In the middle ages there were three recognized institutions providing a formal education; the trade guilds, royal court and the monestaries.  Today the royal courts are gone and the insulated monestaries have morphed into our universities while the trade guilds have given way to community colleges.  

In the past, receiving even the most rudimentary education  was indeed rare for most people.  Even biblical knowledge was closely held by the church and rationed to the faithful until the Gutenberg press in the 1450's brought printed books, bibles and leaflets to the masses.  Modern society and our educating class, however, seem to operate as if  knowledge is still the exclusive preserve of our schools. In fact a lot of the learning bought by students and our taxes from our education system is available, and often in a more advanced and meaningful way, via the Internet, public broadcasting, the workplace, you name it.  Indeed their is a plethora of education open to us all today, so much so, that its almost overwhelming. 

More and more students and parents are wondering why then must official learning be restricted to teachers who belong to left leaning unions  who support socialist political parties and who place their own demands above the learning needs of their customers i.e. students. And the costs continue to explode while the results pale against those achieved decades earlier. 

Compare curricula today to those of 40 or 50 years ago.  Why must employers continue to spend valuable time and resources training freshly minted graduates? Some companies even offer paid summer projects for professors so they may update their outdated knowledge. The world today waits for no one not even a tenured educator.  I say open up the system to more competition and recognized modern ways of learning.

Mickey Moulder