Published on October 20, 2025 11:14 PM GMT
This is a quick post intended to place a few red flags for those unfamiliar with modern schools.
The consensus in many western education boards, and education academic circles,[1] is that teaching children 'knowledge' is unhelpful and oppressive. As a result, knowledge has been systematically removed from the curriculum.
Here are some contrasts from the education system I went through.[2] This approach is common in many countries today:
Mathematics
In 1983 a 17-year-old Scottish student was expected to have mastered calculus and to have determined, from first principles, the derivatives of polynomials and trigonometric functions. In 2025, they only calculate these derivatives and need no knowledge of their derivations.
In 1983, the student was expected to prove the necessary and sufficient conditions for two straight lines to be perpendicular; in 2025 they only use the theorem to calculate the gradient of a given line.
The course was also made substantially smaller: matrices, vectors, and algebraic geometry were all removed. Overall, material is being pushed back progressively: a 17-18 year old today learns what a 16-17 year old learned in 1983, and what a 15-16 year old learned in 1960.
English
Comparing examinations and syllabi suggests that Scottish students used to read between 2-3 times more in 1960 than 2025. Students were expected to have read the majority of all the works of the authors they studied in 1950; in 2025, they study a handful of set texts, usually via textbook or study guide.
Gone also is the sense that some texts are harder or more sophisticated than others. What is the standard we expect children to reach in reading? The academic literature at the time of these reforms, phrased from the perspective of the public, suggested:
I regularly select and read, listen to, or watch texts for enjoyment and interest, and I can express how well they meet my needs and expectations and give reasons, with evidence, for my personal response.[3]
Consider how broad this definition is: you can study any text and, provided it 'meets your needs' it is valid. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this new curriculum has led to a sustained fall in literacy rates.
The Academic Position
If it feels like exams are easier now, or at least more pointless, that is because they are. And they have been deliberately made so. Here is a quote to indicate the sort of statements accepted in modern education academia:
What remains here is the question how to deprivilege science in education and to free our children from the 'regime of truth'[4]
Some takeaways
First, if you have children or friends with children, consider taking into account these trends. "Vanilla schoolwork' is much less rigorous in the past, and, in most countries, is getting easier every year.
Second, education academics have a lot of power. Until recently, most Western politicians lacked both competency and interest in the specific content of curricula (although they might have an interest in outcomes which are downstream of curriculum content). When they reformed the education system, they often deferred to education 'experts.'
Education research, however, is not a very robust field. The replication crisis has not touched educationalists because they almost never carry out replication studies. The quality of researcher, from personal experience, is also low. There are few studies on the relative intelligence of academics; nonetheless, those which do exist suggest education academics have the lowest, or near-lowest, mean IQ of any academic (117).[5]
This situation is suboptimal.
Some additional questions
- Is this an ideological cul-de-sac or are there structural factors making national exams less robust irrespective of educationalists? Cf. Singapore, China, Japan, Estonia, and Poland. Modulo AI-outcomes, is it worth prioritising education research as a cause area? Homeschooling; private school; elite, public selective school: which is best given these trends?
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There are exceptions, including Estonia; Poland; Germany; and England.
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Many of these examples are taken from this lecture by Lindsay Paterson.
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Education Scotland (2009), LIT 3-01a and LIT 4-01
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Eijck, M.V. and Roth, W.M. (2007). 'Keeping the local local: recalibrating the status of science and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in education', Science Education, 91, pp 926-947, 944.
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Dutton, E. (2014). 'Intelligence and Religious and Political Differences Among Members of the U.S. Academic Elite'', Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, 10, 1-29, 7; see also https://web.archive.org/web/20141227195836/http://web.archive.org/web/20070104093613/http://www.econphd.net/guide.htm Take these with a large grain of salt given their small, US-based samples. More systematic research is needed, although I am (weakly) sticking with my personal experience here.
Discuss
