Progressive Education did it. It is the reason why American students fail in international competition.
Education writer Sol Stern explains the reason:
'Progressive Education,' the style inappropriately categorized as education, yet the dominant style in government schools.
It is no wonder that America is faring poorly in educating children, but
it is a wonder that the public allows it!
1. " ... PS 87, the famous New York City public school my sons attended from 1987 to 1997.... on Manhattans Upper West Side. My wife and I were delighted when our older son was admitted to the school.
It had just been ranked byParents magazine as one of the countrys ten best elementary schoolspublic or privateand the New York Times profiled it as one of the few city schools that middle-class parents still clamored to get their kids into. PS 87 had a reputation for
adhering to the progressive education ...
a. ... instead of sitting in rows facing the teacher, as I did when I attended the New York City public schools, the children in the early grades sat in circles on a rug and often worked together in groups. I was told that this was the open classroom reform, introduced in the 1970s.... I soon received a crash course in educational progressivism.
2. ... the schools
teachers were trained at such citadels of progressive education as Columbia Universitys Teachers College and the Bank Street College of Education, where they
learned to repeat pleasant-sounding slogans like teach the child, not the text and were told that all children are natural learners.
3. PS 87 had
no coherent, grade-by-grade curriculum. Thus, my sons third-grade teacher decided on his own to devote months of classroom time to a project on Japanese culture, which included building a Japanese garden. Each day, when my son came home from school, I asked him what he had learned in math. Each day, he happily said the same thing:
We are building the Japanese garden.
4. .... expressed our concern to the teacher about
the lack of direct instruction of mathematical procedures, but he reassured us that constructing the Japanese garden required
real-life math skills and that there was nothing to worry about. But I worried a lot, and even more so when my son moved up to fourth grade.
His new teacher assigned even
more real-life math problems, including one that asked students to
calculate how many Arawaks were killed by Christopher Columbus in 1492 during his conquest of Hispaniola.
5. PS 87s children were
taught almost nothing about such foundational subjects as the American Revolution, the framing of the Constitution, and the Civil War. I can still vividly recall a conversation with my younger son and several of his classmates when they were in the fourth grade. ... asked what, if anything, they knew about the famous Union commander for whom their school was named. They gave me blank stares.
6. More disturbing was what PS 87s principal said when I informed him of my conversation with my son and his classmates. Its important to learn about the Civil War, he granted,
but its more important to learn how to learn about the Civil War. The state of knowledge is constantly changing, so we have to
give children the tools to be able to research these things and, of course, to think critically.
a. [Progressive educrats] had
abandoned common sense in favor of progressive education fads,
backed by no evidence, which did more harm than good.
[One can see the results daily in the posts of Leftist members: they believe what they have been told to believe whether there is any evidence for said beliefs, or even when evidence to the contrary is provided. Very progressive!]
7. The
unacceptable failure of our schools has occurred not because our teachers are inept but chiefly because they are compelled to teach a fragmented curriculum based on
faulty education theories.
This didnt happen by chance or because of professional incompetence, according to Hirsch. Rather
it was intended, quite deliberately, by the schools of education. It wasnt that professors of education favored the wrong curriculum, but that they stood for no curriculum at all. Citing romantic theories of child development going back to Rousseau, the progressives argued that, with just a little assistance from teachers, children would figure it out as they went along. Thats because students were capable of constructing their own knowledge.
The Redemption of E. D. Hirsch by Sol Stern - City Journal
The icon of Progressive Education is communist John Dewey.....some coincidence, huh?
With the evidence available, and it continues to pile up year after year, concerned citizens cannot believe that the dismal result is accidental.
Progressives are determined to doom this nation.
How did that work out? I'll tell you- Republicorp is addicted to defense spending to keep their campaign chests topped-off w/ contractor slush $. 
as recommended (req'd) reading just like Paul Ryan (R) does to this day? 
Enough w/ the Raygun fluffing as well or I'll give you more mat'l that will dissolve your rw sand castles in the sky 
