A Failing Grade.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Education: Today is National Teacher Day and it will go mostly overlooked, much like the proper teaching of economics in today's classrooms.

Through more than a decade of providing workshops and seminars for high school teachers, the Foundation for Teaching Economics confirms what we've believed for years: Many high school teachers are skeptical of capitalism and believe it is not a fair system for the poor.

"These views affect what they tell their students and often translate into an anti-business attitude in their instruction," writes Jim Klauder, an FTE vice president.

The Foundation for Teaching Economics is a nonprofit organization that exists to improve economic education in the U.S. It's a noble goal, and not one that can be achieved without a remarkable effort. The education establishment is a rather intractable beast.

Partly because of the skewed instruction they received in the classroom, too many Americans reflexively dismiss capitalism and the free market as being the effective engines behind our successful economy. They seem to think that our economy is driven by pirates, even though they're part of a system where free people engage in a voluntary commerce. Somehow, they miss that point entirely.

Consider the pejorative phrases ...