Following a cultural trend several decades in the making, America's education system is pandering to and propagating the simplemindedness of its constituency. Perhaps we should have seen it coming. When the 60's and 70's brought forth the Age of Autonomy and separated the concepts of freedom and truth, many conservatives believed our country was headed to hell in a handbasket. They watched with horror as irresponsible freedom eroded a sense of deference to a greater good--whether that good was considered the God of the universe, or the preservation of a political system and social order. Conservatives took up the fight when it pertained to the dignity of human life or the institution of marriage, but with pertaining to education, every child has been left behind.

The shift that occurred in the past several decades might better be described as philosophical-theological in character, rather than cultural. The greatest changes were not in attitude toward a myriad of social issues, but underlying assumptions about the how knowledge is obtained and the purpose of man. In philosophical jargon, the study of how we know things is called epistemology, and that of studying man is called anthropology.

Let me set the shift before the reader in simple terms: Two trends emerged during the latter half of this past century. The first trend was one that ushered in the idea that nothing is knowable with certainty (postmodernism)--a departure from the earlier belief that everything can be known with certainty (modernism). As a result, truth went from being "those things which can be proven" to being obsolete for all intensive purposes. This has led to what we now term relativism. The second trend built on Enlightenment ideals to separate the study of man from the study of God (theology). As postmodernism made individuals the sole arbitor of "truth", this exclusive study of man encouraged a man-centered worldview that purported freedom to be the equivalent of animalistic self-gratification as opposed to choosing the path of greatest virtue.

(I know this might seem pretty deep, but I encourage you to continue reading as I show where these trajectories lead...)

This is all to show that these signs of moral failure and social decline in our country are only emblematic of deeper trends of thought, and that those trends extend across all aspect as society and must be engaged on a deeper level. This particularly pertains to education. While conservatives have been fighting in recent years for school choice, accountability, the teaching of abstinence, etc., they have been ignoring the deeper and more disturbing patterns of thought.

Postmodernism and personal autonomy are the sole worldviews at work in today's education system. That is why the Socratic pursuit of knowledge has been pushed out of the classroom door in favor of the "practicalities." Students are given uncertain answers presented as fact, rather than questions that draw them deeper down avenues of discovery and creativity. Why discuss the deeper questions regarding the origins of the universe when there is a well-packaged theory called evolution? Teaching methods more often deal with a "7 practical steps to success" format, rather than asking the philosophical assumptions that underlie every academic assertion. The proverbial rabbit trail has been disgarded in favor of the bunny-hop.

No wonder American education is declining! We give half-baked answers and ignore questions. We ignore theory in favor of the practical. This includes a rising disdain toward traditional disciplines like history and philosophy (which often ask the deeper questions instead of proferring brute facts) in order to pacify those who think that such time should be given to character development and sexual-experimental classes. Students are trained for specialized activities as if they are some machine cog whose only purpose is production. They are not trained for thinking and the pursuit of knowledge.

Thus, the conservative fight is not against ignorant evolutionary theories, explicit sex-ed programs, or bureaucratic underachievement and low standards. These blights are merely symptoms of a greater philosophical disease. Even if a student escapes his/her educational experience with a conscience intact, they still carry the baggage that accompanies this disease, and are ill-prepared to be lifelong learners and thinkers. Perhaps our greatest challenge as conservatives is to teach our children to not accept the easy answer.