One thing that bothers me about the modern state of education in America is how regimented it is. As someone who succeeded under the old regime it is increasingly clear that I would have been left behind in today's landscape. I was a flunkie, I barely graduated from public school (let's call it "social promotion"), then used community college and a lower tier public university to force my way into the "creative class". I'm not sure that that pathway is still open. They have kids doing homework in kidergarten now, and the big state schools that used to require a 3.0 to get in now turn away students with all A's. We've always been a country with second chances, but the rise of the hyper-regimented education tract makes that less available. On the one hand I don't want to raise my kids in a hyper-regimented way, but on the other hand, I don't want to be careless and set them up for failure in the modern world. It's a mess we've created.