Everyone is in agreement on exactly one thing.

Students' level of knowledge and education is falling.  Everyone can agree on that, but no one can agree on whose fault it is.  Is it the teachers' fault, or is it the parents'? 

Parents are blaming the teachers.  Teachers are blaming the parents.



Turns out both are right.  And neither is right.  They don't look back far enough.

The video above makes a good point: parents are letting their children get away with crap that their grandparents would have got a solid butt-beating for.  Kids are told from birth that they're special, and perfect just the way they are.  They're never showed how to try to do things on their own.  When they fall, Mom or Dad is right there, picking them up, kissing them, and telling them that it's okay--they don't have to do anything they don't want to, or can't, do. 

Kids need to learn to handle the bumps, scrapes, bruises, and disappointment of mild failure, and to learn how to get up and try again.  If they're not left to learn how to handle that, they'll never learn how to handle real adversity in their teen years, or as adults.  Blame Dewey and his ilk all you like, but fix the damn problem.  Let kids play in the dirt.  Let them fall down, get scraped and bruised.  Let them learn that getting disappointed, or even hurt a little bit, isn't the end of the world. 

Otherwise, they'll get to the point of that first F (or that first time a boss tells them that they're doing something wrong), and instead of shrugging and deciding to figure out how to fix the problem, they'll give up. 

Where else do y'all think the phenomenon of college kids moving back home when they can't find that $60K+/year paycheck comes from?

So, yeah: there's where the parents are going wrong.

Teachers, you are not off the hook. 

Education systems are incontrovertibly broken.  There is no such thing as an unteachable child.  What we have is a system that fails to teach them.  The system is so hung up on not damaging the little darlings' self esteem that it...damages the child. 

Kids aren't stupid.  They can tell when someone is blowing sunshine up their butts.  They can tell when praise is deserved, and when it's not.  And there's no worse feeling than knowing you didn't do very well on something, but getting told that your answer (or attempt) was perfect--no need to try harder, or try something different the next time. 

Even in Kindergarten, where they're supposed to be taught things that have only one right answer.

Again, the answer is simple: teach the kids.  Teach them first that there are right answers--and wrong ones.  Teach them there's nothing wrong with a wrong answer, and that you can try again for the right one.  Teach them that failure isn't permanent.  Teach them that improvement is always possible. 

Parents and teachers--not one, not the other, but both--have sincerely dropped the ball in raising adults.  The system is broken when failure is not recognized as such, or as a temporary setback in the greater scheme of things.  Everybody messes up.  Failure isn't permanent until you quit trying.

Start with that: teaching kids that there is more to life than one single failure, that one failure isn't the end of the world.  Work on that first.  Then fix higher education.