-- Education IMPROVED --

The Future Of Education Is “Parallel Education”

2009-12-23T17:57:00.013-05:00

Here’s an easy way to know how mediocre the public schools are. Add up all the activities going on OUTSIDE the schools intended to compensate for what’s done badly INSIDE the schools. Reflect on all the tutoring services, remedial centers (Kaplan, Sylvan, LearningRx, etc.), self-help books, educational TV, and frantic involvement by parents.

It’s pathetic that all this activity is needed. On the other hand, it’s very exciting and encouraging that so many parents are fighting back.

In a new article, Improve-Education.org proposes giving all this activity a formal name--Parallel Education--and regarding it as the single best weapon we have for improving public education. Parallel Education, merely by its existence, puts pressure on the Education Establishment to do a better job!

“43: American Basic Curriculum” explains this concept and proposes two major examples--BENCHMARKS to help parents judge the progress made by their children in school; and a CREATIVE SYNDICATE to produce supplemental ed materials.

Educators Created Three Sets Of Victims

2009-12-17T20:14:00.002-05:00

Recently interviewed on Creativity-Portal.com about my education crusade, I was asked what teachers can do to get involved in school reform on a local, state, and national level...

“I believe the Education Establishment has created three sets of victims: students, parents, AND teachers. The first step is for teachers to realize just how profoundly they have been tricked into joining a perverse crusade against the true interests of kids, parents, society, and teachers themselves. It’s sick. Teachers are deliberately trained and encouraged to do a mediocre job.”

Find interview here:

Byron Pitts, Please Jump Into Reading Wars ASAP!!!!!!!!

2009-12-01T19:38:00.005-05:00

CBS reporter Byron Pitts was just interviewed about his new book “Step Out On Nothing.” (See five-minute video on YouTube titled “Overcoming Illiteracy.”)

Pitts says he was 12-years-old and “functionally illiterate.” Tests concluded he was a “picture reader.” All the educational nonsense of the past 70 years is right here in this one little episode.

Here’s my take: nobody knows the idiocy of the public schools any better than Byron Pitts. He was a front-line victim of a completely idiotic way to teach reading called Look-Say, Sight Words, Dolch Words, Whole Word--all of it wholly worthless.

I call on Byron Pitts to lead a campaign against the Education Establishment to make it stop doing to young children of today what happened to him 25 years ago.

Byron, to get your bearings, please see “42: Reading Resources” on Improve-Education.org.

The only reason the Education Establishment can get away with all their shenanigans is that the top people--in business, media, and academia--stand silently by. Am I the only one who finds this disgusting? It's time to make some noise.

New York Times Shows Signs Of Social Responsibility

2009-11-23T17:25:00.004-05:00

Star columnist Nicholas Kristof joins his Times colleagues Paul Krugman and Tom Friedman in lamenting the deplorable state of our public schools. More astonishing, Kristof puts much of the blame on teacher’s unions and Democrats. Here’s the money quote: “Yet, cowed by teachers unions, Democrats have too often resisted reform and stood by as generations of disadvantaged children had been cemented into an underclass by third-rate schools.” Wow!!!!!!

Well, better late than never. But the tragic truth here is that the New York Times, the NEA, and the far-left generally are the combined reason for our bad schools. That’s what I write about on this blog and my main site. John Dewey and his bad boys were never as interested in education as in creating a socialist America. From that point it's all downhill. (See: 38: Saving Public Schools.)

New York Times Spin Machine

2009-10-13T20:02:00.009-04:00

The big mystery is why Paul Krugman (“The Uneducated American,” ca. Oct. 12th) thinks anyone would believe his notion that education is in decline because not enough money is being thrown into this deep dark hole. In particular, Krugman wants to enrich colleges, places which are basically staffed by Obama loyalists. Sounds like pay-back to me.

Still, it’s promising that Krugman has joined Tom Friedman in lamenting the decline and fall of American education. Now we need to see a blinding epiphany wherein both men acknowledge that money is not even remotely the problem. The big problem is that far-left liberals (people very much like Krugman) have systematically dumbed down the public schools. These people think social justice requires mediocrity for all. This belief is killing the kids and killing the country. (For how to resist, see “38: Saving Public Schools.”)

PS: A week or so later, Tom Friedman repeated the same theme: "Time to fix the schools, too." Great. The Times is attacking what their "progressive" friends have done over the years. I would still argue that we can't make progress unless there's clarity about what went wrong. People calling themselves "educators" deliberately debased "education."

A Passion for Teaching....Teaching the Passion

2009-09-22T19:33:00.010-04:00

I got a wonderful note from a teacher in Pennsylvania yesterday:

"I found your Latin word list, and your 'How to teach Latin' on YouTube this week....I have the great good fortune to be a Latin teacher. My students decline and conjugate ad infinitum, we sing our grammar (I make grammar raps); year by year, I find they are turning into grammar nerds. They get excited by new uses of the ablative. It's heavenly."

Hurray for that. This teacher's knowledge + passion is everything we need in the schools. First, teachers should major in, and be masters of, their subjects. Second, they should be given courses (by experienced successful teachers) on how to DRAMATIZE their subjects.

The problem now: schools of education don't care much about facts and think "pedagogical technique" means psychobabble by Piaget. Yuck.

Harvard Invades Virginia Beach (Fights Fiercely For Fluff)

2009-09-08T16:49:00.009-04:00

Virginia still has SOL’s (Standards of Learning). These tests, which progressive educators love to hate, remind people that schools used to focus on facts and knowledge. The Education Establishment works tirelessly to suppress this reactionary nonsense. Who needs facts?

Sunday’s paper hailed the Virginia Beach Schools Initiative, which is said “to preapre students to think critically, solve problems and work as a team.” This yawn is made to seem radical and wonderful. To my ears, it’s just the standard Reform Math/Constructivism/Cooperative Learning/Critical Thinking/No Memorization blather that has done so much to fill schools with fluff. At the end of the day there are fewer facts and less knowledge. For example, Critical Thinking typically means kids who know nothing have deep discussions about said nothing. Biggest alarm bell: teachers will be reduced to "facilitators." A consultant from the Harvard Graduate School of Education dropped down to tell the locals what’s what. Hasn't that place caused enough trouble? The consultant expressed horror that some students could "regurgitate facts." My advice to Virginia Beach: save your money.

(So what's wrong with Constructivism?? Read this....)

The Relevance Of Scoundrels and Sophistry

2009-06-05T17:31:00.005-04:00

My local paper reported (late May) that “Second-graders in Virginia study ancient China, Egypt and the American Indians. In third grade, they study Greece, Rome and the west African empire of Mali.” Remember when educators used to talk about “relevance,” and that everything taught in schools must be “relevant” to the child’s life? Let me tell you a little secret. Educators talked about “relevance” only when they wanted to kill off something traditional, such as biology, Latin, history, English literature, etc. Then educators found a better gimmick: multiculturalism. This sophistry cuts from the other direction, and ends up requiring that children be taught the most remote and irrelevant things possible! So you have seven-year-olds who know nothing about their own region and country studying vast empires that are vast distances away and that lasted vast numbers of years. But you see the same goal is reached: children are NOT taught the foundational knowledge they need. And this is in Virginia, once a very sensible state.

Letter to Bill Gates (and You) About Education

2009-07-09T17:23:00.014-04:00

I would like to advise The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on how to improve education in America. When I think of trying to talk my way past people who have been given orders not to let anyone pass, I know it's simpler to send him a letter on AmericanChronicle. Visit this link for a real sweet statement of what's wrong with the Education Establishment. My basic theme is that the first thing we must do to improve education is to deconstruct and discard all the destructive gimmicks that have been introduced over the last 75 years, such as Whole Word, Reform Math, Constructivism, and literally about 100 others. The letter is not, of course, addressed solely to Bill Gates. Please show it to anyone you know who is trying to improve our public schools.

“CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO"

2009-06-29T17:39:00.005-04:00

Arne Duncan and President Obama have announced that they’re looking for states and school districts “willing to challenge the status quo.” This is tremendously exciting news. These schools, presumably, will start teaching children to read, write and do basic arithmetic!!! Not being able to do these things is unfortunately the status quo in many schools....The problem for 100 years is that when our educators start talking about “reforming public education,” assume your taxes will go up and your kids will get dumber. The public should keep the heat on. We certainly do want improved schools. What we don’t want is the usual slippery sophistries that have so far given us 50 million functional illiterates, falling SAT scores, a less competitive country internationally, and just about everything else you don’t want in your public schools. (My funniest column yet gives some insight into why we have these problems: Professors of Education ADORE Bruce Price’s New Book On Education.)

The Good News About Education Spending? It’s Overrated!

2009-08-04T20:01:00.007-04:00

Maybe if enough school districts waste enough billions without enough results, people will finally realize: “Gee, maybe money isn’t everything. Maybe we really ought to make teachers major in what they teach. Maybe we ought to use reading programs that teach children to read in the first grade. Maybe we should use math programs that teach children to do arithmetic. Maybe if the people in charge were actually interested in education.....”

Point is, the Education Establishment always demanded more money; always got more money; but rarely did a better job. Hmmm. Even my local paper, long a fan of giving educators whatever they wanted, ran a Cal Thomas column headlined: “Misplaced faith in education spending.” Analysts concluded that money is not the be-all. I say that knowing this is good news, liberating news. Now we can focus on what is the be-all: schools sincerely try to raise children as high as each one can go.

(Could educators with a trillion dollars get good results?? Not if they use Sight Words.)

Critical Thinking--A Fraud For At Least 60 Years

2009-08-19T15:37:00.014-04:00

Just put new review on Amazon for "And Madly Teach," published 1949, perhaps the earliest expose of public school follies. Wonderful book...And it contained a wonderful anecdote about a boy who got 30 in reading and math. When his mother complained, he answered, "Yes, but I got 100 in Postwar Planning." (See review if only for last paragraph.)

See how it works. Children who know nothing are said to have deep discussions about the aforementioned nothing. Nuclear energy. Roman society versus Han society. Hindu ideas on death...The sky's the limit when you know nothing.

From k to college, "critical thinking" is another gimmick devised by our Education Establishment to disguise the fact that nobody is educated. A beautiful phrase. Poetry! Who could be against it? Compare: Whole Word, Constructivism, Cooperative Learning, Reform Math, Self Esteem, and 50 more. Not one increases education; not one is intended to. They are empty marketing slogans; and "critical thinking" may be the best of the bunch....For a good short article on this topic, click here.

The Big Education Story This Week--And Every Week--Is Reading

2009-07-21T19:23:00.006-04:00

Did you know we have 50 million functional illiterates? That should be a clue that our Education Establishment is lost and needs to rethink a lot of dumb ideas. I believe that reading is ground zero in the education wars. If we are to save the public schools, we first have to save reading. That means everybody ought to know why Sight Words, Whole Words, and Dolch Words don’t work. Fortunately, this is easy! Read this short, hard-hitting article: “Let’s Rescue Reading: Here’s The Plan.”

Or visit YouTube where I’ve got eight graphic videos on reading--search “Why Sight Words Don’t Work” (other titles will appear on the right side of the YouTube page). Then spread the word. Parents especially need to be able to defend their kids against dumb reading ideas.

In a hurry? Here's the whole thing explained in less than 3 minutes: "Kindergarten Sight Words: Not A good Idea."

“Quackery in the Public Schools”--published in 1950!!!!!!!

2009-07-08T17:58:00.011-04:00

I just read this important book (by Albert Lynd) and put a review on Amazon.com. Lynd deserves credit for writing the first BIG SALVO in the education wars. He called our Education Establishment what it is--dim-witted and corrupt. I was surprised to learn how candid the elite educators were in 1950. They announced openly that the traditional curriculum should go, never seeming to guess that the public might object, or that smart worldly people like Lynd might laugh at them. Here’s what happened next, in my estimation. The Education Establishment got much more subtle, more tricky. They didn’t try to throw out the traditional subjects so much as to undermine the teaching of them, with gimmicks such as Whole Word, Reform Math, Constructivism, Multiculturalism, Self Esteem, No Memorization, etc., etc. Well, those are the inanities I write about. See, for example, "30: The War Against Reading.”

President Obama Insults Nation’s Intelligence, What’s Left Of It

2009-07-14T17:55:00.018-04:00

The Education Establishment has debased the country’s high schools to the point where graduates can hardly be presumed to have a 9th grade education. A recent survey asked Arizona high school students, “What ocean is on the East Coast of the United States?” (29.1% did not know; in addition 12.1% got it wrong). Dare we even presume that high school graduates have a 6th grade education?...Now Obama wants to spend $12 billion to make community colleges do what high schools should be doing. Why not make HIGH SCHOOLS do what high schools should be doing?? And save $12 billion!....Probably the goal is to make ever more professors and administrators ever more dependent on government. The pay-to-play part might be making sure students encounter only PC views... (Cliff Notes: the decline of American education is surreal and fantastical. Any book or article that told the exact truth about this descent would be classed as science fiction--cf. "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers." For a peek into the man-made darkness, see my sci-fi article "36: The Assault On Math.")

Math Takes Bath

2009-06-23T17:34:00.008-04:00

Google “math scores” and you will find a pathetic litany of lies and alibis...Scores are DOWN, but not that much, so don’t worry about it!....Scores are UP, but as Newsday reported June 21, 2009: “Higher passing rates for students on state math tests have triggered debate...over the question of whether Albany has pumped up results by lowering cutoff scores.” Did you get that? They move passing from 75, let’s say, to 70 and then announce to the world: “Kids better in math!” ....It’s hard to think of something more corrupt than math instruction in the USA. New Math didn’t teach math circa 1960. Reform Math, also known as New New Math, doesn’t teach math today. As subversives, our math experts are world-class. Anything with a name like MathLand, Connected Math, Constructivist Math, or Everyday Math seems to be a Three-card Monte. Run the other way if you hear these warning signs: algorithms, spiraling, constructivist, cooperative, critical thinking...From what I hear, homeschoolers use only Saxon Math or Singapore Math. (For more on dumbing down in math, see “36: The Assault On Math.”)

Hot news in Edville: Practice makes perfect. Content is king.

2009-06-16T21:30:00.008-04:00

The Week magazine reported on two new books side-by-side: 1) THE TALENT CODE by Daniel Coyle concludes that great talent springs from lots of practice; 2) WHY DON’T STUDENTS LIKE SCHOOL? by Daniel Willingham concludes that content is more important than “learning strategies.”...In education circles these statements of the obvious are shocking news. That’s because our elite educators like to build houses of dust on airy axioms that long experience knows to be untrue....Educators postulate that talented people are born that way, so students should NEVER practice anything or master anything. Just play....Meanwhile, in our ed schools, future teachers are told not to bother learning content. Instead, they must learn strategies, i.e., little gimmicks by which they will educate the next generation. Not! Imagine, strategies to teach, but they don't know anything to teach. Only in Edville.

National High Standards or National Low Standards???

2009-06-10T15:42:00.011-04:00

Newspapers are abuzz about states working together on so-called “national standards.” Here’s my guess: the Educational Establishment loves this idea to the extent that the standards can be kept low, mushy and multicultural. A major theme on this blog is that, for ideological reasons, our elite educators don’t aim high. "National standards” will be harmful because educators will use them to dumb down the overachieving states. Why not let each state be an R&D lab that searches for better ways to do things? SAT scores and other tests can tell us which states and which methods are doing a good job. Then the low-performing states can be encouraged to copy the high-performing states. Sounds like a great system to me! What we have seen for the last 75 years in public schools is that our elite educators can always find many compelling reasons why children needn’t bother to learn X. X being anything! WE ARE MUCH STRONGER WITH DIVERSITY--different states trying different approaches; different students trying different approaches, such as good public schools, vouchers, charter schools, homeschooling, private schools, etc. Excellence, wherever possible, is the best diversity of all. (For notes on how to make education more efficient, see "26: How to Teach History, Etc.)

Educators and President Kill D.C. Vouchers

2009-05-14T16:13:00.009-04:00

My take is that our Top Educators, no matter what they say, love mediocrity. Anything that threatens their pursuit of a collectivized muddle will be resisted. If vouchers in D.C. can provide more opportunity at less cost, making the NEA look bad in the process, well, you know what the NEA will ask the president to do. His decision to phase out the very successful voucher program is shameful. Instead, he should be encouraging all possible DIVERSITY IN EDUCATION--private schools, charter schools, homeschooling and, of course, vouchers. (Andrew Coulson at the Cato Institute says: "The president has sacrificed a program he knows to be efficient and successful in order to appease the public school employee unions. If he will do this for the NEA, he will do anything.")

Activist Educator Comes Out Four-Square Against Education

2009-05-20T14:04:00.003-04:00

Jonathan Kozol pleaded with soon-to-be-graduated teachers at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia: “Don’t be drill sergeants for the state.” Kozol thus appeared to echo a refrain from Paolo Freire that the education of the poor and minorities should be minimal, lest these poor wretches become cogs in the capitalist-military-industrial complex. The solution, said Kozol, is that teachers must help children retain their “innocence.” Too much in the way of facts and knowledge could cause irreparable harm. Virginian-Pilot headline says, apparently without irony, "Buck system, Put kids first." Kozol appears to believe those nasty public schools are teaching way too much. Note: Antonio Gramsci, a real Communist, doubtless thought Freire a light-weight dilettante for opinions that will only hurt the children he says he cares about. Gramsci said the best thing is to give kids a really solid education. Me, too. Kozol agitates for "innocence." Isn't that code for dumbing down?

Hollywood Loves Creepy New Thriller: “Duh Dewey Code”

2009-06-01T15:41:00.001-04:00

When millions of children are discovered to be illiterate and suffering from VA (virtual amnesia), a titanic police drama erupts. Secret FBI unit--The Illuminati--battles with a secret cult--The Ignorati--funded by Rockefeller billions. (Their motto: Semper Fuzzy.) What vicious virus is crippling kids? Cracking the Duh Dewey Code requires Tom Hanks-esque hero to dodge repeated assaults by berserko profs of education, some tricky time travel in an alternative alphabet that nobody can pronounce, and a final dumb-down where the Spirit of Look-say, embodied in the sociopsycho Willy Scott Gray, seeks to subdue the last reader standing, and cleanse the universe of letters-as-sounds. As Willy warbles in the haunting title track, “Letters Are Shapes You Memorize, And So Your Mind Slowly Dies.” Expect John Malkovic as the satanic ghost of John Dewey, a/k/a The Degenerator. (For background, see 6-minute video "Phonics versus Whole Word” on YouTube.)

Stunting Our Idea Of The Possible

2009-05-13T15:25:00.009-04:00

Here's what John Dewey and his social engineers have done to us....The striking thing about American education is that we are under-achievers, seeming to feel that a C is all a person could hope for. We dream small because, for many years, our educators have made the country dazed and stupid. Here's the scam: schools don't teach; and then bureaucrats wring their hands and say it must be drugs, parents, the internet, etc. Let me sum it up this way. If somebody binds the feet of little girls, that somebody doesn't want girls to run...You’ve seen "Jaywalking." You’ve seen all the statistics and surveys. Perhaps you’ve heard that the US has 50 million functional illiterates. This is crazy, tragic stuff. We have to learn to think big again. Let children rise as far as they are able. Let them run. Here's the pretty part: I think such a policy would benefit the slower students most of all--because schools would actually be trying to teach them something.

Ministry of Truth Reports No Records Of George Orwell

2009-05-21T19:08:00.004-04:00

George Orwell has been declared a non-person by the top government agency concerned with historical accuracy. It has been further determined that Orwell did not write a novel titled 1984, that he did not explain better than anyone else the workings of totalitarian states, in particular, by his three slogans War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Ignorance Is Strength, and that in January 2010 we will not be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the alleged death of this exceptionally untalented non-person. Public schools will celebrate January as Owell...Who? Month. It has also been determined that the dumbing down in the public schools is double-plus-not an example of Ignorance Is Strength. (Related article "15: 1984--The Cover-Up" muses on how certain people always argue that 1984 means anything but what it means.)

Republican Party Not Inclusive Enough, Says Colin Powell, Says Tom Teepen

2009-05-27T17:27:00.003-04:00

As a connoisseur of sophistry, I remain in awe of liberal propagandists. You hear almost every day that the Republican Party, alas and woe is us, is not inclusive enough. (Colin Powell said so recently -- that’s my news hook -- but I’m sure it was said on 10,000 previous occasions.) Let’s suppose, just for the fun of it, that this lament is actually ingenious misdirection designed to take our minds off the real problem bedeviling America, which is that the Democrat Party is TOO inclusive. Let’s just imagine, merely as a theoretical exercise, that the Democrats excluded socialists, marxists, collectivists, totalitarians, and hate-America extremists. One has to wonder how much smaller the party would be? Who would be left to lead it? (I mention this because my main interest is education; and I believe the left wing of the Democrat Party is the main culprit when it comes to explaining the low standards in our public schools. For more on this, see "A Short Sad History of American Education.”

Democrats Should Be Blamed For Dumbing Down Education

2009-05-19T15:27:00.003-04:00

Please, somebody WAKE UP the Republicans and tell them the good news: Democrats are guilty of educational malfeasance, and most people know it. Who else but liberal Democrats have created the dumbed-down public schools that now waste so much money and damage the country at every level? Liberal educators believe in collectivism; so they emphasize group activities at the expense of academic progress. In short, the party of “defining deviance down” is also the party of defining dumbness down...If by “education” you mean what virtually all Americans mean--that is, reading, writing, arithmetic, etc.--then no one is more anti-education than liberal Democrats. This should be shouted from the rooftops...Please see important political analysis on American Chronicle.