Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Everyone knows that the quality of education in our public schools is declining.  We continue to fall behind the rest of the world, and this is particularly true in science and in math.  Personally, I am a product of the public schools.  I attended public schools all the way through high school, and I earned three degrees at public universities.  And I have to admit that the quality of the education that I received was terrible.  If I had not spent a great deal of time and effort educating myself, I would not be able to do what I do today.  Sadly, things have gotten even worse in recent decades.  Today, a large proportion of our young people are not even equipped to function on a very basic level in our society once they graduate from high school, and that has huge implications for the future of our country.

When I was growing up, kids would start learning algebra before they even got to high school.

But these days many of our college students can't even handle algebra.  In fact, the Kansas Board of Regents is actually considering dropping algebra as a requirement at the state's six public universities because so many students are failing the basic algebra course…