No my paranoid meter would be going off too. Those goals are low indeed.

In a free society, education is not the business of the State. It is the responsibility of parents. Only parents should set the goals for their children. In a country where this is the case, these absurd statements from agents of the State cease to exist, and the quality of education on offer to all goes up. That means the highest possible rates of literacy, numeracy etc.

Also Nova Scotia doesn't have its own resources, it only has the money it has stolen from the people who live there.

+Tracy S, the worst part is, when I talk to people the response is consistent: first their eyes glaze over and then they say, "at least its free" (both education & medicine). The parents don't realize that these are low standards. People think the schools are doing a good job with their kids because they will be able to get a "good job". It's all very Stepford.

+Irdial Discs I believe that the NS government has the goal of high numeracy, and high literacy rates. They strive for high quantity, but are more than happy with low quality. I recently watched the Bear Sterne's Legionaire series and one of the commanders made a comment (regarding some written test scores) that jumps out at me: "You don't need to be smart; you need to pay attention, and do what you're told". Wasting my morning looking more in depth into NS standardized exams, I got the impression that people are being taught to "pay attention" (aka. high literacy, and numeracy, aka. The Trivium) and nothing more.

I'll repeat: the disturbing part is they are being taught to "become good citizens" rather than "discerning individuals".

My point is more philosophical, trying to strike at the root of the problem. What they decide to teach or not in the State school system of NS is irrelevant. They have no business educating children with other people's money, full stop. It is a pure red herring to discuss the quality of the education, or the ramblings of some randomly selected State employee as to what is or is not a sufficiently high standard.

If your aim as a parent is to create a child that is a "discerning individual" that is entirely your business. Similarly parents who want their children to "become good citizens" are at liberty to do that as their family priority. No one has the right to tell parents what is good for their children, set curricula or teach anything whatsoever.

What is disturbing to me is that everyone seems to think that their way is correct, and that force should be used to make their way of thinking the 'standard' throughout the entire education system and sometimes, even the entire Earth.

Having said all this, its possible to guess what sort of education system a man should prefer depending on the kind of society he wants to create.

If he wants a society with many different opinions, ways of life and people, then standardization is not desirable. If on the other hand, he wants uniformity, conformity, standardization, a pliant, quiescent electorate, then one size fits all State education is the solution.

People who want to live in a free society should not also advocate uniform government education paid for by taxation. That is the bottom line.

+Irdial Discs , I understand your point, and I tend to agree, but believe the answer goes to far. The first part of finding a solution is to establish that there is a problem to be solved. The Stepfordness of people's response indicates that they disagree that there is a problem.

"Stepfordness" You see? You just lost 97% of your reading audience with that reference! Its increasingly impossible to get through to people with any sort of logic or cultural reference because they are so cut off from both logic and culture. Having said that, there is no excuse anymore, since anything can be Googled, and as long as you dont use Wikipedia as an authoritative source... there I go again :P