The recent economic crisis is reminding us that, unfortunately, our economy is still inextricably overdetermined by the scarcity of resources.  Despite all of the Icarian efforts and intentions of Wall Street bankers to invent infinite risk mitigating financial instruments, their wings of wax could only get them so close to that symbol infinite resources.  I have come to believe that our education system is built on many of the same failed assumptions upon which our currently failing economy was built.  America’s education system is built on the assumption that intelligence is infinitely and evenly allocated.  My experience tells me that intelligence is scarce.  Just as our economy needs to tether itself to economic theory that admits reality of resource scarcity, our education system could really use an intelligence theory that admits that intelligence is scarce.

On the contrary, the intelligence theory that seems to carry the most weight in current education programs is Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences.  The basic premise of his idea is that intelligence in humans is manifest in multiple varieties and it can’t be empirically quantified.  Therefore, school curricula should be tailored to meet the individual needs of each student.  The idea of custom education to accommodate the various intelligence levels of students is certainly seductive product of heartwarming liberalism and it is certainly a reflection of an assumption that intelligence is an abundant resource.

This article describes the latest installment of the Icarian tragedy of our public school system.  When you believe in multiple forms of intelligence, it is easy to believe that failing grades are detrimental to the project of education.  Rather than tell a student the he is failing (most curricula are engineered to ensure that girls are more likely to be successful in school), we can find a flicker of intelligence if we just give him 100 chances to succeed and throw enough resources and money at him.  The notion that you are entitled to a bailout when you fail is one that is instilled in Americans at a young age.

Willful ignorance of the reality of scarcity leads to a false sense of security that leads to a sense of entitlement.  I would argue that the current state of the automobile industry in American is just an extension of what is wrong with our public education system, which as one of our most liberal institutions is just an extension of what is wrong with our culture.  You can blame the current economic climate on a variety of causes, but I haven’t heard anyone pinpoint the cause of our downturn to the liberal culture of entitlement that originates in our education system.

Let’s keep telling students that failure is not an option in life.  Let’s keep telling the CEOs of one failed company after another that they can have one more shot.  CEOs learn at different rates and in different ways.  It isn’t fair that a company should fail and millions of workers lose their job just because the people in charge haven’t figured out which brand of intelligence best describes their leadership style.  All CEOs are winners.  Doesn’t anyone care about what would happen to the self-esteem of these poor CEOs and union bosses if their industry  and companies were to fail.

The assembly lines of Henry Ford used to symbolize the budding greatness of America.  The public education system and the current auto industry reflect an indolent empire that believes it is entitled to an infinite portion of scarcity.