Children are coming out of school dumb because they aren't taught academics. They have, instead, become experiments in behavior modification.
It's a fact. Most of today's school children can barely read or write. They can't perform math problems without a calculator. They barely know who the Founding Fathers were and know even less of their achievements. Most can't tell you the name of the President of the United States. It's pure and simple; today's children aren't coming out of school with an academic education.
Colleges know it. They have to set up remedial courses for incoming freshmen just to prepare them for classes. Parents know it. Their children grow dumber everyday.
The politicians say they know it. They hold hearings to grill education "experts," and they hold high-powered education "summits" to debate and discuss the "problem."
And they keep coming up with more federal programs and dictate more standards and spend more taxpayer dollars to fix the problem. But the problem continues to explode. Why?
Frankly, any parent can find the answer simply by looking through their child's textbooks or taking a close look at the classroom structures that their children are forced to endure.
That's just what I'm going to do for you and when I'm through, see if you still wonder why there is an education crisis. And ask yourselves why all the politicians, with huge staffs to do their bidding, can't seem to find the problem.
Restructuring the Classroom
It comes under many names; block scheduling, group learning, cooperative learning. It's all part of a radical change in the way children are handled in the classroom.
Children are paired with others for group grades. Individual achievement is de-emphasized. Under block scheduling a number of subjects are tied together in one long class. For example, math, science, health and physical education have been combined in one school. Children are supposed to learn these skills by working on class projects, such as launching an imaginary rocket to the Moon.
Presumably when faced with various problems in building their rocket, students will seek out the necessary information. They'll need math to calculate the projectory, science to find where the Moon is and health to know what to feed the astronauts. Obviously health is for astronaut training. Children are not instructed on how to do the math calculations or how to find the information they need. They are to find it for themselves. And children who can't keep up are to be helped along by other children in their group. It's called "kids helping kids." That's why teachers are now called "facilitators."
"Cooperative learning" is nothing more than a classroom-management technique that provides a convenient hiding place for bad teachers and under-achieving students. The student who doesn't care to learn, or has failed to grasp a concept, allows the rest of the group to do the work and yet gets the same grade.
What students coming out of such classes cannot do is perform math problems, recite multiplication tables, conjugate a verb or structure a sentence. Random facts picked up in the rush to complete a project do not supply the proper base or structure to understand a subject.
Math
Perhaps the most bizarre of all of the school restructuring programs is mathematics. Math is an exact science, loaded with absolutes. There can be no way to question that certain numbers add up to specific totals. Geometric statements and reasons must lead to absolute conclusions. Instead, today we get "fuzzy" Math. Of course they don't call it that.
As ED Watch explains, "Fuzzy" math's names are Everyday Math, Connected Math, Integrated Math, Math Expressions, Constructive Math, NCTM Math, Standards-based Math, Chicago Math, and Investigations, to name a few. Fuzzy Math means students won't master math: addition, subtraction, multiplications and division.
Instead, Fuzzy Math teaches students to "appreciate" math, but they can't solve the problems. Instead, they are to come up with their own ideas about how to compute.
Here's how nuts it can get. A parent wrote the following letter to explain the everyday horrors of "Everyday Math."
Everyday Math was being used in our school district. My son brought home a multiplication worksheet on estimating. He had 'estimated' that 9×9=81, and the teacher marked it wrong. I met with her and defended my child's answer. The teacher opened her book and read to me that the purpose of the exercise was not to get the right answer, but was to teach the kids to estimate. The correct answer was 100: kids were to round each 9 up to a 10. (The teacher did not seem to know that 81 was the product, as her answer book did not state the same.)
Children are not taught to memorize multiplication tables. Those who promote this concept believe that memorization is bad. Instead, children, they say, should be taught to "discover" multiplication. Students, they say, learn to multiply over several years by "thinking about math."
Social, political, multicultural and especially environmental issues are rampant in the new math programs and textbooks. One such math text is blatant. Dispersed throughout the eighth grade textbooks are short, half-page blocks of text under the heading "SAVE PLANET EARTH." One of the sections describes the benefits of recycling aluminum cans and tells students, "how you can help."
In many of these textbooks there is literally no math. Instead there are lessons asking children to list "threats to animals," including destruction of habitat, poisons and hunting. The book contains short lessons in multiculturalism under the recurring heading "Cultural Kaleidoscope." These things are simply political propaganda and are there for one purpose – behavior modification. It's not Math. Parents are now paying outside tutors to teach their children real Math – after they have been forced to sit in classrooms for eight hours a day being force-fed someone's political agenda.
English, Reading and Literature
Conjugate a verb? Diagram a sentence? Learn to spell? This is language class. We have more relevant things to learn.
In a seventh grade language arts class in Prince William County, Virginia, children are given a test entitled, "What makes you good friendship material." Children are to circle "yes," "no" or "maybe" to questions like, "Am I someone who is trusting of others; likes to have close personal friends; is able to influence others; enjoys sharing with others; can keep a secret? If you answered yes to most of these then you are really good friendship material. If not, you need to work on yourself."
One book being used in classes is called The Book of Questions. Designed around situation ethics, the authors openly admit that "this book is designed to challenge attitudes, values and beliefs." Again behavior modification – not academics — is the root of this exercise.
Here are a couple of sample questions from the book of Questions:
(1) On an airplane you are talking pleasantly to a stranger of average appearance. Unexpectedly, the person offers you $10,000 for one night of sex. Knowing that there is no danger and that payment is certain, would you accept the offer?
(2) A cave-in occurs while you and a stranger are in a concrete room deep in a mineshaft. Before the phone goes dead, you learn that the entire mine is sealed off and the air hole being drilled will not reach you for 30 hours. If you both take sleeping pills from the medicine chest, the oxygen will last for only 20 hours. Both of you can't survive; alone one of you might. After you both realize this, the stranger takes several sleeping pills and says it's in God's hands and falls asleep. You have a pistol; what do you do?
And so it goes, in Geography where, instead of looking for Colorado on a map, children are instructed to make a "Me" map to psychologically profile the children. In Civics, instead of learning how the government runs and of the great checks and balances that the Founding Fathers installed to protect our liberties, children are taught how to be "global citizens" under the UN's Declaration on Human Rights." In Health classes children are taught about Mother Earth — Gaia — with lessons on the Sierra Club as heroes.
Children are coming out of school dumb because they aren't taught academics. They have, instead, become experiments in behavior modification to prepare them to be citizens of a global village. The fault lies with the U.S. Congress, which now dictates curriculum and perpetuates the Department of Education, from which all of these evils flow.
ampolicycenter@hotmail.com
http://www.americanpolicy.org/
Read more articles by Tom DeWeese
Employed for many years as an engineer, one of my main duties was to estimate. Never in my experience would I call a 23% over estimate a good answer. If the goal were to estimate the value of 9 x 9, any number between 79 and 83 would be acceptable. With profit margins of most companies in the 6% to 10% level an estimate off by 23% would be a disaster.
Maybe we should start by teaching the principles of Adam Smith.
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | January 13, 2008
"GATE-closing plan stirs parental debate at Lincoln Middle School"
By Adam Klawonn
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 19, 2005
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20050519-9999-1mi19vusd.html
VISTA [CA] – Parents of Latino students at Vista's most ethnically diverse school are incensed over a campaign by other parents to preserve an honors program there.
The policy debate is taking place at Lincoln Middle School, where the principal is proposing mixing some of the school's most gifted students with others of mixed academic abilities in an effort to pump up test scores.
The proposal to dismantle the Gifted and Talented Education, or GATE, program at the school is supported by the Latino parents, opposed by parents of the GATE students.
The matter returns to trustees of the Vista Unified School District for review Monday night.
"All students should be treated equally," Latino parents said in a letter to the board and district administrators. "We believe that the school should not create differences between students who know more and students who know less."
All this is a result of Leftist being in charge of education. If Marxism can't succeed, capitalism must be made to fail.
Comment by sedonaman | January 13, 2008
If parents would stop sending their children to propaganda camp every day for 8 hours and tell their school administrators why, a lot of change could be affected. Complacent lemmings who are more concerned with having their kids out of their hair 8 hours a day while they have their career than having their children actually learn are a breeding ground for social engineering.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | January 13, 2008
Sedonaman
You are exactly right. In the 60's I graduated from high school after 4 years of an advanced science and math course. 4 more years as an apprentice helped me enter engineering without a college degree. 20 years later I was leading a meeting with 3 others who had PhD's. Had I been limited to classes with "students who know less" who knows where I would be today. Maybe in jail?
PM
Why should parents pay for schools that are not good enough for their children?
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | January 13, 2008
Ivan,
I don't believe parents should pay for schools that are not good enough for their children. Unfortunately, there is no option to stop paying. That leaves only one option available: deny the school of students. If 50% of the parents in America held their kids out of school for a week they could affect change. If 50% of parents in America actually cared about what their kids are doing at school, they may actually be interested in affecting change. I don't think that's the case.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | January 13, 2008
[…] Government Education. Clooz on wye it fales. Intellectual Conservative Politics and Philosophy Why is Public Education Failing? __________________ * The Second Amendment was not for hunting. Any Freepers here? […]
Pingback by Government Education. Clooz on wye it fales. - SpartanTailgate.com - Michigan State Spartans Forums | January 13, 2008
Public education (or more accurately, government education) has never actually been about the students themselves. The kids are just fodder in a money-and-power-making machine that serves the ends of communists and their ilk.
Everyone - get your kids out of government schools now. Don't fool yourself into thinking that your school/neighborhood is okay, that these problems only exist elsewhere. Just the attitude that the schools and courts take, that the kids are "theirs" and not yours should be enough to convince anyone, let alone the tragedies that the article describes.
Comment by GriffithLea | January 14, 2008
The roots of this issue go back a number of years. Remember the movie Blackboard Jungle…the first chronicle of the failure of public education?
I was a community college administrator in 1975 when we created our "new" basic skills classes. Why were they created? Failure of our public schools. Students were very incensed when they found the basic skills courses were non-credit. They couldn't read, write, or compute but they were able to figure out that they needed an extra year to get though a community college. Failure rates were extreme until the faculty went to feel good grades, then the failure rate in regular classes went through the roof until the faculty went to feel good grades, then our community college graduates could not read, write, or compute.
It sounds like things have gone further down since the mid-70s. Hard to believe it but take a look at 4 year graduates today being taught to read, write, and compute by their employers if they haven't terminated them first.
Oh well, the latino parents are right we should not emphasize the difference between those that know more and those that know less. This way we will have a good pool for the jobs that those that know more don't care to perform.
Comment by Mickey G | January 14, 2008
Mickey G:
Not only is remedial instruction being given in community colleges but top universities as well in order to make their Affirmative Action programs work. Take a look at the figures at the end of this article http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/116/articles/bronner2.htm , especially the last one. You will note there is a special category for minority students, “Admit to remedial program”.
It’s bad enough that colleges have to offer remedial programs, but a TOP university?
Comment by sedonaman | January 14, 2008
[…] Why Public Education Is Failing The Test Source: Intellectual Conservative Politics and Philosophy Why is Public Education Failing? Quote: […]
Pingback by Why Public Education Is Failing The Test - Political Forum - US & World Political Discussion Forums | January 14, 2008
In the early 1970's, I signed up at a local community college to use up some of my GI bill for continuing business education. I attended a class of recent high school graduates in business math. The students could not solve for one unknown, and the teacher did not know how to explain it. I had to get up, go to the blackboard and instruct the class myself!
You are correct, the public school system in our country is a failure. It is all about the NEA and the teachers, they care nothing about the children. Brainwashing is a proper term in this instance.
Comment by babwax | January 14, 2008
An article I can pretty much whole heartedly agree with. I even agree with Patrick!
This, regrettably, is the only thing I disagree with: “Frankly, any parent can find the answer simply by looking through their child's textbooks or taking a close look at the classroom structures that their children are forced to endure.” Children are only forced to endure it because their parent’s force them – they can homeschool their children.
On one occasion when I was confronted by a teacher about the inadequacy of homeschooling, I was fortunate enough to have to hand a simple math problem my children had just completed. Here it is: “Traveling today [from El Puerto to Cordoba, passing through Al Arahal and Ecija] we covered 180 kilometers. The distance between Al Arahal and Ecija was 30% as long as the distance between El Puerto and El Arahal, and the distance between Ecija and Cordoba was half the distance between El Puerto and El Arahal. What was the distance a) from El Puerto to El Arahal? b) The distance between Al Arahal and Ecija? And c) the distance between Ecija and Cordoba?” [From my book Escaping Britain]
My children did the math over dinner in a Parador in Spain. They were eight and ten at the time. Neither the ‘teacher’ nor his two children (both finished school) could solve that simple problem.
Incredible!!
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | January 15, 2008
My wife's grandson lives in Lithuania, and at 11 speaks 3 languages. She told me that he was doing his homework which involved solving for one side of a rectangle given the other side and the area. I wonder how many American 5th graders can match this. Of course she has 2 PhD's and his mother has an MA, so it runs in the family.
Comment by Ivan Ivanovich | January 15, 2008
I just hate to break the news to the abhorrently self-serving and detestably politically correct boobeaucracy - the capability of benefitting from an education properly structured and presented always was and always will be the province of a meritocracy. Said meritocracy will be founded on:
1. Supportive family environment.
2. Committed and competent teachers.
3. A school administration unshackled by politically correct
restraints.
4. An educational bureaucracy which is truly interested in
education rather than expanding its empire and protecting its
jobs by politically correct indoctrination.
The political educational bureaucracy is currently a death-knell to re-instituting a proper educational environment in America!
Comment by patriot-1 | January 16, 2008
patriot-1:
And the most important: #1 - Supportive family environment.
Perhaps I've been a little too hard on public schools. I used to be a first level engineering supervisor of about 15 engineers and techs; three of the engineers under me were Vietnamese, two of them were women. They were my best workers. The man was promoted to my position after I left. They had come to the US as children of boat people who fled the communists after the fall of Saigon. They all spoke with slight accents, so I know English was their second language.
The thought occurred to me that since they obviously went through the American public school system for a good portion of their education (including college), public schools must be providing the information necessary to be successful. Then I recalled an article about 15 years prior in Scientific American entitled, "Why Vietnamese Children Succeed in American Schools Where Others Fail." The family placed great emphasis on learning; there was an accompanying photo of a whole family studying around a small kitchen table. Their attitude was, “yes, there is racial discrimination in America, but overcome it with education.” Of course, this was all just before Leftists really took control of the schools and fostered attitudes like the ones held by Latino parents in the Vista school system noted above.
Comment by sedonaman | January 17, 2008