The 'New Age Clowns' were those folks in the mid 1980s who, fresh out of Uni decided to dumb down education. A dumbed down education system made everybody appear to be doing well, even the dumbest of the dumb gets through. This in turn made the teachers appear to be great at their jobs and the schools were considered the place to send your kids. The reality is that we now have people who cannot spell correctly and have poor math skills. Even Matric (year 12) can be a joke with kids doing rubbish subjects and leaving the Maths, English and Science alone. The older teachers who opposed the dumbing down were driven out of the system, my (ex) girlfriend being one of them. Males were especially targeted as they tended to hold on to the traditional ways. I could ramble on and on but, I'm hungry and need to eat.