Sadly, the problems of education in America have been identified since 1955!
"Sadly, the problems of education in America have been identified since 1955!"
Friedman discusses "underinvestment in education". One can attribute the current problems to its opposite - educational OVERinvestment (and concomitant waste). The problems resulting from these were identified not in 1955, but as early as 1611:
“Concerning the advancement of learning, I do subscribe to the opinion… that, for grammar schools, there are already too many… the great number of schools which are in your Highness’s realm doth cause a want, and likewise an overthrow [surfeit] – both of them inconvenient and one of them dangerous; for by means thereof they find want in the country and towns, both of servants for husbandry and of apprentices for trade; and on the other side there being more Scholars bred than the State can prefer and employ… it must needs fall out that many persons will be bred unfit for other vocations and unprofitable for that in which they were bred up, which will fill the realm full of indigent, idle and wanton people…”
Francis Bacon, in a letter to James I, 1611