Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in Boise, laments 'alarming degree of public ignorance'

Katie Terhune

Two-thirds of Americans cannot name a single Supreme Court justice, former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told the crowd that packed into a Boise State ballroom to hear her Thursday. About one-third can name the three branches of government. Fewer than one-fifth of high school seniors can explain how citizen participation benefits democracy. "Less than one-third of eighth-graders can identify the historical purpose of the Declaration of Independence, and it's right there in the name," she said. …… The more I read and the more I listen, the more apparent it is that our society suffers from an alarming degree of public ignorance," O'Connor said. That ignorance starts in the earliest years of a child's schooling, she said, but often continues all the way through college and graduate school……….To Read More……

My Take – And she has just now become aware? This has been going on for years, but she apparently wasn’t aware of it and she doesn’t address the real problem. Public education is a crap shoot. For those who have been reading Paradigms and Demographics for some time you are aware of the articles I have linked showing a level of corruption, incompetence and downright stupidity that permeates the public schools systems in the nation. Since she graduated from law school we have heard the unending lament that teachers are underpaid and underappreciated. If we only just give them more money our kids would be so much better educated.  They assured us that if we “just give them more’ all will be well”! So then, can I assume from that line of reasoning they were deliberately failing to perform their duties unless they were paid more?   Well, in spite of that -we did - over and over again for over fifty years. We also made the class sized smaller and awarded them with pension plans that are now completely unsustainable.    

But what about the the kids? Isn’t that what all those strikes by the teachers unions was all about? They would interview one of these teachers who – almost sobbing – would tell the world how they hated to strike because it hurt the children….and it was all about the children, except the children weren't paying union dues.    The reality was that it was all about the money and benefits, because children are dumber than ever, and we know that because Sandra Day O’Conner has told us so, and it goes all the way up the ladder of education to so-called ‘higher education’. Why is it called higher education? Because the costs are now sky high....the quality is low.....but that no longer matters.