Thomas Sowell on Education

I'm a little late on this one, but just read Sowell's Sept. 13 column which is on education. Some highlights:

-my efforts should be directed toward the slower or low-performing students.
-Unfortunately, the idea of treating the brighter or more serious students as a problem to be dealt with by keeping them busy is not uncommon.
-High potential will remain only potential unless it is developed.
-But the very thought that high potential should be developed more fully never seems to occur to many of our educators -- and some are absolutely hostile to the idea.
-People like this would apparently be satisfied if Einstein had remained a competent clerk in the Swiss patent office
-Most of the teachers in our public schools do not have what it takes to develop high intellectual potential in students. They cannot give students what they don't have themselves.
-Test scores going back more than half a century have repeatedly shown people who are studying to be teachers to be at or near the bottom among college students studying in various fields.
-Too often there is not only a lack of appreciation of outstanding intellectual development but a hostility towards it
-Maybe the advancement of science, of the economy, and finding a cure for cancer can wait, while we take care of self-esteem.