# More Individual Input

I asked a clerk at Lowe's the schoolboard question, and her response was, "I would like to see the school staffs and teachers given the authority and backing to enforce discipline." This is an input particularly important to me because both of my children dropped out of school due to the physical and verbal abuse. On one day, my son was knocked to the floor and stomped twice by young thugs. This was back in Virginia where the school system was keeping alive slavery and the Civil War as if it happened only yesterday. This made it very difficult and very dangerous for white students. My son had made the mistake of reporting a black drug dealer, and the reprisal was quick and violent.
I have been reading Susan Jacoby's "The Age of American Unreason" and have found several items to report. Her opening quote was made by Thomas Jefferson in 1816. He said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Susan Jacoby writes that standardized tests in public schools are not demanding enough. There is no glory in passing them. (page 310).
She also drops a little pearl of wisdom: "It is easier to think and be told that you were a victim of a lie, than to know that you were too easily deceived." (page 311). Another way of saying it might be: "The sheep attracts the wolf."
I don't want to be accused of reprinting her book so will end with this tidbit from page 229: Among the 29 most industrial nations, American students ranked 24th in mathematics. We were only better than Greece, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, and Mexico.
Peter Nickerson at peternickerson12@yahoo.com.