Joel Best - The Stupidity Epidemic

Joel Best

Critics often warn that American schools are failing; that our students are illprepared for the challenges the future holds, and may even be the dumbest generation. We can think of these claims as warning about a Stupidity Epidemic. This essay begins by tracing the history of the idea that American students, teachers, and schools are somehow getting worse; the record shows that critics have been issuing such warnings for more than 150 years. It then examines four sets of data that speak to whether educational deterioration is taking place. The essay then turns to exploring several reasons why belief in educational decline is so common, and concludes by suggesting some more useful ways to think about educational problems.

Joel Best is Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. His work focuses on deviance and the sociology of social problems. His most recent books are Social Problems (2008), Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (2008), and Everyones a Winner: Life in Our Congratulatory Culture (2011).

Th e goal of this new, unique Series is to offer readable, teachable thinking frames on todays social problems and social issues by leading scholars. Th ese are available for view on http://routledge.customgateway.com/routledge-social-issues.html.

For instructors teaching a wide range of courses in the social sciences, the Routledge Social Issues Collection now offers the best of both worlds: originally written short texts that provide overviews to important social issues as well as teachable excerpts from larger works previously published by Routledge and other presses.

As an instructor, click to the website to view the library and decide how to build your custom anthology and which thinking frames to assign. Students can choose to receive the assigned materials in print and/or electronic formats at an affordable price.

Body Problems
Running and Living Long in a Fast-Food Society
Ben Agger

Sex, Drugs, and Death
Addressing Youth Problems in American Society
Tammy Anderson

The Stupidity Epidemic
Worrying About Students, Schools, and Americas Future
Joel Best

Empire Versus Democracy
The Triumph of Corporate and Military Power
Carl Boggs

Contentious Identities
Ethnic, Religious, and Nationalist Conflicts in Todays World
Daniel Chirot

Waste and Consumption
Capitalism, the Environment, and the Life of Things
Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi

Rapid Climate Change
Causes, Consequences, and Solutions
Scott G. McNall

Outsourcing the Womb
Race, Class, and Gestational Surrogacy in a Global Market
France Winddance Twine

Why Nations Go to War
A Sociology of Military Conflict
Mark Worrell

Worrying About Students, Schools, and Americas Future

Joel Best
University of Delaware

First published 2011
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2011 Taylor & Francis

The right of Joel Best to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Best, Joel.
The stupidity epidemic : worrying about students, schools, and Americas future
/ Joel Best.
p. cm. (Framing 21st century social issues)
1. Educational accountabilityUnited States. 2. Educational productivity
United States. 3. EducationPolitical aspectsUnited States. I. Title.
LB2806.22.B48 2011
370.973dc22
2010027986

ISBN13: 978-0-415-89209-4 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-83421-3 (ebk)

The world in the early 21st century is beset with problemsa troubled economy, global warming, oil spills, religious and national conflict, poverty, HIV, health problems associated with sedentary lifestyles. Virtually no nation is exempt, and everyone, even in affluent countries, feels the impact of these global issues.

Since its inception in the 19th century, sociology has been the academic discipline dedicated to analyzing social problems. It is still so today. Sociologists offer not only diagnoses; they glimpse solutions, which they then offer to policy makers and citizens who work for a better world. Sociology played a major role in the civil rights movement during the 1960s in helping us to understand racial inequalities and prejudice, and it can play a major role today as we grapple with old and new issues.

This series builds on the giants of sociology, such as Weber, Durkheim, Marx, Parsons, Mills. It uses their frames, and newer ones, to focus on particular issues of contemporary concern. These books are about the nuts and bolts of social problems, but they are equally about the frames through which we analyze these problems. It is clear by now that there is no single correct way to view the world, but only paradigms, models, which function as lenses through which we peer. For example, in analyzing oil spills and environmental pollution, we can use a frame that views such outcomes as unfortunate results of a reasonable effort to harvest fossil fuels. Drill, baby, drill sometimes involves certain costs as pipelines rupture and oils spews forth. Or we could analyze these environmental crises as inevitable outcomes of our effort to dominate nature in the interest of profit. The first frame would solve oil spills with better environmental protection measures and clean-ups, while the second frame would attempt to prevent them altogether, perhaps shifting away from the use of petroleum and natural gas and toward alternative energies that are green.

These books introduce various frames such as these for viewing social problems. They also highlight debates between social scientists who frame problems differently. The books suggest solutions, both on the macro and micro levels. That is, they suggest what new policies might entail, and they also identify ways in which people, from the ground level, can work toward a better world, changing themselves and their lives and families and providing models of change for others.