As horror stories go, this one is pretty rich. As WFB paraphrases from Mrs.

Ravitch's book, "Two out of three [high-school seniors] don't know within 50 years

when the Civil War took place. That would mean that one-third of our high-school

seniors think it happened after 1910 and one-third before 1810." How did this happen?

WFB: "Who is the educational establishment?" LC: "Well it's all of us, I suppose. We

are all the enemy in the sense that, I think, as a nation we haven't valued history and

literature as much as we should." ... DR: "The issue is not, Are we doing better or

worse? That would be like saying: Well, let's not worry about poverty, because there was worse poverty 50 years ago ... Anyone who says that it's good enough to only

educate half of our children--not in the classics, but in the most basic knowledge needed

by all American citizens--is, I think, taking a rather elitist point of view."