This is discouraging. The deeper we get into the 21st Century, the dumber we are graduating our kids. Parents need to start taking control of local Board of Education meetings and demanding better courses, better teachers, and a heck of a lot less NEA and liberalism.
Shakespeare's tough, but he set the bar over 600 years ago and has rarely been equalled. I agree with the others who believe that a well-rounded, classical education ABSOLUTELY REQUIRES studying the masters of literature. To do anything less is to deprive these students of the majesty of literature and limit them to the likes of pop-slang such as "Doh!" and "yada, yada". They deserve better. We as a society deserve better and the education profession should be hanging its collective head in shame for the dumbing down of school curricula.
Many public school administrators feel a classical curriculum is "elitist." Many schools won't use books written before 1970 because they are not PC.
The New York English Regents exam is so ridiculously PC that it asks students to answer questions on Hemingway's "The ELDERLY Man and the Sea."
Many private schools in NY used the New York English Regents exams to test their students. Now they feel they are a joke.
Face it, in many, many areas, today's public school curriculum is ludicrous.