Posted on 10/10/2014 3:18:27 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Local newspapers in the US don't cover education in any depth. Maybe they’ll tell you superficial and trivial stuff (for example, that a superintendent was hired or fired, that there will be a meeting next month of the school board). But you won’t find anything about the nuts and bolts that determine whether you child learns to read, or learns anything at all.
At first glance, this non-coverage can seem to be a mystery. Everybody's interested in education, especially parents and grandparents with kids in K-12. Probably one of the most valuable things that you could tell these people is how to help their children do better in school.
So, why not cover education more thoroughly?
But look deeper and the mystery goes away.
American public schools are full of failed theories and dysfunctional schemes. In a phrase, there is a lot of bunk and junk. For example, Rudolf Flesch wrote a famous book in 1955 explaining why Johnny can’t read if you teach him with sight-words. But here we are 60 years later and children in elementary schools are being taught in that same way. Think about that for a moment.
New Math, which the country laughed into oblivion around 1965, came back with multiple variations under the heading Reform Math and now Common Core Math. The common denominator is inefficiency. In short, the Education Establishment has a total affection for clunkers.
And now in almost every classroom, the dominant teaching method is called Constructivism, which dictates that teacher shouldn't teach and children should forage in the intellectual forest for themselves. With teachers not teaching, you will surely get a lot less learning.
That’s just three of many bogus theories and methods. Cynics would say that there are almost no good ideas in the public schools. Our Education Establishment has systematically purged them.
In sum, our public schools are absolutely awash with bad ideas. Apparently the smartest people in the Education Establishment make their bones, as the Mafia guys say, by coming up with creaky, unworkable curricula.
Aha.
Now you're seeing the truth. If newspaper started explaining what’s really going on in the public schools, there would be such an outcry. The peasants might even be in a mood to revolt.
Irate parents would show up to argue with teachers and principals. Administrators might be stalked on the street. School boards would have to deal with endless complaints. Professors at the nearby ed school would find themselves despised. Publishers of useless textbooks would get hate mail. If the truth brought improvement, most tutors and remediation people would be out of work. Shrinks and manufacturers of Ritalin would find their business way down. And what would Sylvan and Kumon do if the school stopped crippling children intellectually?
In short, newspapers do not want all those people mad at them. Better not to rock the boat. Don’t anybody say a word. Better to let the kids be dumbed down.
This sounds pathetic and pusillanimous. And it is. But consider that the editors and publishers of the newspapers are merely human. Probably they are friends with the local NEA bosses, union officials, and big shots from the federal government. They want to stay friends. They don’t want all these parents coming down to the schools every day shouting, “Look what it says here in the paper,” because those shouts will reverberate in their own lives.
So it’s a lot simpler just to leave the kids ignorant, let the parents puzzle on in silence.
Education is a big trough and it seems that everybody has a place at the trough, except maybe kids and parents.
Eric Hoffer, the philosopher, said that every great cause— and here one might think of public education—“begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
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end article
Public schools are quickly becoming the garbage heaps of education. Common Core has raw sewage now coming in.
“Eat up children!”
~NEA
I hope that every moral, decent person who can possible can takes their kids out of those toxic waste sites ruled by Government Supremacy and the State Religion of Atheism.
Well, hey!
Look at you posting stuff you wrote yourself.
Is there any other material you find to be of interest?
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:brucedeitrickprice/index?tab=articles
Nope, not really.
In what way do you compensate Free Republic for the free advertising?
Is it just a coincidence that your own material is all that you post?
Because, Bruce... it SURE looks like you are just promoting yourself here.
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:brucedeitrickprice/index?tab=articles
What’s up with that?
Have you an advertising contract with Free Republic or are you just ripping us off?
Back in the ‘90s the high school match books were derailed for indoctrination. There was a slant toward word problems so that the “educators” could embed liberal dogma in the text; e.g., since global warming is occurring, how fast will the ice melt.
Arizona wound up with math books which had been vetted in California. California is such a large market that publishers were paying attention to their desires. The books were so egregious that a local Arizona columnist, Marianne Jennings, railed against the curricula in the paper. Jennings had some standing as a Professor at ASU.
The chemistry book was so bad that my son’s instructor told the class she was going to teach out of her old notes (where there was actually some facts about chemistry).
That should read: “the high school math books”
My advise to parents is home school, if possible. For parents who can’t home school, don’t use that as an excuse to not be your child’s primary educator. Parental responsibility doesn’t stop at the school yard.
And now in almost every classroom, the dominant teaching method is called Constructivism, which dictates that teacher shouldn't teach and children should forage in the intellectual forest for themselves. With teachers not teaching, you will surely get a lot less learning.
??? Not where I live.
One of the first things they accomplished was to disable kids ability to read. That was formally begun in 1923.
Schools of education were dedicated to taking Dewey's advice.
History also was rewritten. Encyclopedias were rewritten. All to inject Dewey's theories that America would be much better off as a socialist country.
The socialist experiment in America has been furthered by Bill Ayers who has called it a complete success.
Yeah, failing schools and failing students are a big success because they are now socialist entities getting prepared for the marxist utopia they have planned for us all.
Dudn't that just get you in the keister?
Ping.
Teacher here. Can confirm. The answer to everything is "group work" and to "let them teach each other." I'm fighting it like a cornered animal.
Educating or not educating our children are thier primary goals. They are propaganda institutions for changing the future
I’m sorry about the typo in the date. The article is about two months old, 2014.
RE: “I’m fighting it like a cornered animal.”
Good luck. Can you tell us how you do that?
One detail I’m curious about. RE: Group work and let them teach each other –- are these methods identified as something that Common Core now requires?
Or were these trends in place for more than five years?
Do you think that teachers ONLY teach their subject in a classroom? Absolutely not. They also model proper dress and behavior, are on the lookout for possible abuse cases, and offer a sympathetic listening ear for students' problems.
You know what? That’s a good question... LAUSD has always been obsessed with “group work.” All they want in the world is for you to put the kids in groups, give them an assignment... and then take the blame when they don’t learn a blessed thing. It’s frustrating.
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