in this country as a way to provide adequately educated people for the workforce, this is just the logical extension of that.

I do agree that education ought to be about more, such as giving people the tools with which to think critically and solve problems.

You got it exactly backwards. It was founded to create a more informed citizenry.

Training people for jobs had nothing to do with it.

Excellent link.

was and remains literacy, in what ever area you wish to have a literate populace. What should alarm us is that under the "Common Core Standards" being proposed for public schools include replacing or demphasizing literary works like "Catcher in the Rye", "Huckleberry Fin" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" at the high school level with more informative, non-literary texts. This type of change will be very useful in producing the next generation of cubicle drones for corporate America. Of course it is not even being considered at private, Ivy League preparatory academies like Choate, Groton and Exiter, where the children of the ruling class will continue to read great works of literature and rule over the cubicle drones our children are designated to become.

would be. But there were also definite counter-currents, both on the part of individuals and organized movements.

what George Carlin would say....