"Saving K-12" -– Why you may want this book

1) Good Christmas present for smart people. Somewhat complex sophistries are explained in simple terms. It’s fun knowing how this stuff works.

2) This book is a guidebook to what’s really going on in our public schools. Weird, unproven theories and methods are commonplace, such as Sight-words to teach reading, Constructivism to teach knowledge, Common Core Math to teach arithmetic, and so on. Once you understand these gimmicks, then you can fight back more successfully against the school system.

3) A group, whether 2 people or 20 people, can use this book to initiate and focus discussions. You can pick a chapter or even a single paragraph and say, “Let’s talk about this.”

4) This is a how-to book that lays out the reform agenda that Trump should follow.

Generally speaking, the Education Establishment has been brilliant at keeping Americans ignorant and confused. That’s why public education in America is a swamp of mediocrity and dysfunction. Virtually no two people can have a helpful conversation about education because they are using the same words to mean different things, because each person has learned different snippets of theory, and because the Education Establishment churns out new jargon, disinformation, propaganda, and lies each year.

John Biver’s REVIEW: https://illinoisfamily.org/education/every-12-years-review-book-saving-k-12-part-two/

PRESS RELEASE about book: http://www.abnewswire.com/pressreleases/education-reformer-explains-how-public-schools-can-be-better-and-cheaper_167213.html

INTERVIEW with author: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-im-passionate-education-reform-by-bruce-deitrick-price/ Title: Saving K-12: What happened to our public schools? How do we fix them?

Thank you Bruce! I’ll do a google search for your other articles. The eBook version doesn’t seem to be available on Amazon, but I did click the ‘tell the publisher I’d like to read this book on Kindle’ button & followed you. I will try to find the eBook version hopefully elsewhere.

Speaking of common core math, my arguments against with my friend usually revolve around Microsoft Excel, which is used extensively in business & relies, IMHO, on knowledge of basic math problem solving. How in the world can these children be proficient in Excel in the workplace with the way they are being taught math. I can see a huge disconnect, but why don’t teachers? I hope to find something about this in your writings.

Your post has really peaked my interest, as well as Ouderkirk’s post. I’m also intrugued you mention adults read by ‘sight words’...who knew? I don’t even know what that means, except from my teacher friend, LOL! I’m an avid reader & have never had difficulties during K-12 & beyond, always my strongest subject. So it’s also interesting how, as an adult, I read. I’ve never thought about it, it’s 2nd nature to me & without a teaching background, you have me now thinking about that aspect. Interesting! Even without children, I find common core & all the seemingly problems children are having learing disturbing and defies common sense to me. After all, I am a taxpayer, so I’m paying for this stuff & children are a part of our society that affects us all. Many thanks & I have a new subject to investigate for further knowledge. Perhaps you could post some of your articles, etc. here on FR?

Ouderkirk, what an awesome post, thank you! Take a bow, very impressive - I hope your children know how very lucky they are to have you & your wife! I dread to think about their lives without your intervention.

I totally agree with you about the ADHD, blah, blah issues. I’m 58 & we never had all these problems when I was in school. All I can say is WTH?

You have me very excited to read more of Bruce’s work, so thank you for sharing your story.

My Mom, to this day, rails about how I was taught ‘new math’ & swears to this day that it was harmful to me. PTA meetings were especially her favorite soap box for this issue - do they still have PTA? LOL!

Could you please share some of Bruce’s work you reference in your post? TIA!

I know everyone can’t, but I know a few peeps who homeschool. I can’t imagine how anyone is able to do that, but one thing that sticks out to me is how amazing it is to talk to those kids. They are absolutely brilliant! I think the same is probably true of your kids & keep it up - what a wonderful parent, so inspiring!

Sight words are are the equivalent to hieroglyphs to those who can’t decode them. I forced the local school district to remediate my kids using phonics. I was able to back them into a corner, where I could point out their failures and diffuse their counter arguments in support of the methods they were using. Without Bruce’ support via his articles at AmThink as ammunition, I would have been in no position to win. I do believe that as an older parent with advanced degrees in physics and mathematics, I am an age peer or older than these administrators and they could see that I was not going to be bamboozled by their platitudes. I had empirical evidence that their methods were failing my kids, and it was their responsibility to provide the support for the phonics education that my wife and I were using to repair the damage their methods had wrought.

As my kids have rejoined their peers, they are actually beating them in their ability to read at or above grade. Their comprehension is substantially higher than their peers because they actually understand new words they encounter because they can break them down into their component parts and arrive at a meaning without having to be referenced to a dictionary.

As far as mathematics goes, I have forced the school district to stop forcing alternative strategies on my kids when they have mastered the concept (i.e. long division as opposed to the other strategies) My kids are already a full grade level above their peers in mathematics because I work with them daily to help them understand the proper methods and shit-canned their alternative strategies nonsense. Again, this was serving to confuse the kids, not enhance their abilities.

The problem is that Bruce is but one thoughtful voice against an education establishment that is full of these democRAT voters.

The school district has labeled me as a “difficult parent” which is fine. The key is they fear me, and know I am smarter than they are. Their position now is, whatever the father wants...don’t argue with him, just give it to him.

I do feel for the younger parents who don’t have the ability to go toe to toe with these edu-crats. Their kids suffer being taught under faulty presumptions and are pigeon-holed.

People on FR often leave drastic comments such as everybody has to homeschool; or schools have to be torn down and we start over; or unions have to be moved out of education, etc.

Good luck. These are huge changes not likely to happen anytime soon if ever. Does that mean all improvement has to stop?

Ouderkirk shows what can be done by focusing on the individual situation, making demands, negotiating with the local officials, pointing out their failures, and explaining alternative approaches. That’s what I’m always hoping, when I write articles, that people use them in their local battles.

Mostly parents are at a great disadvantage. But there is one piece of good news. The school officials do not want to be hated. They don’t want bad press. At some point they will give up in order to protect past gains. They will wait for you to get tired, and then they will come back and reclaim lost ground. So that’s an interesting part of Ouderkirk’s story, at some point he won.

I believe that the Education Establishment deliberately creates a climate of confusion and misunderstanding. It’s a safe bet that even doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, community leaders and so on cannot explain the reading wars, the math wars, the knowledge wars, etc. I think a lot of these things are like magic tricks, very mysterious and impressive until the magician reveals the gimmick. Than we think, oh, so that’s all there is to it. When people understand the gimmickry in education, they are free.

Indeed! My teacher friend actually works off of a grant for ‘damaged’ kids with ‘reading/learning disabilities’...has so many kids, it’s like a separate class! My brother was ‘diagnosed’ with dyslexia back in the day, prior to it becoming rampant as it is today, along with ADHD. Thanks for the link you suggested, & watched quite a few of your YouTubes, great stuff, very informative! I especially found ‘sight words’ extremely disturbing. i.e. the one for chair, ‘hkjf’ with pictograph of chair. (I’m improvising ‘hkjf’ here because I can’t remember the actual letters used in the example given from the link. This speaks volumes in & of itself...if I can’t remember, how can a child learning to read?) That example really confused me, taking a bit for me to figure out. I finally came to the conclusion that using the totally random letters ‘hkjf’ in the example is meant to illustrate how a sight word is viewed by a child.(????)

I actually did a little Kindle experiment of my own using the ‘rule’ of guessing a word meaning or skipping altogether (WTH?!) I read the latest article from Heritage Foundation, Imprimis, concerning identity politics. I always look up words or people while reading, which is why I prefer eBooks exclusively...so easy to search. Anyway, there were a few words I wasn’t quite sure of meaning, so guessed based on context. 1) I was sorta close, but wrong every time, which threw off the meaning of the sentence (comprehension) + 2) I still don’t know the proper meaning of the word for next time or if I even guessed correctly? Crazy! i.e. ‘exurban’, I guessed someone who previously lived in a city, but moved out?
Shrugs. Actually, it is adj of (n) exurb, a small, usu. prosperous community situated beyond the suburbs of a city. Totally changes the context & meaning of the sentence, doesn’t it. Also, I guessed the word as a noun, when in fact, it is an adj. The article quoted many peeps I am unfamiliar with, so I just kept reading.

I then reread the article as I normally would. I looked up words I wasn’t sure of, looked up every peep I wasn’t familiar with as I read, using Echo (Alexa), Merriam Webster app, &/or web search. I am totally immersed in what I’m reading, & learning new words/people as well. I always read in this manner, so it has become 2nd nature to bounce between an article, definitions, people. Granted, I don’t always go so indepth with every article, just those with more indepth subject matter, or a book. I even scanned a couple of additional articles by the peeps referenced if I felt I didn’t have enough understanding of what was quoted.

The differences between the two techniques was astounding!!!!!! The technique of reading, guessing words, skipping people was garbage. Comprehension, recognition of fact vs opinion, ability to identify fallacies, and overall understanding...minimal, as well as a high level of misinterpretation of what the author is trying to convey. I’d be here all day listing all the wrongs on so many levels using this technique. These are but a few.

My technique, or rather the way I was taught, +++1000 better! Unbelievable. I came away with a much better, completely different understanding of the article & what the author was trying to convey. Learned new words, more about peeps mentioned. Night & day between the two techniques.

Wow, got kinda carried away, too much time on my hands today, I guess. The further I dig into this, the worse it seems. Especially posts from Ouderkirk, who is in the thick of it, fighting for his kids....so inpiring! He also shared a link with me for your articles on Am Thinker, so I’m reading those. You both have really inpired me & am more interested in this subject. Ouderkirk credits you with helping him help his kids!

I am even thinking about tutoring. I looked into many years ago through local library, before all this common core stuff. Don’t recall exactly, but I ran into an adult who could not read. How can you go through life not being able to read, I thought??!!! I was horrified, contacted local library to volunteer. It was pathetic, disorganized, uncoordinated, bureaucratic nightmare, couldn’t get anybody to call me back to schedule training, etc. It is time to revisit that activity, I think. Who knows what techniques they are using now. I didn’t really realize how critical this has become. I have a feeling that I will be taught some really bizzare teaching techniques, which I feel that I will reject. But that doesn’t mean I can’t take my lead from Ouderkirk. Are there any tutoring resources you can suggest to read up on in preparation? TIA!

I saw a link to some sort of sight word worksheet from on of Bruce’s articles. ‘ksjf’ for chair, i.e. I wasted a good bit of time trying to figure that one out, because of course, chair is the correct word/spelling. How in the world do you connect ‘ksjf’ to chair? I just made up ‘ksjf’ btw, because I don’t remember what seemingly random letters the example used. The only way to connect was the pictograph of a chair included with ‘ksjf’ I finally reached the conclusion that ‘ksjf’ was used to illustrate what a child sees? Still not sure, but that’s the only reasonable conclusion I came up with. And because you mentioned hieroglyphs. Without that tidbit, not sure I would have come up with the conclusion I did. Speaks volumes, doesn’t it.

I attempted to volunteer tutoring through library years ago. They kept cancelling or rescheduling training until finally I just never heard back from them. You, along with Bruce, have inspired me to try to volunteer again. But this time, I’d like to follow in your footsteps & buck whatever bizzarro teaching technique they are sure to lay on me during training. I have been reading Bruce’s articles on Am Thinker, watching his YouTubes. Are there any tutoring technique resources you can provide in preparation please? Maybe I’m putting the horse before the cart & should take the training course first, then investigate how to counter what they train me to do? I’ll ask my teacher friend first, but she’s going to direct me to common core stuff, I suspect.

As to your comment about younger parents being at a disadvantage trying to do as you are doing, it seems to mee you are right on point. The sad thing is they may have been subjected to the same common core stuff as well. Since they may have not been taught, through no fault of their own, the way we were. I am not trying to criticize or put anyone down or be superior in any way to anyone, just calling it as I see it. I think it is a shame. Kids, IMHO, even in college, are no longer taught critical thinking from what I see. TIA for any resources!

I really appreciate your enthusiasm.

Let me comment on your problem with “KSJF” or whatever it was. The biggest obstacle I have with exposing the stupidity of sight-words to parents is that they have been using English words for many many years. They think those words are friendly and comfortable and ordinary and logical. In short, easy. In short, parents do not appreciate the ORDEAL their kids are going through.

So my problem becomes thinking of ways to show adults what the children are experiencing. Children, seeing English for the first time, experience it the way most adults experience words in Norwegian, Russian, Czech, etc. English words were never designed to be memorized visually. They are random, chaotic, repetitive, quite insane. The same shapes and letterforms repeat over and over.

In one article I suggest turning a book180° and reading the words in a mirror. Don’t try to reconstruct what the word is, just look at those weird shapes That’s what the kid is dealing with. Some kids never master even 25 sight-words.

Most of these tutoring programs let people do what they want. It’s inefficient and irresponsible. But if they insisted on phonics, they would find themselves in a war with the NEA and the public school system. (If they want to teach you anything else, keep looking.)

In general, I suspect a lot of these outreach efforts are phony. They want to take credit for trying, even as they know their efforts are not going to do anything. I’m very suspicious of the groups that hand out books to poor people, so the parents can read the books to the kids. But that’s not what we need. We need to teach parents to teach reading, at least a little.

I also have some good pieces on my main site Improve-Education.org. Just scan the titles and you’ll see.

Thanks for responding! As to your comment concerning obstacles explaining the difficulties of sight words to children, may I humbly submit myself as exhibit A, lol! It has been very difficult for me, exactly as you say, to understand sight words. Makes absolutely no sense to me. I read somewhere that adults use sight words, which I don’t understand. I’m like, I do? Huh. So I’ve been paying special attention when I read, still don’t get it. But I’ve noticed I do pronounce words in my head as I read, I think? Or maybe because I’m consciously thinking about it, when normally, I don’t think about it at all as I’ve been reading for so long. So I do have a better understanding about the challenges you discuss. It’s like that drawing of a woman, if you’ve seen it - look at it one way, a beautiful woman with feather cap is seen; looked at another way, a hag. (I always saw the hag first, then didn’t understand what the hoopla about the beautiful woman was about, so thought everyone else was crazy, except me ;) As for the ‘ksjf’ I at first tried to read & pronounce as a word. I did finally surmise the intended representation of what a child sees. Your examples of words e.g. Czech, I got immediately, as well as viewing book upside down or in a mirror. (Then again, I see the hag first lol!)

Thanks especially for your comments about tutoring programs. I agree they are fraught with problems & much doubt they do any good, especially given my past experience/attemt to volunteer. One person can’t save the world, but if I can help just one or a handful... So my main problem on my own, is connecting with a ‘pupil’. Not sure how else to do so. Through a school or library, yes, you are right that you then get entangled with the NEA types. I thought about homeschool orgs, but have the impression they are getting it right to begin with. My 2nd problem is how to circumvent the way a volunteer org will probably train. Maybe what I should do is try to connect with parents in my community & maybe incude them/their child needing tutoring? But then back to dealing with the school the child attends/common core. Maybe tutor adults instead? I don’t have the answer. But do feel the need to try to do something to help. There has to be pushback, just not so sure how.

I am reading your articles in the meantime, thanks. Extremely helpful!

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