Free Republic

Mass government education is just mass indoctrination into a program mandated by the federal government across all fifty states “To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm.” – Friedrich Hayek, The Pretence of Knowledge The week of June 11, 2016 issue of The Economist published a one page editorial on “How to make a good teacher.” It makes a very weak case that teachers can be...

Public schools are expert at creating illiteracy. Our K-12 system can usually guarantee that students don't become fluent readers. The system is nearly foolproof. Parents and teachers can make children illiterate or semi-literate simply by following this well-tested seven-step formula: 1) FORGET ABOUT THE ALPHABET. Do not teach the alphabet, the sounds, or the blends. Reading maestro Frank Smith maintained in Reading Without Nonsense (1973): "I have said that children should not be taught the alphabet[.] ... Until children have a good idea of what reading is about, learning the names of letters is largely a nonsense activity."

With all of the smart technology in this technological age, maybe we should look at instituting smarter curriculum for our future leaders. That isn't rocket science. It's computer science We have to do everything we can to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit, wherever we find it. We should be helping American companies compete and sell their products all over the world. We should be making it easier and faster to turn new ideas into new jobs and new businesses. And we should knock down any barriers that stand in the way. Because if we’re going to create jobs now and in...

What does it say when in two days a teacher exhausts the ink in his red pen? Since a nation cannot be “ignorant and free," as Thomas Jefferson put it, it perhaps means we face a threat graver than the Red Menace. Apathetic or even hostile students, dumbed-down tests, often incompetent and ideologically driven teachers, Cracker Jack-box degrees, morally toxic curricula, revisionist history, the new math — education has collapsed in America. And one of the sincere educators, wandering amidst the rubble, recently provided a window into this academic apocalypse.

A good shepherd doesn’t just cuddle his sheep. He also fights off wolves. In light of this, here are five things I recommend all pastors do to protect their flocks from false prophets, false apostles, and false teachers. Show them the math. In other words, don’t just teach the Bible correctly. Take some time to show them how you arrived at your interpretation. The problem with a lot of preaching is that people are not being taught how to interpret Scripture for themselves. Thus, they can’t spot unsound interpretations. So you need to teach them sound principles of biblical interpretation,...

It is a common scene in World War II movies: a captain maneuvers in close to a big ship and fires a spread of torpedoes. None of them detonate. Some submarine officers lost the will to fight and had nervous breakdowns. In fact, German engineering was not always at fault. Sabotage (sporadic, opportunistic, often a personal enterprise) was almost a second army arrayed against the Third Reich. Here are some revealing war stories: 'U-505s fifth patrol, in July 1943, lasted less than two weeks--she was attacked by Allied airplanes and had to return to France for repair. The next four...

In 2008, Ed Boland, a well-off New Yorker who had spent 20 years as an executive at a nonprofit, had a midlife epiphany: He should leave his white-glove world, the galas at the Waldorf and drinks at the Yale Club, and go work with the city’s neediest children. “The Battle for Room 314: My Year of Hope and Despair in a New York City High School” (Grand Central Publishing) is Boland’s memoir of his brief, harrowing tenure as a public school teacher, and it’s riveting. There’s nothing dry or academic here. It’s tragedy and farce, an economic and societal indictment...

Sort of a New Year's resolution... For many years I've focused on education reform; that work will continue. I have more than 400 articles on the Internet and over 3,000,000 views/visits on YouTube and various sites [e.g. FreeRepublic]. To find education articles and videos, simply enter your interest in Google with the name Bruce Deitrick Price. It's an easy way to find a lot of material quickly. You can assume this material is intelligent, practical, lucid, conservative, and intended to help every student advance as far as possible. During 2015, I was constantly struck by two main trends we need...

When we think of President Woodrow Wilson, we think of a multitude of historical events: the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank and other progressive legislation at home; idealistic internationalism, a world war to "keep the world safe for democracy," and promotion of the League of Nations abroad. Lately, we think of the Princeton University students protesting against him. In mid-November, they were agitating for the former university president's name to be removed from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs over his legacy of white supremacy. But there's another reason conservatives should revisit Woodrow Wilson. We need...

Four years ago, Tom Vander Ark (former executive at the Gates Foundation, current partner at Learn Capital) wrote in an email exchange with members of the Foundation for Excellence in Education and the Council for Chief State School Officers: “New tests will hinder rather than help competency-based models…In short, I don’t want one big cheap end of year test used for more than it should be…I don’t want it to lock in the teacher-centric age cohort model for another decade. I don’t want simple assessments…I want a system that will incorporate all the performance feedback that students will be receiving...

We frequently hear about American students’ low-test scores in science and math, and everyone from the PTA to candidates for the White House is rightly concerned with how to improve them. Indeed, this concern is a major part of our national conversation. And those who worry about our educational system often suggest that better instruction in these areas could help solve America’s economic, fiscal, and social problems, too. Certainly, there are plenty of good reasons to boost our efforts in science and math. But we should not lose sight of the fact that there are other subjects in which we...

"Catholic Teaching on Marriage and Divorce - the Bible, Our Lord, and the Constant Teaching, simple and to the point" Catholic teaching on marriage – theological background The subject of Catholic marriage is now being hotly debated at the current session of the Synod on the Family. It is thus helpful to have available an account of the essentials of Scriptural teaching on this subject, which this article will attempt to provide. The starting point for this account is the text of Deuteronomy 24;1-4: If a man take a wife, and have her, and she find not favour in his...

Rosemary Stawasz wasn't sure what Michigan's right-to-work law, enacted at the end of 2012, would mean for her. Stawasz, a special education teacher with the Van Buren Intermediate School District, worried about what would happen if she exercised her new right to not be forced to financially support the local teachers union. Under the previous law, paying union dues or fees was a condition of employment. Now, she had a choice. Educators can find out more about that choice at www.AugustOptOut.org. “I have had no problems at all," she said of the decision she made to leave the union. "The...

On August 5, German Catholic author Mathias von Gersdorff posted some important information about an upcoming event in Rome on his own website: “In the meantime, the liberal camp prepares another conference in Rome, to be held on 10-12 September 2015, and which is to deal with the themes of the Family Synod of this Fall.” And he continues: However, this time, it is not organized by the Germans, the Swiss, and the French. They had already convoked and hosted a similar conference at the end of May 2015, which had caused noticeable irritations. One even considered it to be...

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in education continue to crumble when they encounter reality. “Not a single junior at Seattle’s Nathan Hale High School showed up to take this spring’s Smarter Balanced tests (SBAC—one version of the COMMON Core standardized tests), according to a school district spokeswoman,” according to the editors at Rethinking Schools. “Earlier this year, a group of teachers, administrators, parents, and students had agreed to boycott the standardized tests, but Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Larry Nyland threatened teachers with the loss of their teachers licenses if they didn’t administer the test.” “Under this pressure, the school’s...

Despite the left’s efforts to convince us that Obama’s relationship with William Ayers was irrelevant... the facts that prove otherwise are plenty and can no longer be ignored. To understand the agenda (and lies) at the core of our new national standards, you have to go back to why many on the right were concerned about Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers to begin with – their work on education reform. The Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), a progressive education reform model rooted in the social justice pedagogy of John Dewey and Paulo Freire, was expanded by President Obama and communist...

The new academic standards known as the Common Core emphasize critical thinking, complex problem-solving and writing skills, and put less stock in rote learning and memorization. So the standardized tests given in most states this year required fewer multiple choice questions and far more writing on topics like this one posed to elementary school students: Read a passage from a novel written in the first person, and a poem written in the third person, and describe how the poem might change if it were written in the first person.

THE two chairs of the government’s review into the national curriculum fear our schools are becoming too “kumbaya” and overrun with “progressive, new-age fads” that are hurting our children. Australia is sliding behind a number of countries in education standards including Singapore, South Korea, Finland and Hong Kong — a development which Professor Ken Wiltshire and Doctor Kevin Donnelly’s report blames on the fact students have been handed autonomy in the classroom and that wishy-washy ideals like “child-guided learning” and “collaborative negotiated goal-setting” are overtaking the traditional model of teachers imparting knowledge. ..... Professor Wiltshire said he was dismayed by...

Walker has courted the homeschool community for years and, as he inches toward a presidential run, those relationships could prove more important than ever. When Scott Walker talks about education—whether he’s in the parking lot of Office Products Co. in Eau Claire, Wisc. or on stage at Disney World in front of deep-pocketed, business-friendly donors—he mentions homeschooling. Perhaps more than any other 2016er, Walker is consistent and vocal in acknowledging that homeschooling is a valid form of education—and this support could pay huge political dividends in the Republican primary. He mentioned it in his 2015 budget address, in his 2014...