I definitely agree with the argument that historical perspective is important - but I think the author's pessimistic assessment of the American public school system, and its approach, is inaccurate.

For example, he references a poll by Strategic Vision LLC that purports to show the ignorance of students in Oklahoma - the poll in question was pretty thoroughly debunked here, three weeks before the blog post was published:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/11/real-oklahoma-student...