We took advantage of Bank of America’s Museums on Us offer to give Che an early appreciation for the arts. Okay, so he slept through most of it, but perhaps just being there will instill an early appreciation in him.

Alternatively, I think this morning’s outing to Guitar Center to purchase an acoustic guitar for Dad may have hindered his musical development. The cacophony of people trying out guitars, drums, keyboards, and all sorts of instruments caused Che to feign sleep to shut out the noise.

Tonight on digg, there is a popular article by Patrick Buchanan called “Dumbing-Down of America.” Like the 20/20 video you can find on YouTube “Stupid in America” (be warned, it’s a 40+ min video), the blog relates the travesty of American education. We are spending more per student than we ever have, but academic achievement has been falling. No one can pinpoint why (though many claim to know), but everyone agrees that it is a problem.

Having worked in public education for seven years before moving on to other things, I’d like to propose a possible reason that costs have gone up and actual educational achievement has gone down; there has been a fundamental shift in American values.

As Mr. Buchanan pointed out in his article, the surge in American math and science education of the late 50’s was due to the former Soviet Union’s success in space. They successfully launched the first satellite and had the first man in space. American’s were scared of what would happen if the Soviet Union “won” the space race. Not just the academics, but all Americans were frightened by the prospect of their Cold War enemy being more technologically advanced. So the nation as a whole pushed their children to excel at math and science. The entire nation supported education and expected children to succeed. And they did.

Nowadays, there is no such national push. Sure, we hear about No Child Left Behind (NCLB), but we all know it is a farce because we all know children who are falling behind. Americans have heard to many stories of people who never finished high school or dropped out of college and became multi-millionaires. We have seen to many supposed “reality shows” in which people with very little education lead lives of drama and excess. Gone is the work ethic and the moral education of 50’s TV. It has been replaced by American Idol and the Apprentice where the winner is the one with the most popularity and the most drama, not the one with the most skill or dedication. Is it any wonder that in today’s society, education is valued less than “bling”?

If we are getting dumber, it is not because we are not capable of being smart. It is because we have placed our values elsewhere, and what a mistake that has been.

PS Please forgive me for using the term “American” to refer specifically to citizens of the United States. I know there are many more Americans than just those living in the US, but for the purpose of this post only, I used the term in this way.