps it beats the Heck out of Pieu by Faldich Post keeps strange company in opposing Bork in announcing itself editorially opposed to Robert Bork the Washington Posl expressed embarrassment about the company in was keeping. The Post should be embarrassed but about More than the intellectual vulgarity and per Sonal savagery its description of the battalions opposing Bork s nomination to the . Supreme court. The editorial denounces the demagoguery. Profoundly distorting the record and nature of the Man. Lazy and dangerous cliches that has succeeded against Bork and has not pre vented inc Post from piling on. The Post s behaviour Calls to mind those re publicans who said Joe Mccarthy was appalling but that the cause was some How Independent of and Superior to its methods. However what worthy cause comes enveloped in smart mass Are Noi the tactics used against Bork like Hose used by Mccarthy lies entailed by the nature of the people and arguments thai depend on the tactics the foil says Bork would not read the Constitution generously to exploit iii"cl4iiiti " for desirable results Man of the nation i clearest and ugliest inequities racial discrimination and chronic among them have been mitigated Only be cause judges used inc Constitution s elasticity to Deal with issues that for various reasons the other branches would not. Judge Bork. Is much More Likely to note injustice but refuse to use the full Powin of the supreme court to remedy the Liberal political Agenda is packed into the Antiseptic phrase Deal and the phrase full Powers is not synonymous with properly used important the Post s anxiety is conspicuously abstract. The Posl docs not mention a single social problem or a single discrete and insular minority thai Only judicial institutions can Deal since the civil rights revolution and what group Falls help Lessly Between the cracks of rear Conla Tive government certainly not Blacks or women Given inc responsiveness the pol test possible term of the Polh ical process to Anli Bork pressure applied in their names. Per Hap the Post is worried about Stu dents. A judge in Kansas City annoyed about the electorate s rejection of Bond issues and lax increases that would bring cily spending on schools closer to suburban Levels has ordered several tas in creases. In severing the links Between taxation and representation he said majority has no right to deny others the constitutional guarantees to which they Are How is that Posl editors for a generous Reading of the Constitution is that not he use of a court s full Powers to Deal with problems the judge said he had to do what other branches of government would not do because students Are helpless with out the Aid of this his Mora megalomania is to use the Post s Vocab ulary the real world result of the Post s ideology. Self and self indulgence Are easy to disguise As merely generous readings of the Constitution. The Post rightly says Justice and Law arc not the but the Post seems to License judges to Supply Justice according to their lights when Law is Fay the Post s lights inadequate. The Post intimate that the patience required by democracy is evidence of callousness. Having lauded bark s intelligence integrity and professional attainments the Post locales his disqualifying defect Lack of compassion judge Bork has retained from his academic Days an almost frightening detachment , nol to say indifference toward inc Cal world con sequences of i i jars he plays with ideas seeks tidiness and in the process docs not seem to care who is Tidi ii Cut is disparaged when logic is inconvenient and play is a loaded verb to disparage Bork s moral serious Ness. The words frightening and crushed Are absurdly hyperbolic and suggests the Posl is trying to talk itself into a pitch of passion thai inc Post knows is disproportionate. The Post gives no him of who might be crushed because Bork is fright Angly indifferent. Again there is a notable abstract Ness to inc Post s indictment of bark s the Posl believes excessive abstract approach to judging. The Bork rattle efficiently sorted people out and the Post a come Home to liberalism. Hut Liberal ism is now Little but snobbery. The categorical imperative n to allow no institutional obligations 10 interfere with the moral exhibition ism of seeming to
