Pretty good article here by prof. Fish, reminding me of the fact that the PURPOSE of education is anything but clearly agreed upon. There was a gentleman I heard on the radio several months ago whose name I have sadly forgotten, a former NYC teacher of the year and now general scholar on the history and pracice of the american educational system, whotalked at some length about the open and hidden goals of american educational system. The hidden goal, he stated, comes from 19th c. Prussia, namely the separation of the youth into leaders and workers. The schools which produce tomorrows leaders, or more accurately, the schools which HAVE produced today's leaders, follow methods which while not secret, neither are they the ones followed by our public schools.

The fact that they are not secret I think might be proven by Mr Edward Humes here (though I have not read this yet), giving an account of a school system which decided, quite on their own, that if they wanted to stop being such a crappy school, they needed to completely change their model.