Summary: One thing our public schools do well is undermine real education.... K-12 education is a big swirl of unnecessary problems and impasses. Millions of children are damaged by what seem to be ideological decisions. Our self-appointed experts, which I call the Education Establishment, appear unable to improve the schools. Worse, they don't seem to want to. Let’s identify the three main problems as the first step toward fixing them: First, our schools seem to become dumber by the year and probably by the month. Government statistics say that the majority of our students, in both fourth grade and eighth...