A Nation of Scholars, Scouting for Cookies, Etc.

Let’s just hope they were learning something. According to a new Census Bureau report, “More than one-fourth of the population, 72 million people, were in school in 1999.” That breaks down to 8 million in nursery school and kindergarten, 33 million inelementary school, 16 million in high school and 15 million in college.

Being a parent is an all-too-humbling experience. There is, though, one respect in which today’s parents are oddly confident: Polls consistently show they feel they’re better at parenting than their own parents were.