I had a fairly sheltered upbringing in the UK, but we did at least do some world geography and the GCSE curriculum in the early 90s required a little bit more social geography, concentrating on the southern parts of West Africa (not that I remember much of it now).
Without any world geography at all, well it seems criminal to set up an education system, that way.
As far as I can tell, the Department of Education's role (https://www2.ed.gov/about/what-we-do.html) is largely limited to certain funding (eg: student loans), statistics, certain anti-discrimination legal enforcement that is applicable at the national level, and "[identifying] major issues" (eg advocacy). Plus some items related to the No Child Left Behind act.
A lot of that seems okay to me. In particular, I think having a centralized statistical department (what this department's role largely was before elevation to cabinet level) is absolutely worthwhile. Student loans would in my opinion be the most interesting topic to explore of the above, but it's more or less worth a debate over it... not "eliminate department due to Reasons".
The question isn't if the ends are desirable. It's whether it is acceptable to merely consider whether the DoE as currently-constituted is the best way to achieve them.
/s
It's really just a generalized statement based on her personal experience.
Here's some anecdata:
In 11th grade I took a world cultures class that spent a lot of time in Russian and Chinese history as well as a broader overview of various parts of Africa (mostly sub-Saharan, if I recall correctly). This was a couple of years after doing a world cultures class that was a bit broader and shallower, but I do remember it having a pretty extensive introduction to the bigger world religions. We learned the Five Pillars of Islam as well as some of the basic principles of Hinduism and Buddhism.
In elementary school, the gifted kids would put on a thing called "International Day" where they'd each pick a country, write to embassies for info, get into the CIA World Factbook on the World Wide Web, wear clothing from the nation, bring in their food, etc. It was a nice way for kids to try tzatziki sauce, listen to Slovenian-style polka, say hello in Mandarin, or see someone wearing a ghoutra or kaftan.
While this was a good school district, it was nothing remotely resembling an urban or cosmopolitan one. I have to think that plenty of Americans had similar experiences like this.
How many US high school students can pinpoint even fairly known countries on the map?
(Come to Austria, meet the Kangaroos)
Only it's not like that. You can ask random people yourself to verify, or you can trust one of several surveys and/or studies in the subject. E.g:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/0502_060502_...
>It shits me because it's so hypocritical. I'm not from the U.S. and I have no idea where your capital city is (let alone state capitals and whatnot) and I really don't give a crap, so why should you care about mine?
Well, it's exactly the "don't know, don't care" attitude we're arguing against here.
A basic knowledge of geography is not only essential in the modern, globalized world, but also indicative of a lack of knowledge in other areas, including history and current world affairs. And that, for a country that's intervening left and right, and whose citizens are trusted to vote, rally for, or oppose parties that will perform such international interventions, diplomatic actions, etc, a lack of such knowledge is shameful.
Not as if lack of knowledge was ever some kind of badge of honor.
Don't conflate being able to recite geographic info with knowledge. It's not knowledge, it's just... data.
Which would be relevant if anybody had asked them to do that. Nobody suggested people should "memorize names and locations of cities and landmarks in a far-off country that you have no plan to visit".
I (and others, including classical education) suggested a working knowledge of work geography -- what the continents are, what the major countries are, major cities. They should also know a thing or two about their history. You know, the history of human civilization, even if they have no plans to contribute to it.
And the "instantly public availability" of information doesn't make one smarter. Only the information already accessed (and even more so, evaluated and assessed) does. Things you know are there in your mind, available for your thoughts and comprehension, can help you follow a discussion, can be used to make judgements etc. Things one can merely look up do not inform your worldview -- they are absent from it.
>Don't conflate being able to recite geographic info with knowledge. It's not knowledge, it's just... data.
Knowledge itself is just data plus understanding them in context. Without data there's no knowledge. Don't conflate potential access to data with actually knowing things.
This sounds like a very shallow style of geography, did you not do any social geography?
Edit: In case you were interested this[0] is an example of the kind of stuff we learn when we're 11-14 in Britain.
I can't remember year 7 and 8 geography very well, though that all sounds familiar.
The opinion pieces really make me wince sometimes.
It's got worse though, now seems like they won't publish a piece unless it has a snide reference to "neoliberalism", or some comment about evil bankers causing financial crises, or some such, no matter how off-topic it is.
It's increasingly cack but still the best of a bad bunch
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/oct/05/the-avocado-...
All that said, there certainly is something in what she writes, particularly about the naivety of people growing up with little world perspective like that.