Hurrah for England's chief inspector of schools, David Bell, and his plain-spoken criticism of goofball progressivism in education. In a recent lecture at the Hermitage School in England, Bell argued that students need the return to a well-rounded curriculum that includes a focus on basic skills. "I saw too many incoherent or non-existent curriculums," Bell lamented, "too many eccentric and unevaluated teaching methods, and too much of the totally soft centered belief that children would learn if you left them to it. In particular, the notion that children learn to read by osmosis - and I suppose I exaggerate to make the point - was plain crackers." Would that America had more educators and public officials who lay the truth out so plainly.
"Trendy teaching was 'crackers,'" BBC News, October 5, 2004