MARINA DEL REY, CA -- If American education is to be saved, the corrupting source of its decline education schools must be shut down, said a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.
     "The core of our educational crisis isn't a lack of money or books or computers, rather it is the fact that our teachers are incapable of teaching knowledge," said C. Bradley Thompson, a professor of politics and history at Ohio's Ashland University.
     Thompson observed that education schools, with their emphasis on courses like "classroom management," "assessment," and "audio-visual technologies," leave new teachers unable to teach anything. Thompson said that given the anti-intellectual bent of education schools it isn't surprising that 59 percent of education school graduates seeking teachers' licenses in Massachusetts recently flunked an elementary screening test in reading comprehension.
      In addition to closing education schools, Thompson's solutions to the education crisis include requiring prospective teachers to:

• master the subject they plan to teach by taking a "super major" of 40-50 credit hours.
• maintain a minimum 3.0 Grade Point Average overall.
• pass with distinction a written exam in their majors.

Ayn Rand Institute senior writer C. Bradley Thompson is available for interviews.