The current school system churns out millions of illiterates and mental zombies-but here's how we're going to fix it, starting today. Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, parents across the nation grapple with a new and horrifying understanding of just how bad our educational system has become. It all adds up to a system that seems hopelessly, terribly, and irrevocably broken. But as an educator and author, Andrew Bernstein reminds us that American education in the nineteenth through early-twentieth century was superb. This nation once knew how to turn out the brightest, most resourceful and independent-thinking people the world had ever seen. We can do it again.