The Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial on June 23 featured an article by Kay S. Hymowitz entitled, “Is there Anything Grit Can’t Do?” The article is about the work of Angela Lee Duckworth. In my article about career advancement, I talked about hard work, paying a price and the perseverance necessary for career success. Here we have another excellent example of a researcher that has dedicated themselves to the study of a specific topic. If you do not believe a researcher in academia can become the undisputed authority on a subject, check out Dr. Duckworth’s CV. For those of you interested in further study of this topic, the list of grants, articles and presentations in Dr. Duckworth’s CV reads like the literature review in a dissertation. In the case of Dr. Duckworth, her expertise flies in the face of a lot of conventional ‘wisdom’ and political correctness.
The ideology of indoctrination of children in too many failed government schools vacillates between victim-hood and entitlement insuring the continuing institutionalization of poverty. In my opinion, public education has deteriorated markedly over the past thirty years. The US Department of Education was founded in 1979. In federal fiscal 1980, the department’s budget was $14 billion. By FFY 2015, the bureaucracy’s budget had ballooned to $73.8 billion. I do not know anyone that thinks that public education is any better for this spectacular increase in investment. I have heard Eric Von Hessler and others advocate for the elimination of the Department of Education in its entirety as a means of balancing the federal budget. I think a lot of people would agree that education is better-managed locally and not from a central federal government bureaucracy. Too few young people are being taught that the thing that has the greatest potential to make a positive difference in their life is drive or ‘grit’ as described by Dr. Duckworth and not the narrative of the NEA. There are probably not very many people who have done a more thorough job than Dr. Duckworth understanding how to help children and adults succeed.
HENRY KOTULA 