Posted on 09/09/2019 6:51:13 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Many practical people say the situation is hopeless. The Education Establishment controls the country’s public schools with an unyielding grip.
Unfortunately, these educrats seem to be socialist ideologues. (That’s not surprising as their Godfather—that is, John Dewey—was a socialist ideologue.) They are obsessed with social engineering, not academic gains. The school is for them a laboratory where they can design the brave new child that will populate their Brave New World. Whether these new children can read, write, or do arithmetic does not seem to be a major concern.
Just as unsettling, our Education Establishment has created a far-reaching support structure which seems to include much of the media, higher education, unions, scores of foundations, and great chunks of the government. This is a vast interlocking network perhaps better called The Octopus For Our Time. In short, nobody corrects the Education Establishment. They do what they want; and the American people can eat cake.
So is there any way these ideologues can be removed from their Marie Antoinette throne? Yes, the public— i.e. everyone— must be 1) better informed and 2) more demanding. That’s the formula.
Aristotelian traditions argue that people “overcome ignorance and pursue knowledge through investigating into the causes of things.” There is also a religious tradition asserting that God ordered, “Let light shine out of darkness.” That's what we desperately need: knowledge, understanding, and light.
The shocking thing about K-12 in America is that most parents understand nothing about what goes on there. Even the teachers probably don’t know how to explain or justify the methods used. The media, government agencies, and big universities seem oblivious. You probably never encounter anything in the media which explains K-12 machinations. (Search the archives of your local paper and see for yourself.)
We learned in 2018 that CNN can spend entire months on the tiniest smidgen of an allegation about Trump, but not one minute on the proven collapse of literacy in our public schools. Is that not odd? What if those priorities were reversed? Let CNN investigate illiteracy for months. The country could be transformed in that short time.
Reading is just one subject but definitely the most important. All that’s necessary is that parents realize that the Education Establishment promotes methods that don’t work. We should not let them get away with this nonsense.
Our professors pushed Sight-words – that is, non-phonetic instruction to teach reading – into public schools starting in 1931. The method is counterintuitive, counterproductive, and counterfeit. Rudolf Flesch explained all this in his famous book, Why Johnny Can’t Read (1955). But our Education Establishment never seemed interested in what worked, but what they could get away with. So for the last 75 years we have been weakened by a parasitic hoax.
There, that's the kind of unpleasant knowledge we need. If only teachers would bother to learn what damages they are inflicting on their students. If parents would take a few minutes to grasp what is happening to their children at school, the classrooms could be fixed.
If every American understood, personally and viscerally, what is going on in the schools, then maybe we can roll back the tide. For sure, more knowledge is the necessary first step.
Our Education Establishment has done a brilliant job of controlling the education debate, the jargon, the lies, the propaganda, the shuck, and the jive. Ideally, the Education Establishment moves past its fixation with John Dewey, and starts to look at classrooms not in terms of ideological hegemony but in more human terms: are children learning what they need to succeed in our complex modern society?
Bottom line: we need to raise the level of the education debate in this country. At present, it’s basically infantile, like children discussing the national debt. That’s because the average American knows so little about what goes on in K-12, which in turn is because our Education Establishment is brilliant at protecting itself from criticism.
The Education Establishment works tirelessly to promote inferior ideas and to stifle criticism. We have to work around them.
If millions of typical citizens suddenly realized, “Oh, so that’s why my kid can’t read,” everything would improve. Parents and community leaders could become a force for genuine education.
It’s amazing that the average American has contempt for politicians, journalists, used-car salesmen, televangelists, politicians, and such. But I suspect that the people running our public schools are bigger scoundrels. They keep selling us Chinese drywall and we keep taking it. Enough.
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This is the short version. "Saving K-12"is the long version.
1. Ban teacher’s unions
2. School choice
3. Let kids test out of school by the conclusion of the 10th grade and get the first year of community college free.
Kick the communists out of the education system.
Go back to teaching starting with the three Rs.
Absolute discipline with NO social engineering BS.
Ban public schools. Create a private system whereby people with expertise may be vetted, travel, and be compensated for delivering education to homes and communities as requested by said homes and communities.
This is the right answer.
Oh, oh, oh! I know!
Shutter all the public screwls and home school.
Eliminate public programs and within a generation or two a whole sea of problems will be solved.
It’s all women. Thus just get used to it and deal
Let them say whatever and go “ yes ma’am “
That’s what I teach my boys. 4.th and 7 th grade. In the thick of it
I miss punctuation and the proper use of the language.
We (myself included) have failed our children for generations.
4. Return to the text books of the early 20th century, e.g., “The McGuffy Reader. My aunt was a teacher in a one-room “normal school”, and many of the books are in the shelves at the family homestead.
DH is a physicist and he can’t believe how difficult the arithmetic and science books for sixth graders were then — stuff taught in high school and college now. Grammer was advanced, too.
Last trip back there we found the speech Mom gave at eighth grade graduation. Unbelievable.
Solution: Vouchers, tax credits, charters.
Use “labor management consultants” to bust the government-related unions—not only the NEA but all of them. There are many. Labor management consultants were used against men in factories *in the private sector* during the late 1970s and after. What was good for the private sector gander will be good for the public sector goose. Get it done!
My homeschooled kids started community college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13.
My suggestion:
Any child of any age who passes the GED or has an SAT or ACT score above a certain level is deemed literate and numerate and can be granted an official high school diploma from their local government school district. That diploma opens up many opportunities for scholarships and military service.
The Education Establishment controls the country’s public schools with an unyielding grip.
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America has many dangerous enemies, and the “education establishment” may be at the very top of the list. Voters and our elected stooges better damn site wake up and deal with that threat, although it may now be impossible to repair the damage it has already done.
Abolish government schools.
I really appreciate all the heartfelt answers and comments.
But the article is saying you won’t get any satisfaction by big sweeping answers (which are unlikely to be adopted anyway).
.
You have to understand the mechanics of what is going on in the classrooms.
Think like a doctor. We have to cut into the sick patient and cut out the tumors.
You could abolish this or that. But the educrats would continue to outplay everyone as they have for the last century. They win as long as they control the theories and methods used inside the classroom. For example, if they can make the children semi-illiterate, game over.
Accountability.
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