Peter Wood writing at the National Association of Scholars:
The combination of economic turmoil and President Obama’s sweeping policy agenda seems to have awakened American anxiety about what is really happening in the nation’s education system. I’ve been collecting samples of this worry—policy recommendations that frequently contradict one another and that arise from many different parts of the political spectrum. But they are united by the quickening idea that higher education has somehow gone off track and that it is, among other faults, fostering profound weakness in the American character . . .
Children never learn or remember all the details of they are taught, but they drink in the basic messages about what is important and what’s not. In that sense, America has its own madrasses—secular madrassas of multiculturalism and sustainability. We call them public schools . . .
So is the character of students shaped by our system of higher education best summarized as conformist? To a large extent, yes. The progressive left, as witnessed by the Center for American Progress’ report, New Progressive America, is counting on a vast, quiescent consensus among the college-educated, a consensus sufficient to end the culture wars and usher in a reign of one-sided agreement on all important issues, a sea of leftist tranquility . . .
