Key points

Some suggest education should promote economic productivity and national competitiveness.

Others suggest that it should ensure that learners grow up to toe a party line.

The real purpose of education is to instill a deep sense of dedication to the truth.

With education under attack, we should pause from time to time to consider its purpose. Is it to boost economic productivity and national competitiveness, ensure that citizens learn to toe a party-approved line, or something else entirely? Might it be, for example, to foster a deep loyalty to the truth?

My friend Bruce, recently retired from an executive position in the high-tech medical device industry, had been volunteering as a monthly reader at a local elementary school. The school chose books according to criteria

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