Originally Posted by Kiopa_Matt

I don't think that's the problem at all. I think the basic underlying problem is the same reason the economy collapsed -- greed and financial gain. The better grades kids get, the more government funding the school gets. The kids are retards, or its too much work to teach them? No worries, just change the curriculum a little, lower the passing grades, and you'll be fine.

Then the downward spiral kicks in, and every school district starts doing it to keep up. Fast forward 30 - 40 years, and high school graduates are about as intelligent as a 7th grade South Korean kid. School has a fancy gymnasium, and the principal has a nice car though.

I remember high school in Texas when I was 16. You weren't taught to question or think. All you really needed to do was memorize a bunch of names, dates, and other shit, and you'd get honors. You were in no shape or form required to stretch the limits of your mind though.

For one of many examples, the largest experiment we did in Biology class the entire year was dipping litmus paper into different liquids to see what color it would turn. Plus the teacher kept promising us if she had enough snails in her garden this year, we would do another experiment to see how many paperclips the snails could pull. Sad, but true. In Canada, I would have been dissecting pig fetuses, and sheep brains.