I always thought my children were less well served by the Los Angeles public schools than I was in the public schools of New York. Of course, I went to school in the 40s and 50s, and they went twenty years later. I was also in special progress classes, perhaps they taught differently to us than the regular classes? But my mother thought her education in the New York public schools, 25 years before mine, was better still. She was taught grammar, I never was. And Latin. And penmanship. I never was. The model had changed. Perhaps there was a more full and complete approach in the elementary years that set the tone for later learning. And perhaps the permissiveness that was developing in the '60s carried over to the classroom.

My childen aren't stupid, but there is no doubt they are less well-educated than I. I also think the teachers of the 60s and 70s were less well-educated than the teachers of the 40s and 50s. Standards had changed and the emphasis had shifted. And not for the better.