Free Republic

Our Education Establishment, in plain sight, is doing a second-rate job. Who, we should ask, is in charge of this train wreck, and what motivates them?  First, let’s add up the evidence. The fifty million functional illiterates. The one million dyslexics. The poor performance against international competition, despite our huge budgets. The ignorance of average Americans about basic geographical, historical, and scientific information. SAT scores slide; kids cannot multiply and divide; students reach college not knowing what six times seven is. About 65% of the children in fourth and eighth grades are reading at a level below “proficient,” that is,...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — They have debated on the same stage five times, but rarely have the contrasts between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry been more in evidence than during separate appearances here Friday night. It was Romney the careful technocrat versus Perry the unplugged preacher. snip One such question came from a man who told Romney that “everything you said in your introduction was wonderful” but who questioned some of the details of the former Massachusetts governor’s priorities. “I’m just not seeing how that adds up,” he said. snip An hour later, Perry took the stage at a downtown hotel...

A Case, of Identity Thieving Attention, young people!! I am writing, this column to inform you that, there is someone on the Internet who is FALSELY IMPERSONATING me, Totally Meghan McCain. This person, clearly not having been matriculated – from a prestigious university like Colombia, as I had, is making me look like a TOTAL IDIOT. When I realized this, I was HORRIFIC. (PS – Am I, the only one who realizes, that word is completely sexist? It, was probably invented by some pasty old white male – Republican – instead of being invented, by someone cool like my dad)....

Potentially, very. Just ask Albin H. Gess of the Costa Mesa branch of the firm Snell & Wilmer. He’s making stupid and meritless censorious threats on behalf of Meghan McCain. Gess, or I, or most other lawyers could tell you that it is occasionally deeply revolting and embarrassing to be a lawyer, particularly at a big firm. Why? Well, because clients — especially clients with much money and influence — will sometimes demand that you do loathsome and humiliating things — sometimes thuggish and fundamentally un-American things. I’m not talking about illegal things, nor am I talking about grasping at...

A special education teacher wrote to me about the abuse of Ritalin. The teacher said: “My students are on Ritalin. This is a brain shrinking, top tier heavily psychotropic drug, as you know. The authorities KNOW this is their weapon for the most intelligent boys... ” The teacher believes this is a high-level NWO plot, which is not a road I like to go down. But the teacher got me thinking... Here are the two parts I’m personally sure of: 1) The Education Establishment in this country, for 75 years, has used bogus methods (i.e., Whole Word) to teach reading....

A recent survey in the UK has revealed an alarming number of school-leavers lack even basic skills in reading and numeracy, which once again proves that levels of literacy even in developed countries are not something to be taken for granted. {snip} Reading, writing and arithmetic are the cornerstones of a basic education. But one in five young people in the UK leave school without them, and that statistic has not improved since the 1960s. Teacher Saleem Raja at East London Skills picks up the pieces schools have dropped, teaching 16-19 year olds wholly unprepared for the job market. “It’s...

The Obama Department of Justice has ruled that Arizona school districts may not dismiss teachers who have poor grammar skills. “In an ideal world we would hope that those teaching our children would be able to set a good example,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “In the real world we must make compromises.” Holder pointed out that “the rules of grammar are only a convention. Non-discrimination is the law. There should be no question in our minds over which takes precedence. Besides, grammar evolves through usage. Who’s to say what will be considered appropriate in the future? What the law...

The suspense is over. The contest for Most Revealing Newspaper Headline of the Year has already been won. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, on September 4th, knocked out all the competition with this gem: “Reading climbs priority ladder”One of the nation’s great liberal newspapers reveals in no uncertain terms that reading has been nothing special in the state of Georgia for many decades. And even now, after an extraordinary effort by the new governor, it is going to be promoted only PARTWAY to where it belongs. This is an astonishing admission, and helps explain why one-third of public school students can’t read...

This is something of a surprise. Jeb Bush posted an article on the Huntsman for President website endorsing the former Utah governor: In 2008, Florida and the presidency went to Barack Obama because he offered hope. To defeat the President in 2012, we need a candidate who will offer solutions. That man is Jon Huntsman. Today at 11:15 a.m. at Scotty's Landing in Miami, I will join Gov. Huntsman to formally endorse his candidacy, and accept a role as National Chairman of GenH - the campaign's youth and young professionals outreach program. I will be joined by fellow Floridian Ana...

An Internet forum asked this question: “Suppose you had $1 billion to spend, how would you improve education?” More than 30 people left suggestions, all of them smart, articulate, and sophisticated. But something nagged at me. I sensed there was an unstated premise that all these respondents shared. A false premise. Everyone seemed to assume that the Education Establishment is honestly trying to do a good job. The premise goes like this: These elite educators mean well. They have the right answers. But for some odd reason, they can’t quite get their act together. All that’s needed, apparently, is for...

A study by the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund found that 47 percent of adults in the city are ‘functionally illiterate’.‘Functionally illiterate’ means they struggle with day-to-day tasks, like reading job applications, following a bus schedule or understanding product labels. Those deemed illiterate however have been educated. The report indicated that the same group found to be ‘functionally illiterate’ had completed element education, where reading is taught and half of the group had either a high school diploma or a GED. Nearly half of the city’s population lacks the necessary skills to work in even the most entry level and remedial...

A recent survey claims that a plurality of Americans believe Christian values are at odds with capitalism. That left me wondering whether we first ought to ask whether Americans even know what Christianity and capitalism are. When one learns that one’s accountant espies a deep conflict between Newtonian physics and Jungian psychology, one is right to ask what he knows of velocity and synchronicity, and whether he ought not busy himself doing one’s taxes rather than spouting off to someone taking a survey. The two ideas seem simple enough. Christians follow Jesus and capitalists make trades. Except that we all...

A recent post about a new book by Denise Eide called “Uncovering the Logic of English” prompted more than 80 comments. One person in particular objected that phonics was not the entire answer, and argued that Sight-Words were easy to learn, and that many people read this way. I don’t think so. So I am always trying to figure out CLEVER NEW WAYS to explain this mess to all the confused parents out there, and the confused teachers in the schools. This new article points out quite simply that reading, as described and prescribed by the so-called experts in Whole...

Rudolf Flesch published “Why Johnny Can’t Read” in 1955. It was a big success and remains one of the best-known books in American history. In that book Flesch explained the illiteracy crisis in the United States. Had the people in charge of education listened, he might have faded into history. Ironically, the fact that our Education Establishment tried to defame and ignore Flesch is precisely why he remains a cultural icon. The anti-phonics cartel was so entrenched that Flesch felt compelled to publish a second book 25 years later, “Why Johnny STILL Can’t Read” in 1981. This second book has...

Think of this as a nice little time capsule from 50+ years ago....A review of "Reading: Chaos and Cure" just placed on Amazon: A wonderful and informative book I can heartily recommend to any parent or teacher. You learn a great deal about reading, for example, why Sight Words are a hoax, why phonics works. The authors state: "It is absurdly easy to teach a child to read with the proper method. Most of the children in America could be taught in a few weeks or months at the age of five. We shall tell you about various schools, now...

At the start of WWII millions of men showed up at registration offices to take low-level academic tests before being inducted.1 The years of maximum mobilization were 1942 to1944; the fighting force had been mostly schooled in the 1930s, both those inducted and those turned away. Of the 18 million men were tested, 17,280,000 of them were judged to have the minimum competence in reading required to be a soldier, a 96 percent literacy rate. Although this was a 2 percent fall-off from the 98 percent rate among voluntary military applicants ten years earlier, the dip was so small it...

The following LETTER is from a 62-year-old grandmother who is now a full-time college student...If you already know the value of phonics, this account could still be passed on to inspire someone else...For those still not clear about phonics versus whole word, this account explains some complex issues in a personal way:---- “I started school in 1953, in the height of the ‘Dick and Jane’ era. I loved books from what my mother tells me, but by the time I was being taught to ‘read,’ it was whole-word and word association (picture has a name). As the books got harder...

Several earlier posts have evolved into “50: Leading Boys To Reading,” a new section on Improve-Education.org. It’s of interest to parents who have a boy in school. There’s a list of books that most boys would like; some simple diagnostics to use when someone is avoiding books; and a column that first appeared on CanadaFreePress titled “Our Schools Are Skilled at Keeping Boys From Reading.” (The Left’s greatest victory may be that they were able to undermine reading so successfully for so many decades. Almost nobody can learn to read using sight-words, but that has been the official technique since...

A teacher in New Jersey sent me a letter which will tell you, in a few minutes, more than you can stand to know about the idiocy loose in the public schools:----- “I am an ESL teacher for 29 years. This school year, I was asked by my principal to ‘push in’ to the classrooms where my students were, instead of pulling them out for regular ESL classes. Although I wasn't very happy about doing this, I learned a lot from this experience... They are teaching reading using the whole language approach. This method was introduced into my school system...

When you make a list of all the stupid ideas enshrined in the public schools, there will be many contenders for Stupidest Idea Of All. It’s tough to pick the absolute worst but let me mention for your consideration the common practice in public schools of teaching children to GUESS what words mean. This is the central gimmick in whole-word or sight-word reading. But here’s the good news. Guessing is a clear signal that a child cannot actually read. It is thus the quickest diagnostic we have. If a child looks at “car” and reads “house,” you see immediately that...