How to put a condom on a banana is hardly education. The skulls full of mush will then believe that they can have sexual relations as long as they have a banana and a condom with them.
Here it is in a nutshell: a politicized, politically correct educational establishment that teaches garbage in the interest of social engineering lies at fault. Which is why home-schooled kids typically do better by all objective measures.
Allow me to simplify this: teach crap, get crap. And that’s your problem right there.
I would say that you could do all of these things but if we do not return to expelling problem students that improvement will be marginal.
I also will say that there is no way public institutions will be able to compete with home-school cooperatives running advanced curricula.
What a clear, concise, and accurate summing up of several of education’s big problems!
We should try and give high school seniors a 1958 graduation test and see how they do. It would be an eye opener as to how much they have learned. California only has, about, a 50% graduation rate and we are told they need more money? Amazing. We should also cut teachers pay every year that the graduation rate is below 80% and not allow them to dumb down the education to accomplish this. Also, tenure should go out the window.
Excerpts from Zacharias Montgomery:
"My countrymen, disguise the fact as we may, there is in this country to-day, and in both the political Parties, an element which is ripe for a centralized despotism. There are men and corporations of vast wealth, whose iron grasp spans this whole continent, and who find it more difficult and more expensive to corrupt thirty odd State Legislatures than one Federal Congress. It was said of Nero of old that he wished the Roman people had but one head, so that he might cut it off at a single blow. And so it is with those moneyed kings who would rule this country through bribery, fraud, and intimidation.
"It is easy to see how, with all the powers of government centered at Washington in one Federal head, they could at a single stroke put an end to American liberty.
"But they well understand that before striking this blow the minds of the people must be prepared to receive it. And what surer or safer preparation could possibly be made than is now being made, by indoctrinating the minds of the rising generation with the idea that ours is already a consolidated government ; that the States of the Union have no sovereignty which is not subordinate to the will and pleasure of the Federal head, and that our Constitution is the mere creature of custom, and may therefore be legally altered or abolished by custom.
"Such are a few of the pernicious and poisonous doctrines which ten millions of American children are today drinking in with the very definitions of the words they are compelled to study. And yet the man who dares to utter a word of warning of the approaching danger is stigmatized as an enemy to education and unfit to be men tioned as a candidate for the humblest office.
"Be it so. Viewing this great question as I do, not for all the offices in the gift of the American people would I shrink from an open and candid avowal of my sentiments. If I have learned anything from the reading of history, it is that the man who, in violation of great principles, toils for temporary fame, purchases for himself either total oblivion or eternal infamy, while he who temporarily goes down battling for right principles always deserves, and generally secures, the gratitude of succeeding ages, and will carry with him the sustaining solace of a clean conscience, more precious than all the offices and honors in the gift of man.
"History tells us that Aristides was voted into banishment because he was just. Yet who would not a thousand times rather today be Aristides than be numbered amongst the proudest of his persecutors.
"Socrates, too, in violation of every principle of justice, was con demned to a dungeon and to death. Yet what name is more honored in history than his? And which of his unjust judges would not gladly, hide himself in the utter darkness of oblivion from the with ering scorn and contempt of all mankind ?
"From the noble example of Aristides and of Socrates let American statesmen learn wisdom, and from the undying infamy of their cow ardly time-serving persecutors let political demagogues of today take warning"
So said Montgomery in 1886.
I still appreciate the “new” math classes I had in JrHS in the 60’s (SMSG).
7. EDUCATION AND KIDS WITH AN ATTITUDE THAT LEARNING IS FOR “WHITE FOLKS” OR “GRINGOS”
8. NO FATHER IN THE HOME
9. STUPID PARENTS HAVE STUPID KIDS
CONCLUSIONS
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The problem with U.S. education is that it is PUBLIC!
“Public” by definition means that it is socialist-funded, godless, collectivist managed, and run by the voting mob. How on earth can that be successful?
When is Bruce going to give it up? He persists in his quixotic quest to reform the unreformable.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to fix schools that are fundamentally, to their very core, socialist-funded, collectivist-managed, godless, and owned by the voting mob.
Solution: Begin the process of getting government out of the education business from pre-K to graduate school!
Even Edmund Burke, in his "Speech on Conciliation . . . ." before the British Parliament in 1775, made the following observation about education in America and its effect on their ability to understand liberty, as well as their ability to stave off threats to their liberty, or, as he put it, "snuff the approach of tyrany in every tainted breeze.":
"me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the growth and effect of this untractable spirit. I mean their education. In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general a study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful; and in most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies sent to the congress were lawyers. But all who read, and most do read, endeavour to obtain some smattering in that science. I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the plantations. The colonists have now fallen into the way of printing them for their own use. I hear that they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's Commentaries in America as in England. General Gage marks out this disposition very particularly in a letter on your table. He states, that all the people in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in law; and that in Boston they have been enabled, by successful chicane, wholly to evade many parts of one of your capital penal constitutions. The smartness of debate will say, that this knowledge ought to teach them more clearly the rights of legislature, their obligations to obedience, and the penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty well. But my honourable and learned friend on the floor, who condescends to mark what I say for animadversion, will disdain that ground. He has heard, as well as I, that when great honours and great emoluments do not win over this knowledge to the service of the state, it is a formidable adversary to government. If the spirit be not tamed and broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn and litigious. Abeunt studia in mores. This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries,the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze."
Perhaps the kind of "educated electorate" America's Founders envisioned would understand that the consequence of deficits and debt is slavery, oppression, and tyranny. Perhaps such an electorate would recognize tyranny masked as a promise to "redistribute the wealth" of others who have earned it to cronies, union big wigs, and assorted other voting blocks in order to assure power for the person making such promises.
His stand against such government-controlled schooling was based on his analysis of the movement in America to the Year 1886, and he documented much of his reasoning with facts from government reports.
Those of you participating in this thread may be interested in reading his lengthy treatise online and perhaps referring others to it.
Here are the details:
"Poison drops in the federal Senate: the school question from a parental and non-sectarian stand-point: an epitome of the educational views of Zach. Montgomery on account of which views a stubborn but fruitless effort was made in the United States Senate to prevent his confirmation as Assistant Attorney General (1886)"
Author: Montgomery, Zachariah
Subject: Education -- United States; Education and state
Publisher: Washington, D.C. : Gibson Bros., printers
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Language: English
Call number: AXU-5456
Digitizing sponsor: MSN
Book contributor: OISE - University of Toronto
Collection: toronto
His reasoning on the consequences for a people or a nation of such a system of education was sound. Sadly, those who opposed his position treated him badly and ignored his warnings--just as they ignore citizens today who do the same.
I take issue with #3.
There is simply too much to know these days.
Knowing how to find the information you need and how to apply it is critical. Being able to educate yourself on the current task at hand, solve the problem and move on is how you make progress overall.
Thanks for posting this. Those six items are the most concise summary of today’s education that I’ve ever seen. You have read through Thomas Sowell’s books to get those six items in your head...but he hits them all. My kids never spent a day in public school...and none of these items are new to me, but to see it all right there is amazing. This is going home page.
(a day late Wintertime, but I know you’ll like this posting)
b4l8r
An Enlightened, Committed People Who Understand The Principles Of Our Constitution- The Most Effective Means Of Preserving Liberty |
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"Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant - they have been cheated; asleep - they have been surprised; divided - the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? ...the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it.... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free."- James Madison
America's Constitution is the means by which knowledgeable and free people, capable of self-government, can bind and control their elected representatives in government. In order to remain free, the Founders said, the people themselves must clearly understand the ideas and principles upon which their Constitutional government is based. Through such understanding, they will be able to prevent those in power from eroding their Constitutional protections.
The Founders established schools and seminaries for the distinct purpose of instilling in youth the lessons of history and the ideas of liberty. And, in their day, they were successful. Tocqueville, eminent French jurist, traveled America and in his 1830's work, DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, wrote:
".every citizen ... is taught . the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of its Constitution ... it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon."
On the frontier, he noted that "...no sort of comparison can be drawn between the pioneer and the dwelling that shelters him.... He wears the dress and speaks the language of the cities; he is acquainted with the past, curious about the future, and ready for argument about the present.... I do not think that so much intellectual activity exists in the most enlightened and populous districts of France' " He continued, "It cannot be doubted that in the United States the instruction of the people powerfully contributes to the support of the democratic republic; and such must always be the case...where the instruction which enlightens the understanding is not separated from the moral education.."
Possessing a clear understanding of the failure of previous civilizations to achieve and sustain freedom for individuals, our forefathers discovered some timeless truths about human nature, the struggle for individual liberty, the human tendency toward abuse of power, and the means for curbing that tendency through Constitutional self-government. Jefferson's Bill For The More General Diffusion Of Knowledge For Virginia declared:
"...experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government), those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate...the minds of the people...to give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth. History, by apprizing them of the past, will enable them to judge of the future...it will qualify them judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.."
Education was not perceived by the Founders to be a mere process for teaching basic skills. It was much, much more. Education included the very process by which the people of America would understand and be able to preserve their liberty and secure their Creator-endowed rights. Understanding the nature and origin of their rights and the means of preserving them, the people would be capable of self government, for they would recognize any threats to liberty and "nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud." (Adams) (Read about "Our Ageless Constitution" at this site).
A review of textbooks used in the schools until the mid-20th Century reveals a very different curriculum than has existed for many decades now.
It seems the so-called "public schools" stopped performing the role described by the Founders about the time the "progressives" took control of the mechanisms of what now passes for "education" in America. Perhaps the near explosion of home schools and private schools over the past couple of decades has contributed to recent renewed interest in the ideas of liberty and America's founding principles. Is it too little, too late?