> a very clear pattern of mostly "unconscious" evil in our public education, with some conscious help from ideologues

ah, that I could entirely believe, Mark. Yep, that would be consistent with a lot of similar patterns I've seen elsewhere.

I guess if people of good intention, from whatever individual standopint, come together to battle out the details of what may work best, we'll never be *too far out from the central ground of common sense. In hindsight, I can understand that your blog entry was probably an elided reference to a whole bunch of stuff that you take for granted that other people recognise as the truth. Probably much of it is - as I said, I'm no specialist in US educational history. I just get apprehensive when too much is taken as an assumption on shared values, having learned the hard way!

Hey, you have an interesting voice - I hope you choose to stick around here at least from time to time; be good to hear more from you.