There is also a genetic component to the dumbing down of our culture.Sure the Asian students are highly motivated but they are also been derived from a larger gene pool and we are seeing the top 5%.They come from a more competitive and harsher environment.Notice how also our culture saves all babies at all costs.In the past they died and stronger off spring were conceived.It was not uncommon in the past to lose two or three babies before one survived.We no longer have survival of the fittest.We have to expect some deterioration in the genetic pool.

Notice how the geniuses of the past seem so few today by comparision, or is it we no longer value intellect as opposed to the Hollywood glamour?

I disagree with ANATURALLEARNER who in the opening para says that education and parenting has failed society and then promotes home learning as the solution. Since when has a problem been the solution. How can failed parenting suddenly produce results by home education. The very fabric of progression is determined by the teaching standards. Just take third world countrie as an example. Everyone of them has had a home learning base for centuries as part of their culture and rightly or wrongly they see their future in educating their kids and are in many cases working hard to achieve improvements in this area as a means for improvement in their quality of life. Do we want to return to that kind of system that would see us lag behind our competitors, I would suggest not, we have come a long way past that. The system we have may not be perfect and sure it has problems but tweaking those problems rather than returning to the past is the better form of valour and it's for our kids to decide not us, it's their turn let's give them a chance as we ourselves had ours