Bill Ayers and the Threat to Education

Accuracy In Media ^ | AUGUST 3, 2009 | MARY GRABAR

[AIM Freeper]

Imagine if, as you chat with your child's first-grade teacher and ask about how he decided to embark on a career in education, he told you, "I walked out of jail and into my first teaching job."

Imagine him furthermore telling you that his days in jail and violent protesting were formative to his teaching philosophy.

Most parents would have a serious discussion with the principal, at the minimum.

But the teacher who brags about such beginnings is now a "Distinguished Professor of Education." Despite his specialty as "Professor of Curriculum and Instruction," he trains future teachers to dispense with curricula and discipline, as well as tests and grades.

[metmom]

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[La Lydia]

The “threat” to education? The Leftists, and their agent NEA, long ago took over public education and turned it into a propaganda/indoctrination machine in which children are taught to be “sympathetic” instead of to think, read, write, add and subtract. They have been tightening their stranglehold since the 60s, to the point where, now, public schools are a waste of time and money.

[Neoliberalnot]

Ayers is a cold blooded back shooter and needs a bullseye painted on his forehead.

[headsonpikes]

Uh, given the state of US Public Schooling, I would change the title to "Bill Ayers and the Threat OF Education."

[Falcon4.0]

I wanna know how Bill Ayers reconciles the fact that HE has become one of the “Rich and Powerful, Elitist Oppressors” whom he and his wife tried to kill in the sixties?

[Notwithstanding]

I highly recommend the book
“The Risk of Education”
to all Christian parents,
and especially those who are
considering home schooling.

http://www.amazon.com/Risk-Education-Discovering-Ultimate-Destiny/dp/0824518993

http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=64&Itemid=48

[Jim Noble]

Most parents would have a serious discussion with the principal, at the minimum.

Oh, come on.

That ship has sailed.

If you want your child to learn that life is meaningless, that they are dust in the wind, should live for today, and should be ruled by experts who know more than their parents, then, by all means, send them to public school.

But after you do, don't waste your breath in "conferences". Just go ahead and put your name on the mandatory re-education list. It's quicker, and you won't get as aggravated, at least until they take you away.

[matginzac]

Excellent posting! Very succinct and thorough! Thanks...

[RJR_fan]

Agreed. Still, history is not shaped by inert majorities, but by energetic and motivated minorities. The future of America depends on which elite wins the race for cultural influence: the home-schooled children of Christian families, or the “TAG” (talented and gifted) Janissaries of the government schools.

[wintertime]

Please read a little about the history of compulsory government education in the U.S.

You will find that government K-12 schools were a socialist scheme from the very beginning in the mid 19th century to turn American citizens into compliant mind-numbed workers for the fascist industrial-government complex.

It took a few generations but they have succeeded admirably. It only took 2 to 3 generations to produce FDRs socialism, and 2 to 3 more to yield Obama’s Marxist dream.

So...Please remember: IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO REFORM GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS! Why? BECAUSE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO REFORM SOCIALISM!

Yes, I am generally shouting at conservatives who wrongly believe that government schools can be fixed. Government schools must be shut down! Conservatives must find a way to provide universal, tuition-free, conservative, K-12 schooling for all the children in the nation.

[La Lydia]

No need to condescend. You are not the only person on this forum who knows who John Dewey was. And I do know a little about 19th century American history, having taught it at the university level. Public education worked fairly well until the 60s, when the Leftists took over and the federal government became involved, giving our country the advantage of near universal literacy that other countries didn’t match until much later. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the alternative to the mind-numbing fascist scheme you described was universal illiteracy, literacy being reserved for the wealthy. Your views are curiously close to those expressed by the early Bolsheviks. All that said, I tend to agree with you that the public school system we have today is beyond redemption.

[wintertime]

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the alternative to the mind-numbing fascist scheme you described was universal illiteracy,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Is this what you taught you impressionable and gullible students? Geeze!

Well,...Illiteracy was certainly not universal among Catholics with their tuition-free schools.

[La Lydia]

It was taught to me by impressionable and gullible nuns and priests. And for that teaching my parents paid a pretty penny. If you are suggesting that it would have been better had universal education been provided only to and limited Roman Catholics, I disagree with you. Perhaps you need to go back and read how single-building schools were organized by communities, not governments, in frontier America.

[wintertime]

If you are suggesting that it would have been better had universal education been provided only to and limited Roman Catholics, La Lydia
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I can not defend a strawman argument created by you. Given that you taught on the university level I would expect that you would know this. I trust that, (since you are a professional), you would **never** use this manipulative debating technique with your scholastically immature students, and would confine this strategy to message boards only.

Are you too young to remember that at one time Catholic schools throughout much of the Northeast United States were tuition-free? My husband and I attended tuition-free Catholic schools. In Wichita, Kansas, they are **still** tuition-free ! ( Do a Google on “tuition-free, Catholic schools, Wichita, Kansas). I know from the examples of my great grandparents, grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles,..etc. that, thanks to the efforts of the Catholic school “universal illiteracy” ( as you state) did not exist and would not have existed.

Also...You point out that communities organized one room school houses. I expect that they were essentially parent-run co-ops. Parents, relatives, and friends voluntarily joined toghether, built a modest school, and jointly hired a teacher who supported values being taught in the home. You point out that these schools existed, so how could this have resulted in “universal illiteracy”? This is hardly the burdensome, compulsory, government monolith that we have today.

I also invite you to visit Hagley Mills in Wilmington Delaware. From the very beginning of the DuPont industries ( shortly after the Revolutionary War) the children of the workers were taught to read and do basic arithmetic in Sunday schools. We **know** that there wasn't “universal illiteracy” on the grounds of the DuPont mills and among the children of the workers of competing industries.

Finally... I attended a graduate school with a student body that was nearly universally Jewish. I testify that my classmates **deeply** resented the Christian worldview that was forced upon them in the government schools. Even if compulsory government K-12 schooling functioned reasonably well until the 60s those who were cheerleaders for the Christian dominant government K-12 system forgot one thing:

Any government powerful enough to force my worldview on other people's children is powerful enough to force an atheistic Marxist dominated worldview on my kids.

There is a solution: Begin the process of privatizing universal K-12 education. Shut down the socialist government K-12 system.

One more thing:

If we get government run health care, in one or two generations people will say, “We can't possibly have private health care. Look! In the beginning of the 21st century people were dying in the streets.”

[La Lydia]

I attended parochial schools K-12 in California. I assure you they were not tuition-free at the time I was in school, as my parents will attest, they were very good schools, and they were a luxury. Perhaps I am too young to remember anything else. But I am also familiar with the free schools provided by the Church in the northeast. I think you missed my point. The fact that frontier communities organized their own schools is the reason there was not universal illiteracy. Had those communities not done what they did, illiteracy would have been widespread, particularly in the West.

I do not think it will take a couple of generations of government health care for people to say we can't have private health care. I think it will be almost immediate. The Canadian government began its government health care program exactly the way Congress is intending to begin it here, incrementally. Within a few short years, the government had gobbled it all up, and they are stuck with the third-rate, patient-sacrificing system they have now. My greatest concern is, where are WE going to go once the government takes over health care here? The Brits and the Canadians can travel here to get the care they need, but our institutions will have been destroyed. We will have to go Brazil or India or Mexico.

[wintertime]

The fact that frontier communities organized their own schools is the reason there was not universal illiteracy.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

These were essentially voluntary parent run co-ops, with volunteer support from friends and neighbors. Together they built a small school and hired a teacher.

I would like to see a return to this system.

Conservatives should organize education scholarship foundations. The foundations could hire conservative teachers who would open tuition-free one room schools, mini-schools, homeschool co-ops, or tutoring centers. The conservative foundations would certify the teacher, approve the curriculum, and test the students.

The conservative foundations could also break up the government monopoly on team sports by organizing sporting leagues.

Is this possible? Yes, it is! If Harvard can have an endowment of 35 BILLION dollars and universities across the nation have similar endowments in the billions, surely conservatives could fund private, tution-free, K-12 schooling for all the children in the nation. The brick and mortar, Prussian-model, prison-like school should be abandoned. Brick and mortar schools are expensive. Also,...It is unnatural and unhealthy to teach children to behave like prisoners, as is done in our modern government K-12 schools.

Simultaneously, the conservative education foundations should organize the parents politically to shut down every government K-12 school in the nation.

I believe that parents are generally desperate to escape the government schools. We only need to see the pitiful faces of the parents whose children do not win the lotteries for vouchers, charters, or magnet schools. The parents of those languishing on theses long waiting lists would welcome and opportunity for a tuition-free, private, conservative education for their children.

[stephenjohnbanker]

” Perhaps you need to go back and read how single-building schools were organized by communities, not governments, in frontier America.”

My dad was educated at a one room school in Nebraska. The teacher must have done a fairly good job with him, as he graduated from college SCL, and obtained a doctorate from Johns Hopkins.

[La Lydia]

I suspect most of those students received a better education than what many are getting today in public schools.