tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44708445840031093082024-03-19T06:22:18.504-04:00--Education IMPROVED--by Bruce Deitrick Price / To see 120 titles, select FLIPCARD (by LEFT margin) Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comBlogger109125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-54501746188745167972018-07-19T18:12:00.001-04:002018-10-02T21:38:39.364-04:00Save K-12: Here Are the Reform Ideas You Need<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">This <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/brucedeitrickp/save-k-12-the-reform-we-need/">Pinterest page </a>presents a good cross-section of my work. </span></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">I hope you will pass it on to your friends as a simple way to say, you might be interested in this.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> I’d been wondering for years whether I could use <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/brucedeitrickp/save-k-12-the-reform-we-need/">Pinterest </a>in some way. Here's my first attempt. It’s 15 articles and videos, plus a link to my education site Improve-Education.org (70 articles) and a link to my archive on American Thinker (100 articles).</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span>------------------------------------------------------------------</span>-----------------------------------------------------</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> ---------------------------------------------------------------------</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Every week I pick up a new signal suggesting schools are getting worse. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">I think our Education Establishment launches one bad idea after another. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It’s as if they are scared that the public will wake up today </span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and stop all this nonsense. But the public doesn’t wake up. </span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I wouldn’t be surprised if our Education Establishment is constantly shocked </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">that they get away with so much counterproductive chicanery. </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Anyway, if you are interested in education reform, </b></span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>if you sense that things could be better without a lot of trouble, </b></span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>then my work might be helpful to you. </b></span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>I’m good at explaining the sophistry and dysfunction</b></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b> all through our public schools.</b></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-indent: 36px;">https://www.pinterest.com/brucedeitrickp/save-k-12-the-reform-we-need/</span></div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-32355690179730251602018-05-11T14:01:00.000-04:002018-06-01T18:33:14.110-04:00People at the TOP must STOP supporting our Education Establishment<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">If you are concerned about education reform, you should ask yourself what the biggest obstacle is.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Many people love to blame everything on parents. And everybody else likes to blame our mediocre schools on a shortage of money, even though this country spends more per capita than anybody else.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Let’s suppose you have an Education Establishment which is deliberately dumbing down the public schools. (If they weren't deliberately doing it, the decline wouldn’t happen so thoroughly and completely, year after year.) Naturally, this guilty Education Establishment tries to blame bad schools on everything but themselves. (Nobody should not take any of the official excuses seriously. They’re all on the level of Bill Clinton discussing the meaning of “is.”)</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I propose all of our problems can be explained simply. Two factors. Our Education Establishment has installed all the dysfunctional ideas they could <b>find or design</b> in our schools. (Here is a short explanation of these ideas: <a href="http://www.improve-education.org/id83.html"><span style="color: #011a99; letter-spacing: 0px;">http://www.improve-education.org/id83.html</span></a> )</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7gNnicTQLcLN-CHA72PMgcrm7l0dR9CBU3Jto9wIi5ziPv1paylaBnUNZ4tjRj0A0d7DjBxN8aVllTgCPaPFKhdEeqakXN2y419jhiUuOVIQylU0PPag2dEqyjssl0og5_N6MkHTTyRcC/s1600/coversmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="356" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7gNnicTQLcLN-CHA72PMgcrm7l0dR9CBU3Jto9wIi5ziPv1paylaBnUNZ4tjRj0A0d7DjBxN8aVllTgCPaPFKhdEeqakXN2y419jhiUuOVIQylU0PPag2dEqyjssl0og5_N6MkHTTyRcC/s320/coversmall.jpg" width="212" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Then a second factor came into play. The Education Establishment has successfully bullied, bamboozled, distracted, or narcotized the upper class, the people who run the society, the movers and shakers. That is, they used to be movers and shakers. Now they are passive and useless.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am fascinated by this dereliction of duty. I believe at one time our noblesse felt more oblige. Now they seem to be perfectly indifferent to the fact that half the society can’t read, not in any real sense. I say these upper-level people should feel more guilt and be more involved. These are, after all, the people used to making decisions and running things. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Summary: this country definitely needs its best and brightest to be an opposition force to our mostly destructive Education Establishment. Discuss this idea with your friends or in your local paper. Fight the power.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> For further discussion of these themes, see “K-12: Let The Peasants Eat Popcorn.” https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/05/k12_let_the_peasants_eat_popcorn.html</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-84434739138560199592018-04-09T20:34:00.000-04:002018-04-09T20:34:08.864-04:00Differentiated Learning = something different for everybody = Individualized IgnoranceExperts have another big idea they want to impose on the country, preferably now and in the dark of night.<br />
<br />
I'm sorry but it's the same thing over and over again. New Math, Whole Word, Common Core, Constructivism, and all the rest. There's a sudden rush of hyperbole. The premise is that this thing is God's final gift to us, and we must embrace it immediately. But smart people know that you must test new ideas in a limited area over time. The very fact that they want to do it fast and for everybody without proper testing tells me it's another loser.<br />
<br />
(See background article on <b><a href="https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/02/customized_learning_means_every_student_learns_something_different.html">American Thinker </a></b>about customized learning, also known as individualized learning, also known as differentiated learning. That's typical. To have three different names for the same thing so right off the bat, nobody knows what anybody else is talking about.)<br />
<br />
The basic idea is that each student has a different curriculum or different textbook, so to speak. You learn whatever it is you learn, I learn whatever it is I learn. We do not necessarily have anything in common, anything that we can discuss over lunch. Another name for this phenomenon is fragmentation.<br />
<br />
<b>The more I think about individualized learning, the more reasons I have to distrust it. </b><br />
<br />
The first thing you think of is that there will be a lot of extra work and bookkeeping. If a teacher has 25 students that means the teacher is responsible for 24 new Individualized Education Plans (IEP's).<br />
<br />
So this is another chapter in the ruthless disregard and contempt we show for our teachers. They don't have enough work now so let's give them dozens of new students, so to speak. (This whole gambit may be mainly concerned with creating the illusion of work for the many thousands of unnecessary administrators we have.)<br />
<br />
And all these extra IEP's have to create a welter of chaos. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the class is in effect in a different classroom. The only place all the stuff comes together and becomes coherent is in a computer somewhere which is keeping track of all the different things that Tom and Dick are studying.<br />
<br />
So here are my two big objections. This whole individualized gimmick is a juggernaut directed against a society, and the cultural cohesion of the society. It used to be that every kid knew that in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Not to mention, that four score and seven years ago our fathers did such and such.<br />
<br />
Resolved: it's the school's job to pick out the things that everybody should know, and then make sure everybody knows them. I believe this coherence is the main target of individualized instruction. They want anarchy. They want entropy. They want confusion and chaos. And now they have an authorized way to do it.<br />
<br />
Wait, there's more. Individualized instruction is not practical without computer learning, or digital instruction. It's the computer that knows the lesson, to whom it's to be taught, how to do it, and so on. So whose job is minimized usually? The teacher's job. The teacher actually no longer has a job in this scheme.<br />
<br />
Already, Constructivism had reduced the teacher to a facilitator, a guide, a helper, someone who could make a suggestion now and then. That's the degradation our teachers have suffered. They are no longer teachers at all. Individualized instruction caps this off thoroughly. Perhaps the teacher assigns a number to each student and from then on the teacher has nothing to do. The busywork expands terrifically. The bookkeeping. The record-keeping. The administrative stuff that administrators should be doing will also be done by the teacher.<br />
<br />
<b> So even if the teacher may be busy on all kinds of busy-work, it's quite possible that the teacher will never be actually teaching, as in transmitting knowledge to students. Teachers and teaching are what will be destroyed by individual learning.</b><br />
<br />
I hope everyone will think about this from their own experience and point of view. Be very dubious about our Education Establishment. I don't know if they lie all the time; but I believe they lie much of the time. So when these ideas are proposed, please challenge them.<br />
<br />
You have to always understand that even as all these administrative changes are made, the actual content is being scrambled and altered. These kids don't learn to look for right answers. They learn to find some answer that they can explain. Imagine that each child in the classroom is working on a different math problem and each one has a different wrong answer that they have figured out how to defend.<br />
<br />
A famous professor at Notre Dame has declared that his students don't know who won the Civil War. These kids are "know nothings," according to this professor. But even he probably does not realize the full ramifications. Thanks to individualized instruction, each kid will know <i>a different wrong answer.</i> Isn't that poetry for the Devil's ears?<br />
<br />
One kid will say South Carolina won the Civil War. Another will say Germany. Another one will confidently say France. Another will say Canada. Another will say New York City. And on the merry parade will go.<br />
<br />
<b>In fact, I don't think the name individualized instruction is correct. It should be individualized ignorance.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>---</b><br />
<br />
<b style="color: #444444; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 18px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;"><i>Bruce Deitrick Price's new book is </i></b><a href="http://lit4u.com/saving-k-12" style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 18px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #011a99; letter-spacing: 0px;">“Saving K-12”</span></a><b style="color: #444444; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 18px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;"><i> He deconstructs educational theories and methods on </i></b><a href="http://improve-education.org/" style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 18px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #011a99; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>Improve-Education.org</i></span></a><b style="color: #444444; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 18px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;"><i>. Support his work on </i></b><a href="http://patreon.com/BruceDeitrickPrice" style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 18px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Patreon. </span></a><br />
<br />
<br />Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-88289538951738777942018-04-02T18:05:00.001-04:002018-06-01T18:35:20.308-04:00 Why You Need to Read "Saving K-12 -- What happened to our public schools? How do we fix them?"<div style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Subtitle: <span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">how you can help save public education</span></span></i></b></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I put lots of articles on the Internet, and get thousands of comments. The same three themes run through most of these comments:</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>How</b> have we gotten into this mess?</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Why</b> don’t our official leaders do something?</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>What</b> can I do personally to help?</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> No matter what the question is, here is the essential first step. <b>You have to understand the fake reasoning and false methods so often used. </b></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Without that understanding, school officials will run you in circles and laugh at your ignorance. Each year they will invent strange new theories and unhelpful new names. No two Americans can have a helpful discussion about education.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> <b>You need a guidebook. That’s what "Saving K-12" was always intended to be. Here are some of the main points explained: Reading theories that don’t work. Arithmetic instruction that confuses children. Theories of teaching that seem to be designed to minimize actual teaching. Classroom strategies they create chaos and failure. The weird contempt that most education professors have for knowledge. Etc., Etc, Etc.</b></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that there are no good ideas left in public schools. There’s nothing but bad ideas. Arm yourself with the truth; and let the revolution begin. We can have better schools at less cost.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAVING-K-12-Happened-Public-Schools/dp/1681143615">Order book</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAVING-K-12-Happened-Public-Schools/dp/1681143615">here</a>: </b></span>https://www.amazon.com/SAVING-K-12-Happened-Public-Schools/dp/1681143615</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi94txsCnfktdc_5Ak9-188M98BRFOot7U50-eBbtqfFM6z8mSbmPFKRlff8ay14pSir0vOPmE178eIvPJBw19EHrx3RlHU_7IB43Ne3BG4V_nckso0_9toZjaJeKX1EqxjseOekmbnE17z/s1600/coversmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="356" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi94txsCnfktdc_5Ak9-188M98BRFOot7U50-eBbtqfFM6z8mSbmPFKRlff8ay14pSir0vOPmE178eIvPJBw19EHrx3RlHU_7IB43Ne3BG4V_nckso0_9toZjaJeKX1EqxjseOekmbnE17z/s320/coversmall.jpg" width="212" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> <b>There's now an ebook for $2.99</b>:</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span><a class="OWAAutoLink" href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079YHYQ87" id="LPlnk550168" previewremoved="true" style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079YHYQ87</a></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;">
.....</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-61331123901486957102018-01-25T17:50:00.000-05:002018-01-25T17:50:31.231-05:00Child abuse: there is too much of it in K-12 classrooms<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Did you assume <b>child abuse </b>means <b>sexual abuse</b>? In fact, a lot of the instructional methods used in public schools constitute, not sexual, but </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">cognitive abuse</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">. (Siegfried Engelmann calls it “academic child abuse.” That’s where your brain and your personality are scrambled. You are not as effective in life.)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Here’s the point; if you teach children in ways that don’t work very well, you are abusing that child. For example, if after years of reading instruction, students still can’t read, they have been robbed of their time and their future. Are these not criminal offenses?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">—————————————————————-</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Cognitive abuse can be seen in reading, math, and all content subjects such as history, science, geography. Some methods get much better results. If the school uses the inefficient ways, that’s an abusive relationship. Here’s the bad news: this sort of abuse – academic and intellectual— is commonplace.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Sexual abuse is more traumatic and dramatic, more of a violation. On the other hand, cognitive abuse affects tens of millions of Americans, often for many years. It’s a vast silent plague.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Progressive education has, for 100 years, tried to mess with the brains of children. They are supposed to have certain attitudes, specific feelings, and a passion for being cooperative. Progressive educators, no matter how they are dressed, tend to be meddlers in white lab coats. They think it’s their prerogative to rewire children in order to reach ideological goals.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> A lot of drugs are prescribed in public schools. Exercise is often limited. Cumbersome, hard-to-learn methods infect every classroom, especially in Common Core. Character is undermined in many ways.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Find a class that’s underperforming and you will probably find “academic child abuse.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px; text-align: center;">
--------------------------------------------------------</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> <span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">QED: You cannot speak seriously about education reform if you do not try to eliminate all those practices which make children less than they might be.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'times new roman'; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">MORE DISCUSSION: "</span></span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-size: large;">Finally, Child Abuse is Being Rooted Out--Now What About Cognitive Abuse?"</span><br />
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">https://republicstandard.com/finally-child-abuse-is-being-rooted-out-now-what-about-cognitive-abuse/</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">.</span></div>
</div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-53220668234730639042017-11-24T13:43:00.000-05:002017-12-16T15:46:59.304-05:00"Saving K-12" is A Great Gift for Smart People -- see reasons below<br />
<h2 class="date-header" style="color: grey; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px;">
11/22/17</h2>
<div class="date-posts">
<div class="post-outer">
<div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template" itemprop="blogPost" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting" style="padding-left: 62.78125px; padding-right: 125.5625px;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4470844584003109308" name="8108736541617569202"></a><br />
<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="color: #0c343d; font-size: 20px;">
</h3>
<div class="post-header">
<div class="post-header-line-1">
</div>
</div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-8108736541617569202" itemprop="description articleBody">
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;">What do you give to an intelligent person? </span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> How about something smart, useful, fun, literary, and socially conscious, for those of us who care about education. That would be <i>“Saving K-12 – What happened to our public schools? How do we fix them?”</i></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman'; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>-------------------------------------------------------</i></span></span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </i></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;"><i> </i> A lively but very serious book that virtually every educated American will enjoy, <i>"Saving K-12"</i> deals with two huge questions. WHY has the Education Establishment dumbed down the public schools? And HOW did they accomplish this feat? For example, how do they spend many years teaching children to read but somehow millions of children <i>never</i> become good readers?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i>-----------------------------------------------------</i></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;"><i></i></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;"><i>“There is nothing more important than your child's education, and no one has a better grasp on what is happening in the schools </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;"><i>of the current day than columnist/author </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;"><i>Bruce Price.” Judi McLeod, Editor of Canada Free Press</i></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
----------------------------------------------</div>
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman'; font-size: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">—————--————————</span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;"><i> </i></span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;"><i>Bruce Price’s SAVING K-12 is a MUST read! It is precise, concise and powerful. Action is required…for the sake of our children, our grandchildren and the future of the American Republic!"</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: x-large;"><i>Robert W. Sweet, Jr., President, The National Right to Read Foundation</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium;"></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium;">——————————————————</span><br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman'; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman'; font-size: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">----------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman'; line-height: normal;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #134f5c;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><i>John Biver, columnist and political scientist, posted a thoughtful review on his site. Read it and you’ll know for sure whether this book is good for your friends: </i></span></span><b style="font-family: georgia; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><a href="https://illinoisfamily.org/education/every-12-years-review-book-saving-k-12-part-two/"><i>Every 12 Years: A Review of the Book ‘Saving K-12’ (Part Two)</i></a></span></b></span></div>
</div>
<br style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" />
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">https://illinoisfamily.org/education/every-12-years-review-book-saving-k-12-part-two/</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman'; line-height: normal;">
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><br /></b></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Order on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/SAVING-K-12-Happened-Public-Schools/dp/1681143615">Amazon</a>, </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, etc.</b></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><br /></b></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><br /></b></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>E V E R Y O N E N E E D S</b></span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKliXvJNZPQa9wJwSBM9yEWObvr63isYOvbNpiY769JIogknFLbeCse5mY_3DBUr72nVUxAyH-tguIKEk5oxPeSyp74F8UBQa0k4B7xFS5g_9uoyRBFJdBcrGCfIf3KMY_-6NEO-HWBCtS/s1600/Savingk-sliver.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="99" data-original-width="462" height="68" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKliXvJNZPQa9wJwSBM9yEWObvr63isYOvbNpiY769JIogknFLbeCse5mY_3DBUr72nVUxAyH-tguIKEk5oxPeSyp74F8UBQa0k4B7xFS5g_9uoyRBFJdBcrGCfIf3KMY_-6NEO-HWBCtS/s320/Savingk-sliver.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman'; line-height: normal;">
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;">See author's lit site for more info: http://www.Lit4u.com/saving-k-12</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-32175423679964921592017-10-02T16:44:00.003-04:002017-10-12T15:53:09.265-04:00Pensare Oltre invites Bruce Deitrick Price to speak in Italy<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-align: right; text-indent: 36px;">
<u><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-size: large;"><i>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE</i></span></u></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Our Education Establishment, no matter how many millions of children end up illiterate, is able to suppress debate and elude public outrage. Critics are typically ignored. After all, if they disagree with the Education Establishment, they must be wrong.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> “So it was a strange surprise,” Bruce Price explains, “when education reformers in Italy contacted me for help in their fight against sight-words in public schools. <i>Must be a mistake,</i> I thought. American experts constantly stress that a phonetic language would never need sight-words. <i>Oh, </i>they wail,<i> if only English were perfectly phonetic like Italian!!"</i> </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Here’s a shocker. Italian public schools had, in fact, detoured into sight-words, causing all the problems we have here, namely, dyslexia, ADHD, and too much reliance on psychiatric-plus-pharmaceutical solutions. Apparently, social engineers everywhere love illiteracy; and nothing delivers it better than sight-words.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Many phonics experts stated for years that dyslexia is almost never a real disease. In fact, it should be called <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/12/education_cause_mental_health_issues.html">dysteachia. </a></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Italian reformers reached the same conclusion. Their <a href="http://www.pensareoltre.org/index.php/en/">website</a> (note it can be either English or Italian) asks: </span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Learning Disorders or Teaching Disorders?</i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Price has been an informal consultant to Pensare Oltre for almost 4 years. “They are a unique group," he believes. “Smart, sophisticated, scientifically inclined. They’re thinking through the weird practices of their Education Establishment so they can persuade their country to get back on track.” </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Italian is beautiful, entirely phonetic, and possessed of a proud literary and operatic heritage. The people who would teach Italian with sight-words announce to the world: I, Dunce.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Two years ago</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Price wrote up</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">his</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">involvement with Pensare Oltre (which means <i>thinking beyond</i>)</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">under the headline:</span><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/education_reform_italian_group_shows_americans_how_its_done.html" style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #011a99; letter-spacing: 0px;"> "Education Reform: Italian Group Shows Americans How It’s Done"</span></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #303030; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #303030; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> This year they’ve invited Price to speak twice at their two-day conference in Milan, a great honor. One speech is called “Know Thine Enemy,” which investigates what kind of people are making a mess of our public schools. (Typically they are called Progressives.) A second smaller talk is titled “Broken Promises.”</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Again and again, our public schools promise to teach X but years later nobody knows much X.</span></span></div>
<div style="color: #303030; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #303030; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> The conference on October 20-21, 2017 mixes a lot of themes: education, psychiatry, culture, science, entertainment. “I don’t believe,” Price says, “there is another group in the world like Pensare Oltre, certainly not in the US, and, boy, do we need one.”</span></span></div>
<div style="color: #303030; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #303030; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> <b>Pensare Oltre is particularly offended by the tendency of school officials to attribute every problem to an alleged psychological disorder, such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD, dyscalculia, and dysorthography.</b> I</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">f you teach something incorrectly, you should expect problems. The more incorrect you are, the more deep and ugly the problems will be. That’s been the quiet history in the United States since 1931 when <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/06/massive_k12_reading_failure_explained.html">sight-words</a> were pushed into the schools.</span></span></div>
<div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Addendum: <i>“Saving K-12— What happened to our public schools? How do we fix them?”</i> is intended to help ordinary citizens understand the machinations of our Education Establishment. To be published November 17. See more info: <a href="http://lit4u.com/">Lit4u.com</a>.</span></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-1940839669927798942017-07-14T16:14:00.001-04:002017-08-30T19:59:30.377-04:00Saving K-12: What happened to our public schools?<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have a book coming out on Nov. 17 called <i>Saving K-12</i>. It answers these questions: <b>What happened to our public schools? How do we fix them?</b></span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Saving K-12 </i>is available for preorder now.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> If you feel that our publics schools should be better, and could be better, then you will enjoy this book.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The main strategy for improvement is that people understand what’s really happening in the classrooms. Namely, our Education Establishment promotes inferior, even cruel methods. For example, kids cannot learn to read with sight-words. It’s more of a hoax than anything else. When parents understand how the hoax works, then they can fight back.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> <i>Saving K-12 </i>consists of 65 essays on a wide range of topics.--</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 3.1px; text-decoration: underline;"><b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">Contents</span></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">INTRODUCTION</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">1-CULTURE WARS</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"> Somebody does not like our culture</span></i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">2-READING WARS</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Why we have 50,000,000 functional illiterates</span></i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">3-MATH WARS</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"> Students reach college not knowing what 7 x 8 is</span></i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">4-HISTORICALLY SPEAKING</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"> 100 years of dumbing down</span></i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">5-THEORIES AND METHODS IN THE CLASSROOM</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"> Every fad turns out to be a foolish idea</span></i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">6-COMMON CORE ENSHRINES THE WORST</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">That’s how you know they aren’t sincere</span></i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">7-LITERARY FLIGHTS</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"> Who says serious has to be boring</span></i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">8-GUILTY </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <i>Are they merely clumsy or carefully aiming for mediocrity</i></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">9-MOVERS AND SHAKERS</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"> We need our big shots to move and shake more than they do </span></i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">10-WHAT TO DO </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"> Suggestions for repairing the damage</span></i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">SUMMING UP</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">-------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; text-align: center; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 18px;">
<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-family: "times"; letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Saving-K-12-Happened-Public-Schools/dp/1681143623">Order this book here:</a> </span></span></b>https://www.amazon.com/Saving-K-12-Happened-Public-Schools/dp/1681143623<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #990000;">If you are a book reviewer and want a copy, please let me know.</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #990000;"> This book is the best cheap gift for smart people.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: "times";"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: "times";"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 18px;">
<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-family: "times";">For more information, see Lit4u.com ( </span>https://www.lit4u.com/saving-k-12/ )</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPg_LR6fLrbEQl2labAWbK7gj6wML2qYNco2YNj6mly7BA21CwbvSUdgWgbE41G3jGVLp80iBVVYucdBuGyvzqkjYkggQvw9OJuXeoIM28uhfB_bnk-alb4DXYN5ZtPUnwjKeQlIw1Admz/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-07-07+at+2.16.31+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1048" data-original-width="708" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPg_LR6fLrbEQl2labAWbK7gj6wML2qYNco2YNj6mly7BA21CwbvSUdgWgbE41G3jGVLp80iBVVYucdBuGyvzqkjYkggQvw9OJuXeoIM28uhfB_bnk-alb4DXYN5ZtPUnwjKeQlIw1Admz/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-07-07+at+2.16.31+PM.png" width="216" /></span></a></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 18px;">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">----------</span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bruce Deitrick Price</span></span></div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-62358651103908100422017-03-11T18:37:00.000-05:002017-08-30T19:56:34.159-04:00Why K-12 is Groundhog Day<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In the movie, Bill Murray gets up every day and has to live through the same realities that he lived through the day before. Nietzsche called this predicament “eternal recurrence.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Einstein weighed in on this topic. Doing the same thing again and again, while getting the same results, is a working definition of insanity.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> So there you have our public school system, an insane Rube Goldberg contraption with lots of wheels turning, balls dropping, springs springing…. but nothing is accomplished. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> I've been studying education for 25 years and finally see a simple way of explaining the nonsense and inertia that we all witness. </span></span><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Every day is Groundhog Day because t</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;">he essential conflict has not changed in almost 100 years. The</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> underlying forces don't evolve. We are stuck.</span></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Traditional education, where an expert teacher tries to transfer all the interesting stuff about our civilization to the minds of the young, is the proper job of schools. It is the right way to do things (even if we today would like to see more fun and cleverness in the classroom). So the community, and common sense, are always trying to push the schools to do what they ideally should be doing. That’s the situation today just as it was in 2000 and 1980 and 1960 and 1940 and 1920.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> On the other side, we have “progressives” (that’s code for Socialists and Communists) who want to transform the schools so they become part of a collectivist transformation of society. Knowledge, facts, interesting stuff of all kinds, is of no interest to these people. The schools have only one purpose: social engineering. If some kids learn a lot and some kids learn a little, this opens up divisions in society. If children learn to think for themselves, they will argue with their ideological overlords. So in general the people at the top of the Education Establishment prefer dumbing down, mediocrity, and low standards. These people are for me the merest hacks. But you have to give them credit for hard work and relentless discipline. If even the smallest smidgen of education takes place in the schools, they will try to expunge it. They have dozens of <a href="http://www.improve-education.org/id83.html">bogus theories and dysfunctional methods</a> designed to accomplish precisely this goal.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>So this war—this battle for the souls and minds of the children—has not changed in the last hundred years. The apparent changes are all superficial: nomenclature, jargon, faddish claims. The community wants children to be educated. The progressives want children to be indoctrinated. That’s it. That's the whole game for 100 years.</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> That’s why K-12 is Groundhog Day. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">-----------------------------------------------</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="color: #660000;">The progressives have a vast interlocking network of people and organizations intended to keep the schools mediocre. Last year I would've said: the fix is in and the situation is hopeless. Now, however, new people have taken over the Department of Education. Now we can start to drain the swamp, as explained in <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/01/k12_drain_this_swamp.html">this article on American Thinker:</a> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos are promoting charter schools and vouchers. Choice is the key concept. If </span>the public<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> has ch</span>oices<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, </span>the public<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> will pick what delivers the most traditional education. That's how we disrupt "eternal recurrence." -- </span></span><span style="color: #660000; letter-spacing: 0px;">Bruce Deitrick Price</span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>ANNOUNCING MY NEW BOOK</i></span><span style="color: #660000; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">: "Saving K-12--What happened to our public schools? How do we fix them?" can be pre-ordered on Amazon. Lively reading about serious topics.</span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">https://www.amazon.com/Saving-K-12-Happened-Public-Schools/dp/1681143623</span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #660000; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">More info here: www.Lit4u.com</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #4c1130; font-size: x-small; letter-spacing: 0px;">post on educationimproved.blogspot.com</span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">....</span></span>
<span style="color: #660000; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-42274575473826551052016-09-06T16:39:00.000-04:002017-03-18T17:33:54.715-04:00Parents: defend your kids against sight-words<br />
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our Education Establishment is devoted to social engineering, not academic engineering. Our education commissars will sabotage academic aspects if that helps create more cooperative, more malleable children.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b> The biggest gimmick in the public schools is sight-words (also known by many other names). This approach to reading will basically guarantee semi-literacy at best. One very common outcome is dyslexia.</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> English is a phonetic language and must be learned phonetically.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> Keep in mind that English has far more than 100,000 words. At one time, the official dogma in our public schools was that children could memorize all these words on sight. This is completely idiotic. Many ordinary children cannot memorize even 300!</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> I write about the subject all the time because it’s intellectually fascinating. Our so-called educators invent these methods that don’t work, then they have to brainwash teachers into believing in the methods, and then in turn brainwashing parents into accepting the methods. The children themselves don’t know what’s being done to them, so they are just lost souls herded around from assessment to remediation to psychiatric counseling.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">Here is a good introductory article. All parents with school-age children should take a look: <i>MAMMAS, DON'T LET YOUR BABIES GROW UP TO LEARN SIGHT-WORDS.</i></span></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mammas-dont-let-your-babies-grow-up-learn-sight-words-price?published=t</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> <b>Here’s a somewhat more technical article </b>about why sight-words are so difficult. Anybody interested in the reading problem will love this article: MASSIVE K-12 READING FAILURE EXPLAINED </span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/06/massive_k12_reading_failure_explained.html</span></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-7724020095440186752015-01-13T20:57:00.001-05:002015-01-13T21:20:56.191-05:00Education, Politics, and Lies--what’s the difference?During the past decade, I wrote mainly about education. I decided it would be good strategy to stay away from peripheral issues. I didn’t want to confuse my readers. I wanted them to think, oh yeah, this is that guy that writes about education.<br />
<br />
In particular, I wanted to stay away from politics. You don’t need any special expertise to sound off about politics. As an education critic, I find there’s few other people doing what I’m doing. But as a political critic, I would be one of many thousands.<br />
<br />
Trouble is, I found more and more that politics and education blur together these days. Here’s why. Both fields have been taken over by liars and sophists. Was it always like this? Or has it simply become more blatant?<br />
<br />
<b>Maybe I should try to describe my a-ha moment. Trying to explain Obama to myself (or anyone else) turns out to be difficult because he says whatever he needs to say on any particular day. Meanwhile, I found that explaining sight-words, Whole Word and why so many children are illiterate is very difficult, because the Education Establishment sells its nonsense any way it can.</b><br />
<br />
A few years ago I wrote an article that basically concluded, if you can understand Obama, you can understand sight-words. Similarly, if you can understand sight-words, you can understand Obama. In both cases, there’s nothing genuinely there except the deception and sophistry being promoted at that moment.<br />
<br />
That’s pretty strong but also very helpful. It may be the only way you can understand sight-words and the way reading has been taught, such that we have 50,000,000 functional illiterates. It’s very hard for the average parent to grapple with the reality that the Education Establishment may be nothing but a chorus of liars. But if you look at sight-words, Reform Math, Common Core, constructivism and all the rest, you eventually realize that the lying never stops.<br />
<br />
Then you look at the New York Times protecting Obama at every turn. What you have is another chorus of liars. And if you look back and forth from the people keeping Obama in office and the people keeping sight-words in the public schools, you are confronted by similar choirs.<br />
<br />
Years ago, the Left came up with the idea that journalists don’t need to tell the truth. They could tell each one’s personal subjective truth. Schools of journalism now teach their students to lie. That’s why you have these contrived stories about rape at UVa. And that’s why you have the irresponsible reporting about Treyvon Martin and Michael Brown. The journalists pick the perspective that makes the minority person look innocent; and they just keep pushing it. If they had bothered to look at the relevant videos, they would know not to take such a biased position.<br />
<br />
<b> So what’s the bottom line here? I don’t think there's a single good idea in the public schools and I don’t think there is anybody at the top of education telling you the truth. Furthermore, I don’t think there's anybody in the White House telling the truth and I don’t think that anybody in the liberal media is trying to make them tell the truth. That’s grim but probably closer to the truth than not.</b><br />
<br />
Harvard had a motto “Veritas. Would any university pick that motto today? It’s doubtful. Harvard’s probably trying to figure out a way to pretend they didn’t do it, because what liberal universities really believe in these days is their agenda. Ten big lies to push their agenda don’t even add up to one little white lie as far as they’re concerned.<br />
<br />
How can we hope to sustain a civilization based on perpetual dishonesty? I think it’s up to everybody to start over and do what it takes to rebuild our integrity. In the first grade say that 2+2 = 4. Conversely, claiming that 2+2 = 5 must be denounced as a lie. You start to mess with 2+2 = 5 only if you're crazy, you’re a criminal, or you’re trying to set up a totalitarian regime as in <i>1984.</i><br />
<br />
There are lots of legitimately complicated things to argue about: the nature of reality and what God is up to. But if we're talking about whether a six-foot person is taller than a five-foot person, that’s merely a fact. You can’t pretend that facts are not there. Obama lives in a world where he can say anything on any given day and then contradict it on a later day. Our Education Establishment lives in a world where they can announce that any theory can achieve any results.<br />
-----<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><span style="color: #0c343d;"> How to restore integrity to K-12 education: eliminate dubious theories and methods. Here is a list of what needs to go: "<a href="http://www.improve-education.org/id83.html">Top 10 Worst Ideas in Education"</a></span></b><br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
Bruce Deitrick Price / Improve-Education.org<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
<br />Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-27899068218167993932014-07-04T17:04:00.000-04:002014-07-04T17:04:40.765-04:00Let's get rid of Reform Math-- a meditation for July 4Here it is July 4. Hurray for the USA.<br />
<br />
If you want something to be optimistic about, reflect on this...<br />
<br />
Those goofy self-appointed experts who control the public schools in this country made a big mistake. They went too dumb, too fast, too blatantly, too obnoxiously. (You might say they did a King George.)<br />
<br />
They basically told the parents of America, "Eat cake, shut the hell up, and don't bother us. If your kids come home with weird homework that you cannot do, just remember the reason is that you're not very bright. There's no reason to expect that your kids will be very smart. So just accept your fate, and their fate, and leave us alone so we can do our job, which is supporting Pres. Obama in his fundamental transformation of the country into a socialist paradise. And that's not a snarky joke. We really believe it will be a paradise. For us."<br />
<br />
<b> Their arrogance and contempt turned out to be really good news for the rest of the country. Parents have struggled with the stupid problems and come to the correct conclusion that the people designing these problems are not serious about math. They are serious about <i>something.</i> But what it is the average person cannot understand. That's because the average person is not a power-hungry ideologue control freak.</b><br />
<br />
So there is a lot of discontent in the land. This creates an opening. Every excess in boxing or military maneuvers creates an opening for a counterattack. You don't need to persuade the mothers of America that something is seriously wrong. They know that from their own experience.<br />
<br />
So if you're an education reformer, you can take the position that Reform Math must be destroyed completely. Use Singapore Math. Use Saxon Math. Use any old-fashioned math textbook from 75 years ago. Doesn't matter. The point is that RM must be eliminated. The parents of America are ready for that sweeping decision. First Reform Math, then Common Core. They both emanated from the same swamp.<br />
<br />
Here is a longer discussion of the same points in <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/06/reform_math_must_be_destroyed_root_and_branch.html">American Thinker.</a> If this whole perspective is new to you, please read this other article and the comments that people left.<br />
<br />
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/06/reform_math_must_be_destroyed_root_and_branch.html<br />
<br />
..Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-58858655369885556182014-05-12T17:03:00.001-04:002014-05-12T17:15:06.845-04:00 Superior Schools: Theories and Methods for Effective Education<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Malkin Dare, the well-known Canadian education reformer, has a very important article on her site called</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>“Ten Keys to Success: Fundamental Principles of Teaching.”</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> This is everything you want to know to run a school or classroom in the traditional way. It’s everything you need to know to fight the destructive methods that progressives favor (because they are obsessed with social engineering rather than academic pursuits).</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> But the article is over 3000 words and I didn't think enough people would read it thoroughly. So I asked Malkin Dare for permission to make a short version. She said: “Go for it.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> So now my condensed version (under 1000 words) is on Examiner.com, with links to the original and some related material. The new title is: <b><a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/ten-stratagies-for-successful-teaching?cid=db_articles">“Ten Stratagies for Successful Teaching.”</a></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">----------------------------------</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The problem was I edited the title as I was posting the article and that seemed to confuse Examiner’s search tools. So I later posted a link to the short version on FreeRepublic, but someone there has a prejudice against Examiner, which as you’ll see is really a fine site. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">So now I'm promoting this article a third time.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>If everyone concerned about education would read this article, we would see some magical progress.</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> (I used a third title here because that increases the chance that people using Google will find it.)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Here, to whet your appetite, are the topic sentences for Malkin Dare's ten strategies:</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="color: blue;">1: Almost all students can learn</span></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span style="color: blue;">2. Almost anything can be learned</span></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px; min-height: 18px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><b style="letter-spacing: 0px;">3. There are almost no circumstances under which students can’t learn</b><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span style="color: blue;">4. Basic skills should be taught before higher-order skills</span></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span style="color: blue;">5. Factual knowledge is important</span></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span style="color: blue;">6. Hard work must be encouraged</span></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span style="color: blue;">7. Lessons should be clear and precise</span></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span style="color: blue;">8. New concepts should be practiced until they have been completely mastered</span></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span style="color: blue;">9. New concepts should be taught in sequence </span></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span style="color: blue;">10. High student achievement is not dependent on lavish spending</span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 24px;">
<b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><u><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Please pass this on to every teacher (</span>and<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> parent) you know. </span></u></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 24px;">
<b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">These strategies are, by the way, the perfect antidote for every goofy idea contained in Common Core.</span></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 24px;">
<b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">------------------------------------------------------------------------- </span></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 24px;">
<b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/ten-stratagies-for-successful-teaching?cid=db_articles">Examiner link</a>: </span></span></b><span style="font-family: 'New York';">http://www.examiner.com/article/ten-stratagies-for-successful-teaching?cid=db_articles</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'New York';"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'New York';">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-22770817705122945432014-05-02T19:20:00.001-04:002014-05-02T19:20:17.955-04:00Common Core: dirty rotten scoundrelsCommon Core cycles forward all the worst ideas of the last 75 years. In particular, Common Core promotes Whole Language, various kinds of Reform Math, Constructivism, and all the other gimmicks.<br />
<br />
But which is its dirtiest trick? This article in American Thinker (<i>link below</i>) argues that the sickest aspect of Common Core is that the math homework, the math instructional methods generally, divide parents from children. Only scoundrels could come up with this stuff.<br />
<br />
The basic gambit is to teach math in a way very different from what the parents know about or can understand. We first saw this nonsense in the 1960s under the rubric of New Math. The country ridiculed this approach and rejected it. But the education professors had shown their hand. Whenever possible, they would figure out a way to teach something (anything) in a way that was alien and mysterious to the parents. The goal seemed to be to drive a huge wedge between the generations.<br />
<br />
<b> This works particularly well in math. Math is often a complex subject. The ordinary parent has probably not gone very far in math. So you can throw something weird at them, and they'll be intimidated. They barely remember the old arithmetic they learned 10 or 20 years before. But here is something new coming from the school that makes no sense at all. What to do?</b><br />
<br />
Imagine this scenario happening a billion times each year. That's probably an accurate figure<br />
<br />
The child comes home with an instructional sheet from the school. The parent glances at it and can't understand it. So now the parent is sitting there feeling stupid. The kid is watching and wondering what's going on. Maybe his parents aren't so bright after all. The parent can complain to the school and look small-minded. The parent can try to figure out the material and teach it to the child. But this is exhausting and takes a lot of time.<br />
<br />
Besides, the parent senses that a trick is being played. <i>Just look, here's a way to multiply numbers that takes twice as long as the way we learned!!</i><br />
<br />
Well, at this point, you need confident parents who are willing to scream: you people are Pavlovian phonies and we're not going to take it anymore.<br />
<br />
We see this wonderful phenomenon on a Facebook page called <b>"<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Parents-Against-Everyday-Math/37453309495">Parents Against Everyday Math.</a>" </b>For the record, Everyday Math is just one of a dozen kinds of Reform Math. It just happens to be the most common variety. Parents come to this site to leave their horror stories about homework they couldn't understand. Nor could they help their children to do it.<br />
<br />
<b> This has been a pattern for many decades: parents bitching and moaning about math instruction, particularly math homework. Fifty years ago and before, the children bitched and moaned. That's the way it's supposed to be, because they are the students. </b><br />
<br />
<b>The idea that parents cannot do homework intended for seven-year-olds is just so counterintuitive, just so crazy, that the average parent cannot get their brain around it. Nor should they have to try. </b><br />
<br />
The parents need to look in the mirror and say these words: <span style="color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The school is disrespecting me. They are trying to make me look bad in the eyes of my children. They are dumbing down my children. A lot of overpaid people are spending their careers dreaming up stuff that will make my life worse and will weaken the country. I don't want to put up with this anymore. I want to find the people who okayed this bogus method, and get them demoted.</span><br />
<br />
Saxon Math is better than Reform Math. Any halfway sensible approach to arithmetic is better than Reform Math.<br />
<br />
I wrote an article a few years back arguing that you could teach first-graders everything they need to know about arithmetic with <b>a handful of coins and a few dollar bills.</b> At the end of the year they will know how to make change on any small purchase. They'll be able to add and subtract any one or two digit numbers. And a big reason why all that progress is possible is that virtually any parent can help them with their homework.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/04/common_cores_dirtiest_trick_dividing_parents_and_children.html">COMMON CORE'S DIRTIEST TRICK: </a>http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/04/common_cores_dirtiest_trick_dividing_parents_and_children.html<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://brucedprice.hubpages.com/hub/PricesEasyArithmetic">FIRST-GRADE MATH ARTICLE</a>: http://brucedprice.hubpages.com/hub/PricesEasyArithmetic<br />
<br />
.Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-5332950999355106322014-04-12T18:09:00.000-04:002014-04-12T18:29:12.043-04:00Heroes on 60 Minutes (A few words about why heroes are so important.)<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Normally I don’t have any special affection for the TV show 60 Minutes. So trust me when I say I was overwhelmed by the show on March 30.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b> I wish every student in middle school or high school could see this program. They would see heroism, genius, ethics, inventiveness, capitalism at its best, visionary talent, the future unfolding, all the things they need to see.</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The first segment was about a young manager of a brokerage firm. He saw trading irregularities he didn’t like, and did something about it. (Most of us won’t understand the math but you will quickly understand that this guy was operating in the intellectual stratosphere.)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The second hero was the man who invented the Tesla car and the SpaceX company.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The third segment was about a blind prodigy, now one of our great pianists.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">-------------------------------------------------------------</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> To understand the significance of this program, you have to understand that the Left hates heroes. That's because socialists hate the idea that ordinary people can rise up to greatness. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Left seems to want ordinary humans to think they are incapable of any successful action, and their only intelligent choice is to wait for the government to give them a handout.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> <b>For the last 50 years, give or take, school textbooks have little by little gotten rid of our national heroes. There might be only a few words about Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, George Washington, and all the other extraordinary people who built this country. This is completely backwards, and even evil. We all need to be reminded that with extra effort and extra dedication, we can take our game up to a higher level. </b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> That's basically what propelled this country. Everybody in the country thinks they can improve themselves and their lives. The Left doesn't want you to think such thoughts. This is their ultimate evil action.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">--------------------------------------------------------------------</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b> Here is a <a href="http://www.examiner.com/review/thanks-for-the-heroes-a-fan-letter-to-cbs?cid=db_articles">longer account</a> of the three heroes, with a link to the full-length video of the program as it appeared on television.</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Arial;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">http://www.examiner.com/review/thanks-for-the-heroes-a-fan-letter-to-cbs?cid=db_articles</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span>
<div style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">...</span></div>
</div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-78354615891187097372014-03-10T19:01:00.000-04:002014-03-10T19:01:17.764-04:00Needed: Religious Leaders to save the public schoolsOne of the things I write about a lot (because it perpetually mystifies me) is this: <b>how can a tiny little cadre of far-left fanatics, mainly hidden away in graduate schools of education, continue to control and corrupt the entire public school system in this country?</b><br />
<br />
I say, HOW?<br />
<br />
I checked Wikipedia and it says there are more than 200 million Christians in this country. You would expect them to be more conservative, traditional, practical, down-to-earth, patriotic, all that old-fashioned stuff. You would expect them to push for real schools teaching real knowledge in really effective ways.<br />
<br />
Most of all, you would NOT expect these religious people to roll over when a bunch of socialist agitators show up and try to transform everything. But roll over they did for the most part.<br />
<br />
In fairness to the religious people, however, I must grant that this rolling over was a slow-motion process over many decades and indeed most of a century. John Dewey was still in first gear around 1914. The whole dumbing-down process was still a gleam in his twitchy little eyes (see photo above).<br />
<br />
<b>Anyway, what is entirely apparent to me is that if all these religious people (Christians and every other kind) would more or less push together in the same general direction, they would be irresistible.</b><br />
<br />
So why don't they?<br />
<br />
The only answer I can give you is a tribute to the sneaky subversive ingenuity of our Education Establishment. They have wrapped everything in jargon. They have come up with approaches, procedures and methods that are so complicated to talk about that nobody knows what's going on. They have concocted genuinely idiotic ideas that defy and mystify common sense. Even as the average person hears all this malarkey and finally gives up, the Education Establishment appropriates more billions in tax money and pushes twice as hard.<br />
<br />
Think of the way Obama & Co. handle everything: IRS scandal, people dead in Benghazi, people murdered in Mexico by Fast and Furious guns, what do they do? First of all, they admit nothing. They lie about everything. They change the subject. They come up with three new proposals for going to Mars. That's more or less what our top educators have been doing for all these years. <i>Bamboozle</i> pretty well sums it up.<br />
<br />
<b> So I've recently been writing about the idea that if we had some strong leaders, Christians, Jews, et al, we could turn this thing around. Easily.</b><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;">The first piece is called <b>"Public Schools vs. Christianity" </b>on <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/public_schools_vs_christianity.html">American Thinker.</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;">http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/public_schools_vs_christianity.html</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #990000;">That suggested a second piece called "<b>Where are the Christian leaders in education?"</b> on RantRave. <a href="http://www.rantrave.com/Rant/Where-are-the-Christian-leaders-in-education.aspx">http://www.rantrave.com/Rant/Where-are-the-Christian-leaders-in-education.aspx</a> </span><br />
<br />
<b>So please, if you're a member of any religious group, pick one of these articles and suggest the other members of the group read it. </b>Then everyone talks about it in order to find if you agree on enough things to fight back.<br />
<br />
Especially show the article to people who might step forward and provide leadership.<br />
<br />
One important point developed in these articles is that religious leaders cannot be expected to know the ins and outs of educational nonsense. So each leader needs to have some advisors, a committee, a little group of friends who are interested in education and can explain the sophistries. This is essential. The Education Establishment overwhelms people with BS piled three stories high. I never said the education professors are not smart in a con artist sort of way. They spend their whole lives figuring out new ways to sell bad ideas. So they have a great initial advantage. But if the religious leaders will familiarize themselves with the basic theories and methods, they can then rely on the vast scope of their membership to push back.<br />
<br />
Here's one way to find out how this stuff works. I have almost 300 or 400 articles on the Internet, where I try to explain all of the dubious schemes. Further, when people contact me, I try to answer their questions.<br />
<br />
Or just use Google cleverly. Suppose you want to know about Reform Math. You enter such words as: problems with reform math; complaints about reform math; and similar. Eventually you will find all the best articles published about that topic.<br />
<br />
<b> The good news in education is that there is just too much nuttiness and people are finally noticing. Reform Math is nuttiness. Constructivism is nuttiness. Whole Word (a/k/a sight-words) is nuttiness. </b><b>Common Core is nuttiness. And much else. (</b><b>Admittedly, I've become quite a cynic. But I'd go so far as to say if our Education Establishment likes it, it's nutty.)</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Here is what actually works. We get smart people and educate them well, until they are deeply informed on their major subjects, biology, French, whatever. Then you let these people (we call them teachers) loose in the classroom and expect them to do a good job. Add training in how to make a good presentation, then they'll be able to do that part of it. (With all the digital tools there are now, everything just got much easier.) That's it. That's the essence of education for thousands of years. Can't you almost predict that our Education Establishment will try to do the opposite at every point?<br />
<br />
So it's a good time for a counterattack. It's a good time to say to the Education Establishment, you people are sinister and far too interested in grabbing power. You've been getting away with it for decades. But we're sick of it.<br />
<br />
@educatt<br />
.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-63653724643827405222014-01-20T17:39:00.000-05:002014-01-20T17:39:09.381-05:00"Common Core or Communist Core????"<div class="post-content
" data-role="post-content" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 24px; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;">
<div class="post-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;">
<footer style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: rgba(29, 47, 58, 0.6); margin: 6px 0px 0px;"><menu style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<li class="share" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><a class="toggle" href="" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.1s linear; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 39, 59, 0.498039); cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: color 0.1s linear; z-index: 100;"><span class="text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> ›</span></a> <ul style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; list-style: none; margin: 0px; opacity: 0; padding: 0px; visibility: hidden; white-space: nowrap;">
<li class="twitter" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.4s ease-in-out, right; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: none; font-family: inherit; line-height: 15px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 7px 0px 0px; opacity: 0; padding: 0px 0px 0px 8px; position: absolute; right: 30px; top: -2px; transition: opacity 0.4s ease-in-out, right;"><a data-action="share:twitter" href="http://disqus.com/embed/comments/?disqus_version=4cacc63e&base=default&f=breitbartproduction&t_i=3621165d-938e-4444-b6ea-723aa11b8b92&t_u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2FBig-Government%2F2014%2F01%2F17%2FColorado-Common-Core-Elementary-School-Assignment-Slams-Fossil-Fuels&t_d=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&t_t=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&s_o=desc#" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.2s linear; background-image: url(http://a.disquscdn.com/next/4cacc63e/assets/img/sprite.png); background-position: 0px -32px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 39, 59, 0.498039); display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; height: 18px !important; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; opacity: 0.6; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: -9999em; transition: opacity 0.2s linear; width: 18px !important;"></a></li>
<li class="facebook" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.4s ease-in-out, right; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: none; font-family: inherit; line-height: 15px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 7px 0px 0px; opacity: 0; padding: 0px 0px 0px 8px; position: absolute; right: 30px; top: -2px; transition: opacity 0.4s ease-in-out, right;"><a data-action="share:facebook" href="http://disqus.com/embed/comments/?disqus_version=4cacc63e&base=default&f=breitbartproduction&t_i=3621165d-938e-4444-b6ea-723aa11b8b92&t_u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2FBig-Government%2F2014%2F01%2F17%2FColorado-Common-Core-Elementary-School-Assignment-Slams-Fossil-Fuels&t_d=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&t_t=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&s_o=desc#" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.2s linear; background-image: url(http://a.disquscdn.com/next/4cacc63e/assets/img/sprite.png); background-position: -18px -32px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 39, 59, 0.498039); display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; height: 18px !important; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; opacity: 0.6; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: -9999em; transition: opacity 0.2s linear; width: 18px !important;"></a></li>
<li class="link" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.4s ease-in-out, right; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: none; font-family: inherit; line-height: 15px; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 7px 0px 0px; opacity: 0; padding: 0px 0px 0px 8px; position: absolute; right: 30px; top: -2px; transition: opacity 0.4s ease-in-out, right;"><a href="http://disqus.com/embed/comments/?disqus_version=4cacc63e&base=default&f=breitbartproduction&t_i=3621165d-938e-4444-b6ea-723aa11b8b92&t_u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2FBig-Government%2F2014%2F01%2F17%2FColorado-Common-Core-Elementary-School-Assignment-Slams-Fossil-Fuels&t_d=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&t_t=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&s_o=desc#comment-1209485089" style="-webkit-transition: opacity 0.2s linear; background-image: url(http://a.disquscdn.com/next/4cacc63e/assets/img/sprite.png); background-position: -54px -32px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 39, 59, 0.498039); display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; height: 18px !important; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; opacity: 0.6; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: -9999em; transition: opacity 0.2s linear; width: 18px !important;"></a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</menu></footer></div>
<div data-role="blacklist-form" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
</div>
<div class="reply-form-container" data-role="reply-form" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
</div>
</div>
<ul class="children" data-role="children" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<li class="post" id="post-1209684789" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 48px; position: relative;"><div class="post-content
authored-by-session-user
" data-role="post-content" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 24px; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;">
<div class="indicator" style="box-sizing: border-box; height: 36px; position: absolute;">
</div>
<div class="avatar hovercard" style="-webkit-transition: left 0.2s linear; box-sizing: border-box; left: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px; transition: left 0.2s linear;">
<a class="user" data-action="profile" data-user="55903925" href="http://disqus.com/bruce_price/" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.1s linear; background-color: rgba(0, 39, 59, 0.2); border-bottom-left-radius: 3px; border-bottom-right-radius: 3px; border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #288ce4; display: block; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s linear; z-index: 100;"><img alt="Avatar" src="http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/users/5590/3925/avatar92.jpg?1373481256" style="border-bottom-left-radius: 3px; border-bottom-right-radius: 3px; border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: inherit; height: 36px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 36px;" /></a></div>
<div class="post-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;">
<header style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #777777; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px; padding-right: 46px; position: relative;"><span class="post-byline" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;"><a data-action="profile" data-user="55903925" href="http://disqus.com/embed/comments/?disqus_version=4cacc63e&base=default&f=breitbartproduction&t_i=3621165d-938e-4444-b6ea-723aa11b8b92&t_u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2FBig-Government%2F2014%2F01%2F17%2FColorado-Common-Core-Elementary-School-Assignment-Slams-Fossil-Fuels&t_d=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&t_t=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&s_o=desc#" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.1s linear; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 136, 187) !important; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s linear;">Bruce Price</a></span> <span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a class="parent-link" data-role="parent-link" href="http://disqus.com/embed/comments/?disqus_version=4cacc63e&base=default&f=breitbartproduction&t_i=3621165d-938e-4444-b6ea-723aa11b8b92&t_u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2FBig-Government%2F2014%2F01%2F17%2FColorado-Common-Core-Elementary-School-Assignment-Slams-Fossil-Fuels&t_d=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&t_t=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&s_o=desc#comment-1209485089" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.1s linear; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 39, 59, 0.34902); font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s linear;"><i aria-hidden="true" class="icon-forward" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 10px; padding: 0px 1px;" title="in reply to"></i> Rich2741</a></span> </span><div class="post-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block;">
<span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #cccccc; font-size: 10px; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 4px;">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://disqus.com/embed/comments/?disqus_version=4cacc63e&base=default&f=breitbartproduction&t_i=3621165d-938e-4444-b6ea-723aa11b8b92&t_u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2FBig-Government%2F2014%2F01%2F17%2FColorado-Common-Core-Elementary-School-Assignment-Slams-Fossil-Fuels&t_d=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&t_t=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&s_o=desc#comment-1209684789" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.1s linear; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 39, 59, 0.34902); font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s linear;" title="Monday, January 20 2014 5:13 PM">a few seconds ago</a></div>
<ul class="post-menu" data-role="menu" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; list-style: none; margin: 0px; opacity: 0; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: 0px; top: 3px; visibility: hidden;">
<li class="collapse" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><a data-action="collapse" href="http://disqus.com/embed/comments/?disqus_version=4cacc63e&base=default&f=breitbartproduction&t_i=3621165d-938e-4444-b6ea-723aa11b8b92&t_u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2FBig-Government%2F2014%2F01%2F17%2FColorado-Common-Core-Elementary-School-Assignment-Slams-Fossil-Fuels&t_d=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&t_t=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&s_o=desc#" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.1s linear; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.498039) !important; font-family: inherit; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 600; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; opacity: 0.6; padding: 10px 0px 10px 10px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; top: -7px; transition: color 0.1s linear;" title="Collapse"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span></a></li>
<li class="dropdown" role="menu" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><a class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown" href="http://disqus.com/embed/comments/?disqus_version=4cacc63e&base=default&f=breitbartproduction&t_i=3621165d-938e-4444-b6ea-723aa11b8b92&t_u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2FBig-Government%2F2014%2F01%2F17%2FColorado-Common-Core-Elementary-School-Assignment-Slams-Fossil-Fuels&t_d=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&t_t=Common%20Core%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Assignment%20Pushes%20Global%20Warming&s_o=desc#" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.1s linear; border-color: rgba(0, 39, 59, 0.0784314); border-left-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.498039) !important; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 5px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s linear;"><b class="caret" style="border-left-color: transparent; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 4px; border-right-color: transparent; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 4px; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 4px; box-sizing: border-box; content: ↓; display: inline-block; height: 0px; margin-left: 2px; margin-top: 4px; opacity: 0.3; text-indent: -99999px; vertical-align: top; width: 0px;"></b></a></li>
</ul>
</header><div class="post-body-inner" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<div class="post-message-container" data-role="message-container" style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow: hidden; position: relative; width: 532px; zoom: 1;">
<div class="publisher-anchor-color" data-role="message-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<div class="post-message " data-role="message" dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 21px;">
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
Somebody left that comment on a news story about educational matters in North Carolina, I believe.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<b> I was fascinated to notice that the commenter didn't think it necessary to explain the comment or justify it. Clearly, the commenter had gone around this track a couple of times and figured out that the whole thing was blatant.</b></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<u> I left this in response</u>:</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
"I'm glad to see you make this comment. The left has been so successful with their anti-anti-communism campaign, it is considered impolite to mention the obvious. Namely, that the main beneficiaries of creating millions of ignorant and illiterate American students are our enemies, e.g., Commies.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<b>Namely, that ever since the Communists got on their feet about 1921, they've been trying to take over the world through trickery. The best trick they pulled off was taking control of our school system.</b></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: #660000;"><i>Many of you understand this completely. But some are hearing this for the first time and thinking, what's all this? Please just think about it.</i> </span><span style="color: #3f4549;">There is no way that normal, intelligent people could come up with scores of totally idiotic dysfunctional methods. Those so-called methods were carefully designed by sicko psychologists NOT to work; then left-wing ideologues holding positions of power in this country injected those methods into the schools. This got going in high gear around 1931 with Look-say, and continues this minute with Common Core. It is all the same BS. It pretends to be an educational method but is in fact a gimmick designed to disorient and dumb-down children.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
So the best thing people can do is to defeat Whole Word in any form, Reform Math in any form, Common Core in all of its manifestations, Constructivism, anything labeled student-centered, anything concerned with so-called Competencies as opposed to real content, etc., etc.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
Everything the public schools do should be considered injurious until proven otherwise."</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
----------------------------------------------------</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
I'm in the middle of reading "<b><i>Credentialed to Destroy – how and why education became a weapon.</i></b>" This is an important book (which you can find on Amazon). The basic theme throughout the book is that everything we've seen in education since about 1920 is the same thing: attempts to weaken our society by dumbing down the schools.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
John Dewey laid out this plan as early as 1900. Dewey would have said that he was improving our society, not weakening it. Point is, he was immediately into subversion and intrigue. The plan was to take over the ed schools, use them to indoctrinate the young teachers, and then send the teachers back to Any Town, USA to indoctrinate the children. Communist "agents of influence" threw their weight behind this plan and tweaked it to serve their purposes.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
See, for example, "36: The Assault on Math," which explains how math and reading were undermined. http://www.improve-education.org/id60.html</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
[FYI: My new articles are announced on Twitter. See @educatt ]</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
</ul>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-72100892085471558862013-12-13T14:26:00.001-05:002013-12-13T14:26:13.165-05:00Common Core, Hustle from Hell -- update<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #e06666;"> <b><i><u>on American Thinker</u></i>:</b></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Common Core was sold to the public as a way to improve public schools. Arguably, it’s the opposite.</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px; min-height: 16px;">
<b><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">First of all, the people in charge have been in charge for 85 years. They have proved themselves to be architects of mediocrity and decline, nothing more.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> <span style="color: #660000;">(QED: That's what they know how to do, and apparently what they are committed to doing.)</span></span></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px; min-height: 16px;">
<b><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b> Second, Common Core locks in place bad ideas that have plagued us for decades. Sight-words in reading; Reform Math curricula in arithmetic; Constructivism in the teaching of knowledge; and many other failed theories and methods beloved by left-wing professors. <span style="color: #fce5cd;">.</span> <span style="color: #660000;">(QED: if they started over with better ideas, maybe we could trust these people. Instead they gathered up all the worst ideas in the universe and tried to set them in stone.)</span></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px; min-height: 16px;">
<b><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Third, Common Core Standards give federal bureaucrats more power. Communities will have less flexibility. It’s everything a totalitarian government wants. <span style="color: #660000;">(QED: the real motive for Common Core, as with ObamaCare, is more power for Obama and his crew.)</span></b></span></div>
<div style="color: #021eaa; font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b>----------</b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b>Take away the three QED's and this is the opening to <span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">an <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/12/common_core_standards_throwing_gasoline_on_a_fire.html">article</a> about Common Core on American Thinker. If you're not sick of the subject, it's a good way to get up to speed.</span></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b>http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/12/common_core_standards_throwing_gasoline_on_a_fire.html</b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b> <span style="color: blue;">One final note for this blog post. Think back to New Math circa 1965. One of the gimmicks then was to flood the elementary school classroom with complex and advanced subjects, the kind of things that students used to study in high school and college. We heard talk about Boolean algebra, base eight, matrices, statistics, all kinds of crazy things that no seven-year-old should have to put up with. So what was the motive for this? My take is that the Education Establishment thought they could impress and bamboozle the parents and the community. "Hey, we're teaching your kids algebra in the second grade, so shut up and leave us alone." Of course, the parents don't usually know enough to argue and negotiate. So they are beat into passivity. Which is perfect if your real goal is to dumb down the public schools.</span></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b><span style="color: blue;"> In Common Core today, we hear a lot about higher standards, internationally benchmarked, and all kinds of pretentious talk like that. There is always the implication that all children are going to suddenly rise up to these high standards, simply because they have been announced. In fact, the standards are impossibly scattered, vague, overblown, and very few children will rise up to all of them. Again, I think we're seeing a blitz on the parents exactly like the one in 1965, and for the same dishonorable reasons.</span></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b><span style="color: blue;"> It's far better to have <u>a few, easily understood standards</u> that the entire community can discuss and comment on. So that Mr. and Mrs. Jones have a genuine feel for how their child is doing. It's precisely that connection which Common Core obliterates. When you have 75 difficult-to-understand standards, you basically have a hoax.</span></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
.. </div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-7954203257839667142013-11-18T18:45:00.000-05:002013-11-18T18:45:57.047-05:00Public education is a Rube Goldberg Contraption<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A new book, “The Art of Rube Goldberg,” has just been published. Even though Goldberg died four decades ago, his name and fame are as great as ever.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> His comic genius was to show simple things made immensely complicated. This image of a nuclear bomb to kill a fly, as it were, perfectly captures a lot of the evils in our modern world. Things are over-designed, over-legislated, over-regulated, over-dictated, over-everything. Except successful.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Which brings us by perfect segue to our public schools. People are always saying we don’t spend enough money. Probably we’re spending twice as much as we need to. There, I said it.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px; min-height: 16px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Public schools use overpriced, overdesigned, incoherent textbooks, which are then thrown away every year. Constant new gimmicks, theories and curricula fly through the schools, each requiring the expenditure of billions more dollars. Everything is done as inefficiently as possible. Remedial education is a vast industry all by itself-- an industry made possible by educational malpractice in the first place.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It seems as though the most greedy textbooks publishers are in cahoots with the most ideologically extreme professors (i.e., they're socialists). Together they make all the decisions. Naturally they will come up with only bad, expensive, unproductive ideas. In short, they will labor mightily and come up with Rube Goldberg contraptions.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/rube-goldberg-contraption-our-public-schools">For more </a>on why Rube Goldberg seems to be the architect of this country's public schools, see:</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px; min-height: 16px;">
<b><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></b></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b> http://www.examiner.com/article/rube-goldberg-contraption-our-public-schools</b></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic2b4fYBjZ7pNijVnJ0rL6R9Jv1LAgquIQ27nuT7NVlT7xp-jvKxgAc4cSalmAeQrzDBzPzouL3up7RdyU1UI0kvGlyxNSYy0TJI_HRo4_0N71ctWlAjk-o4tsja3Y24kMO_OamEdbVUt9/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-11-08+at+6.36.11+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic2b4fYBjZ7pNijVnJ0rL6R9Jv1LAgquIQ27nuT7NVlT7xp-jvKxgAc4cSalmAeQrzDBzPzouL3up7RdyU1UI0kvGlyxNSYy0TJI_HRo4_0N71ctWlAjk-o4tsja3Y24kMO_OamEdbVUt9/s640/Screen+Shot+2013-11-08+at+6.36.11+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>This particular machine has the job of placing a finger on a knot.</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>.</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-54790678785106317042013-09-24T22:17:00.001-04:002013-09-24T22:17:01.982-04:00English Hieroglyphics....Please meditate upon this cockeyed phraseLook-say, introduced around 1930, was one of the great magic acts of the world.<br />
<br />
It was like one of those things that David Copperfield does, when he makes an airplane appear and disappear. The entire world seems to be caught up in this magic.<br />
<br />
<b>Our Education Establishment performed exactly that level of magic. They converted one sort of language to an entirely different kind of language. Specifically, they converted a phonetic language to a hieroglyphic language.</b><br />
<br />
But guess what? It's even better than that. Everything had changed. But nobody could see any difference.<br />
<br />
Everything had changed. But nothing had changed. How is that possible?<br />
<br />
<b>Behold the genius. Nothing had changed for adults or educated people. The language they had gone to school with and learned to read with, it was right there on the page in front of them. What's the big deal? There it was. <i>Hickory dickory dock, the mouse runs up the clock</i>. Any kid that has trouble with this simple thing called English must be a dunce. That's why, quite often, you see so little sympathy for kids who are struggling. The adults do not know what the kids are struggling <i>with</i>. </b><br />
<br />
For children, there was a different reality. What they saw on the page was a hieroglyphic language. Why? Because their teachers told them to learn it the way all children had learned hieroglyphic languages through history.<br />
<br />
Chinese, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Sumerian hieroglyphics-- it's the same challenge in every respect. You look at diagrams or designs on the page and you commit them to memory, one by one, over a long grueling period of years. <b>It's precisely this approach to learning the language that makes it hieroglyphics</b>. You could turn French into hieroglyphics, you could turn Spanish into hieroglyphics. You can turn any language to hieroglyphics if you tell the child, "Look at this design and memorize it."<br />
<br />
The child, of course, cannot explain or understand any of this. He is six years old. What does he know? He tries to do what his teachers tell him to do.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the teachers carefully withhold any information about letters or sounds. In the golden early days of Look-say, teachers were forbidden to teach the alphabet. Try to grasp the enormity of that.<br />
<br />
If you're looking at a word and you don't know any letters, all you see is a design. So there, by simple sleight-of-hand and abracadabra, English words are converted to English hieroglyphics.<br />
<br />
English Hieroglyphics sounds paradoxical, oxymoronic, impossible, anything you want to say. All of those things are true. <b>English cannot be hieroglyphics if anyone intends to learn to read it.</b> But our Education Establishment pulled this off and, the amazing thing is, the scam goes on.<br />
<br />
Rudolf Flesch, in his famous 1955 book, talked about how bizarre it was that education officials wanted to throw away all the advantages of phonetic language. They wanted to teach English as if it were hieroglyphics. In fact, I don't think Flesch ever gets around to talking about English Hieroglyphics. He was always speaking of a metaphor. And many people sort of missed the point. I coined the phrase English Hieroglyphics to dramatize just how crazy our reading theory has been for 75 years.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;">Here is a longer presentation of this idea, with some good links: <a href="http://www.rantrave.com/Rant/English-Hieroglyphics-are-fun-and-easy-to-read.aspx"><b>"English Hieroglyphics are fun and easy to read."</b></a></span><br />
<br />
http://www.rantrave.com/Rant/English-Hieroglyphics-are-fun-and-easy-to-read.aspx<br />
<br />
<br />
.Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-28057782296862983922013-09-13T13:47:00.000-04:002013-09-13T13:47:54.982-04:00 “Who will speak for the children?” You.<br />
This title is not original. It’s most often used to discuss pedophilia and the silence of the victims.<br />
<br />
Another take occurred 20 years ago when the exquisitely liberal Linda Darling-Hammond attacked Wendy Kopp’s Teach for America. A belligerent and reckless attack which argued that Kopp’s program was probably destroying children. Who, Darling- Hammond wanted to know, will speak for those children? (The funniest part of the attack was the claim that Kopp was “deprofessionalizing teaching.” The ed schools did that long ago.)<br />
<br />
My own<span style="color: blue;"> “<a href="http://www.opednews.com/articles/Education-Who-will-speak-by-Bruce-Deitrick-Pri-Community_Down_Education_Education-130910-278.html">Who will speak for the children?”</a></span> has more in common with the pedophilia angle but minus the sex. Public schools are abusing children educationally. Who will speak for these intellectually abused children?<br />
<br />
<b>The teachers don’t always know their methods are dysfunctional. School officials may be equally oblivious, or corrupted. Parents aren’t likely to crack the code and be able to tell a teacher, “Here’s what you’re doing wrong.”</b><br />
<br />
The children know they’re failing. They know that school is an unhappy, difficult environment. Whatever is supposed to happen there is not happening in their case. But they don’t know why.<br />
<br />
Reading? Can’t do it. Arithmetic? It’s really difficult and doesn’t make sense. Everything else is just an unpleasant swirl that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.<br />
<br />
<b>So who’ll speak for the children? You, ideally. Everybody in the society has to be more sophisticated about public education. </b><br />
<br />
<b>First rule</b>, you cannot trust the people in charge. Look at their track record. It’s abysmal.<br />
<br />
<b>Second rule</b>, you need to find out for yourself what's going on in the schools. You’ll be amazed.<br />
<br />
<b>Third rule</b>, the Internet is full of information on every subject. Use Google to search for answers to the mysteries as you encounter them.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
-------------------------------------------------------------------</div>
<br />
One easy way to start the search is Improve-Education.org, my site. I try to explain all the weird things going on in the schools. Why can’t they teach reading and simple arithmetic? Why does every educational activity seem to be done in the least efficient way? <br />
<br />
Go to <a href="http://improve-education.org./">Improve-Education.org.</a> Halfway down the homepage, you’ll find a <b>SEARCH SITE</b> box. Enter topics you’re interested in.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
----------------------------------------------------------------</div>
<br />
Here’s a second easy way to find answers. Go to Google and enter a topic and the name Bruce Price. Google will find every page where all the words occur. (I have 100 articles on sites other than my own.)<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-59579707408061748152013-09-10T15:43:00.000-04:002013-09-10T15:43:01.533-04:00College professors must help K-12 education<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/%22College%20professor%20should%20be%20more%20involved%20in%20K-12%20education%22%20is%20the%20actual%20title%20of%20what%20I%20think%20is%20a%20very%20important%20article.%20%20The%20basic%20idea%20is%20that%20college%20and%20university%20people%20tend%20to%20think%20they%20can%20stay%20up%20In%20the%20clouds.%20Meanwhile%20K-12%20is%20stuck%20in%20mediocrity.%20Children%20are%20coming%20up%20to%20the%20college%20level%20who%20don't%20have%20basic%20skills.%20These%20poorly%20prepared%20children%20will%20undercut%20college%20as%20traditionally%20envisioned.%20(All%20levels%20of%20education%20are%20interconnected.%20All%20the%20bad%20things%20at%20one%20level%20will%20slop%20over%20into%20other%20levels.)%20%20The%20whole%20thing%20is%20untenable.%20College%20professors%20need%20to%20get%20involved%20before%20it%20gets%20worse.%20%20I%20believe%20the%20National%20Association%20of%20Scholars%20(NAS)%20could%20help%20in%20this%20situation.%20Maybe%20you%20know%20of%20other%20groups.%20I've%20urged%20the%20Chronicle%20of%20Higher%20Education%20to%20get%20involved.%20%20If%20you%20are%20working%20at%20the%20college%20level%20or%20know%20people%20who%20are,%20please%20check%20out%20the%20article.%20Pass%20it%20on.%20%20The%20main%20suggestion%20is%20that%20people%20in%20higher%20education%20need%20to%20understand%20the%20failed%20theories%20and%20methods%20used%20in%20K-12.%20Then%20our%20academics%20could%20explain%20to%20their%20communities%20what%20has%20gone%20wrong%20in%20the%20public%20schools.%20(The%20main%20culprits%20are%20Whole%20Word,%20Reform%20Math,%20Constructivism,%20Cooperative%20Learning,%20Prior%20Knowledge,%20Learning%20Styles,%20Self-Esteem%20and%20many%20others%20that%20actually%20work%20to%20undercut%20education.%20Professors%20are%20the%20best%20people%20to%20explain%20these%20things.%20After%20all,%20they%20were%20all%20created%20by%20professors,%20professors%20of%20education.)%20%20%20(This%20article%20was%20originally%20published%20on%20American%20Thinker%20but%20the%20title%20got%20mangled;%20so%20I%20started%20over%20again%20on%20Canada%20Free%20Press,%20a%20very%20big%20site.%20%20http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/57764">"College professor should be more involved in K-12 education"</a> is the actual title of a very important article, if I do say so myself.<br />
<br />
The basic idea is that college and university people think they can hide up in the clouds. Meanwhile K-12 is stuck in second gear. Students reach college but don't have college-level skills. These poorly prepared teenagers will destroy college as traditionally envisioned.<br />
<br />
<b>The big concept in this article</b> is this: all levels of education are connected. Anything bad that happens at one level will hurt all the other levels. College professors need to take sides before it gets worse.<br />
<br />
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) could help in this situation. Maybe you know of other groups. I've urged the Chronicle of Higher Education to get involved. SchoolLeadership2.0 might help.<br />
<br />
If you are working at the college level or know people who are, please check out the article. Pass it on.<br />
<br />
<b>The big suggestion in his article</b> is that people in higher education need to understand the failed theories and methods used in K-12. Then our academics could explain to their communities what has gone wrong in the public schools. (The main culprits are Whole Word, Reform Math, Constructivism, Cooperative Learning, Prior Knowledge, Learning Styles, Self-Esteem and many other sophistries that actually work to undercut education. Professors are the best people to explain these things. After all, they were all concocted by professors, professors of education.)<br />
<br />
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/57764<br />
<br />
<b>The article is built around the story of Arthur Bestor's 1953 book "Educational Wastelands – the Retreat from Learning in our Public Schools." Bestor was a world-class visionary and a gutsy guy. Everything I'm saying in this article he was fighting-mad about 60 years ago. Coming back today, he would probably have a heart attack from seeing how far the schools have sunk at all levels. Obama talks about college-ready and career-ready. All these kids are being socially promoted from the lowest grades onward and then suddenly they are up in college and they don't know a damn thing. It's just a sick joke to use the phrase "college ready" in this context. </b><br />
<br />
If college professors really believe in the life of the mind, they have to become much more proactive in defending the values of higher education.<br />
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-20074738129100600702013-09-06T14:50:00.000-04:002013-09-06T14:58:34.850-04:00Common Core Commissars Challenged<br />
<b>First the bad news.</b> Common Core, propelled by grants which had a suspicious resemblance to bribes, spread across the country like kudzu in North Carolina. All but a few states surrendered coherent thoughts, like tipsy journalists meeting Obama for the first time.<br />
<br />
This was a really big issue. People needed to understand that none of the ideas had been tested or proven. None of the people working on this were asked to do so. Who were these people? Really, the people behind Common Core were pseudo-experts like the National Council of Teachers of English, National Council of Teachers of Math, and <b>so many others in education.</b> They pretend to be independent. But really they seem to be puppets run by the people who have been running schools all along (i.e. the Education Establishment).<br />
<br />
Anyway, this thing was pushed through with unseemly haste. The state governments should be embarrassed and disgraced.<br />
<br />
<b>Now, there is some good news.</b> <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/common-core-conspiracy-unraveling-update?cid=db_articles">As many as 20 states are reconsidering.</a> Some states have looked at the economic consequences and don’t like them. Some are hearing a lot of complaints from parents. Some legislators are actually looking at what the Common Core Commissars want to do.<br />
<br />
One small example: I’m working on a piece now about “close reading,” which is just nonsense. We have second graders who don’t know how to read but now we’re going to insist that they do “close reading.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Here is a short statement giving <b><a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/common-core-conspiracy-unraveling-update?cid=db_articles">eight reasons</a></b> why Common Core must be rolled back:</span><br />
http://www.examiner.com/article/common-core-conspiracy-unraveling-update?cid=db_articles<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
--------------</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">PS: The main reason Common Core should be pushed back, if we have to pick one, is very simply that the people who have been screwing up education for the last 50 years are asking for much more power. Why would any rational person give them more power???</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">.</span></div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-37182191748670142892013-08-21T18:43:00.000-04:002013-08-21T20:18:07.857-04:00War on Children? Unfortunately, yes.<br />
There is so much talk in the newspapers, especially here in Virginia, about a War on Women. The Democrats have been very clever about turning Sandra Fluke's sex life into a so-called War on Women.<br />
<br />
It's not just that Democrats took something and made it into a lot more. It's that there is a much more serious war going on in America. And the phrase "War on Women" suggested the obvious parallel phrase "War on Children."<br />
<br />
<b>At first, this phrase was a shock and almost painful to think. But everything that I've figured out about our public schools is very nicely summed up in those three words: war on children.</b><br />
<br />
It starts in K and goes to 12. It's a sort of dumbing-down, if you like that phrase. One might also call it anti-education. One might call it systematic leveling. The people in charge (what I call the Education Establishment) are mostly some sort of socialist. For them it's an ideological given that children should be kept more or less equal. That's why these wannabe commissars are so effective and so dangerous.<br />
<br />
They don't think of themselves as destroying the minds and dreams of children. They think of themselves as building a brave new world, and if children have to be sacrificed to that dream, well, as the great Walter Duranty said, you can't make omelets without breaking some eggs.<br />
<br />
<b>So they can happily promote educational methods that basically don't work, at least in an educational way. But they do work in a collectivist way. They make students more or less the same. That is, they make students mediocre.</b><br />
<br />
That's the vision that glows in the minds of our Education Establishment. All students hold hands and sing in gentle harmony. They play well together. The big enemy is individualism; it must be stamped out. Children must learn to be cooperative, not competitive.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #660000;"><b>Maybe if all children were more or less equal to begin with, this whole process wouldn't be so destructive to most of them. Maybe if we didn't have any enemies in the world, we could get away with putting so much money and energy into social engineering.</b></span><br />
<br />
The problem is, every child is different. They have hugely different potentials. We can't know what those potentials are unless we push them gently along. That approach is obviously best for each individual person.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the world's gotten more complicated but the schools have gotten dumber. This just makes no sense to anyone (except our enemies).<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Meanwhile, there are always lots of enemies, lots of challenges. We need the public to be smarter.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Well, that's the basic story. For a longer version of what's wrong and how we fix it, please see "Public Schools are a War on Children." <a href="http://brucedprice.hubpages.com/hub/Public-Schools-are-a-War-on-Children"><span style="font-size: large;">article</span></a></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
http://brucedprice.hubpages.com/hub/Public-Schools-are-a-War-on-Children</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
..</div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4470844584003109308.post-76052487434601946212013-08-14T18:39:00.000-04:002013-08-14T18:39:10.620-04:00 Literacy versus Illiteracy<br />
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Once upon a time, that was a very simple statement. A child could read and write; and we said that child was literate.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 17px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Or the child cannot read and write; and we said that child was illiterate.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 17px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The whole thrust, the big mission, of any serious school was to move every child from illiterate to literate. Oddly enough, our public schools for a long time have been very casual about this. They were always promoting bad techniques. They were grading loosely. They were suggesting in various ways that reading and writing weren’t all that important. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 17px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">John Dewey, 100 years ago, was clearly suspicious of putting too much emphasis on literacy. He even called it a “perversion.” For him and his socialist cohorts the big mission was killing individualism, and turning children into cooperative comrades.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 17px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Things got so bad that by 1955 somebody could write a book called “Why Johnny Can’t Read” and millions of parents would exclaim, “They’re talking about my kid!”</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 17px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> The point is, our Education Establishment has never cared deeply about literacy. They still don’t. We hear the most amazing anecdotes about first- and second-graders who don’t know the alphabet, can’t print their names, don’t seem to know how to hold a pencil. This of course is a national scandal, and fixing it should be our first priority. <i>(For example, Common Core should be entirely ignored until we have prepared the way for something more sophisticated than where we are now. If we can't even teach reading to little children, that all this blather about new "standards" is not just nonsense, it's dishonest.)</i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 17px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b> Now there is more bad news. The onrush of digital technologies and devices has given our Education Establishment sophisticated new reasons to slight literacy. The sophistry goes like this: what really matters now is that children can use the Internet and prepare a PowerPoint presentation.</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 17px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> For more analysis of this, see <b>“<a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/what_is_literacy_in_the_21st_century.html">What is literacy in the 21st century?</a>”</b> The Education Establishment wants the answer to be: digital manipulations. The answer had better be what it has always been: kids can read and write, competently and comfortably.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
---------------------------</div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
<b>If you have always wondered what the Reading Wars are all about, I've just created a short YouTube video called "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JV0tPGn-Ws">Reading is Easy,</a>" which presents the testimony of seven experts who say that if you teach with phonics, reading is indeed easy. This would seem to be the reason that our Education Establishment constantly condemned this approach. As noted, they were always promoting bad techniques.</b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'New York'; font-size: 13px;">
<b>.</b></div>
Bruce Deitrick Pricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02881671487606709421noreply@blogger.com