Why are education levels continuing to drop? Quite possibly because the establishment continues to focus on the wrong things:

When it comes to correcting papers and grading tests, purple is emerging as the new red.

"If you see a whole paper of red, it looks pretty frightening," said Sharon Carlson, a health and physical education teacher at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Northampton. "Purple stands out, but it doesn't look as scary as red."

That's the cue pen makers and office supply superstores say they have gotten from teachers as the $15 billion back-to-school retail season kicks off. They say focus groups and conversations with teachers have led them to conclude that a growing number of the nation's educators are switching to purple, a color they perceive as "friendlier" than red.

Friendly. Nice. Because we all understand how a big purple F is so much friendlier than the red version. Well, maybe not an F at all - some schools use the letter grade of E for Effort in place of F for Failure.

A mix of red and blue, the color purple embodies red's sense of authority but also blue's association with serenity, making it a less negative and more constructive color for correcting student papers, color psychologists said. Purple calls attention to itself without being too aggressive. And because the color is linked to creativity and royalty, it is also more encouraging to students.

"The concept of purple as a replacement for red is a pretty good idea," said Leatrice Eiseman, director of the Pantone Color Institute in Carlstadt, N.J., and author of five books on color. "You soften the blow of red. Red is a bit over-the-top in its aggression."

Good thinking. Creativity always trumps accuracy and royal mistakes are far preferable to common ones. The correct answer is ordinary enough to be ignored, but mistakes are worthy of note by the encouraging scribble of the friendly purple marker. It is always most productive to encourage children when they do things wrong. (Something about that last statement rings a bell but I just can't put my salivary gland on it.) </sarcasm>

Making mistakes at school is not meant to be a friendly experience. It is meant to be a learning experience. The point of education is to teach kids reading, writing and arithmetic.

In my college English Composition course, Dr. Shirley Thomas was famed for her red ink usage. When your paper was returned, it always appeared as if she used it to staunch a severed artery. Did it feel good to decipher her red comments and see what I did wrong? Not at all, but it was profitable. The majority of my writing skills today are a testament to her ability to teach composition. She did not coddle or comfort or soften even a single blow; yet she did a fine job of teaching the art of writing to those students fortunate enough to be assigned to her classes.

Everything you read here is a result of my suffering beneath her brutal red sword. I don't have self-esteem issues, but do I like to believe that I can write.

It is sometimes said that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. We live in a culture of vaccinations where we tolerate a certain level of risk to ensure that our children will not suffer from the horrible diseases of the past. Yet, the prevailing attitude in education is one which is not willing to risk one child feeling bad about him or herself. It is heading toward the level of softening or eliminating correction in order to preserve the fragile psyche of the child.

I don't believe this is a simple failure to innoculate; instead it is vaccinating our children against success.