>In this area I agree with you completely Tamar. I read a study not too long ago that compared the math and science knowledge in the 40s and 50s to today. As it turns out, students in the 40s and 50s actually were more knowledgeable in math and science than students are today.

One of the interesting problems schools face is that there is simply more knowledge out there today. Take a look sometime at the curriculum for a liberal arts college in the 19th century. Extremely broad-based, but not much depth. Imagine trying to provide the same breadth of curriculum today, but including the depth that we now have in these subjects.

Because I've been doing a lot of reading in the area lately (for an assortment of reasons), consider physics. A hundred years ago, physics pretty much meant the study of mechanics, with a little wave theory. What does a modern physics course need to cover? All that, plus relativity, quantum mechanics, and who knows what else.

While it is true that some information gets dropped (we no longer kids how to measure in rods, for example), the amount that's been added in the last century is pretty impressive.

> In fact, the study pointed out that college graduates today do not do as well in math and science as 9th graders did in the 40s,50s, and 60s. <

What's interesting about this statistic is that we're now teaching in high school a lot of what was taught in college a couple of generations back. How many college students take algebra today? Very few, it's a high school course now, but in my parents day, algebra was a common college course.

I'd be interested in seeing an actual cite here, so I can see what they're talking about.


Tamar