Manifest Destinies

The editorial's headline read, "Too Many To College." The arrogance and wrongheadedness of it infuriated me, and the editorial itself was even worse. The writer (who must have had trouble finding an electrician or a plumber) complained that too many young people are going to college instead of into "crafts and vocations that perform useful functions in society—electricians, plumbers, computer techs. . . . Too many young people would rather have a college degree than be usefully educated for their real talents and interests."

This is an old argument that should have died long ago. Unfortunately, Americans have always underestimated the ability of certain students to learn—especially, of course, poor kids, children of color, and immigrants. In its earliest days, our public education system sorted and tracked youngsters. With supreme arrogance—echoes of which I heard in that editorial—so-called experts decided on the future careers of elementary school children and sought to direct their schooling accordingly. Many children, they declared, should not be expected to excel academically and, thus, should be trained for jobs that do not require much brainpower. In other words, children of laborers were...