I posted previously on Andrew Coulson’s observation that public education costs more nationally than ever, but produces a result no better than decades ago.
How did the world’s richest nation, with so many sharp people, wind up in this predicament?
We abandoned the opportunities for choice in education.
Choice produces competition between objects from which one may choose.
Mistakes are not a matter of intellect, but of a system without incentives. There were and are plenty of smart Russians, but Soviet planning provided no incentive to talent and effort.
Without the competition that choice imposes, stagnation, business as usual, and conventionality take hold.