"Vast and militant ignorance" - yes.

Yep. RR (a Rail Roading and Ronald Reagan are the same thing) made it worse but, as the article points out, NCLB was of no help. We've made fun of education for as long as I remember and I no longer really care about it at all. "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls. And tenement halls."

The most ignorant are most of Salon, cnn, msnbc, ABC,...

It is clear who the profoundly ignorant and stupid of humans in the US are, when they spew shit like::::::
"Men can become women just by clicking their little heals, and say the magic words, "I am a woman."

That is mental illness based in a total lack or awareness of reality..... Hence, ignorance: the state of being unaware or uninformed.