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Fix education now: 8-point checklist for reforming public schools
Renew America ^ | Nov. 18, 2020 | Bruce Deitrick Price

Posted on 01/02/2021 6:52:16 PM PST by BruceDeitrickPrice

If our irresponsible media would do its job, if our politicians and community leaders would be more involved in ending the great national embarrassment, if parents would understand what's going on in the classroom and become so angry they won't take it anymore, we could have better schools in no time.

Here is a dirty little secret that deserves your consideration. Most of the problems in the public school are caused by deliberate human actions. Not innocent human error as when somebody pushes the wrong button. No; think of the situation where somebody cuts a plane’s fuel line.

George Soros said his big ambition is to destroy America. That is how our Communists and globalists think. What's the easiest way to destroy America without spending much money or attracting much attention? Simple, you degrade and cripple the school system. You crimp some fuel lines, so to speak.

The Education Establishment has been doing this for 100 years. The damages are cumulative. A little less reading and arithmetic each decade. Don't bother with geography or history or science. Let's don't have grades, homework, grammar, essays, or genuine testing. Keep simplifying everything. Chop down a mighty forest tree by tree.

Here are eight necessary reforms that everyone can promote today:

1. Get eid of sight-words, bring back phonics. Children should learn to read in the first grade. Anything less means the people in charge are incompetent.

2. Almost all children can learn the arithmetic basics—add, subtract, multiply divide. For example, students should be able to compute 23×18, quickly, routinely. If students need more than 30 seconds, the people in charge are not competent. In any case, just say no to Common Core.

3. Everyone needs to know more geography so they can understand the news, weather reports, and events unfolding around the globe. Teachers should point to maps a lot more often, and tell the kids what's going on there.

4. Learn and cherish more history—systematic, objective history. When someone mentions a famous event, students should be able to explain why the event is famous.

5. Memorization is a good thing. Education professors have demonized memorization for a century. That's why we have college students who don't know who won the Civil War nor much else.

6. Constructivism is a gimmick that tells teachers to stand aside. Students are supposed to generate their own new knowledge. What sort of nitwittery requires that the most educated person in the room must be silent? That's a quick way to dumb down a country.

7. Cooperative learning is not the answer to every challenge. We often must finish projects on our own. K-12 experts pretend that a team is a bunch of interchangeable people all doing the same thing. That's the socialist dream. Teams at the corporate level are composed of specialists with complementary skills. Consider an NFL football team, that's a better picture of the world which students are preparing for.

8. Learning styles is another goofy idea that's been running amok for 50 years. Instead of teaching knowledge, teachers are supposed to expend time and energy figuring out each student’s peculiarities, as if the world will accommodate those peculiarities in the future. British reformer Mona McNee said kids have a lot more similarities than differences. Let's start there.

The central problem in American K-12: our experts demoted academic achievement in order to pursue social engineering. Now there is a fundamental lack of both seriousness and honesty. Students are kept busy on trivial activities and projects, that's the strategy. Behold, we witness the deliberate dumbing down of America. (Test for eighth-grade a century ago is more difficult than tests seen in college today.)

This dumbing-down strategy can be described as the death by 1000 cuts. Think of a big healthy bull that is stabbed repeatedly by picadores until it is halfway to dying and not so great a danger to the matador. That is comparable to what our socialist educators do. They weaken the school system and the students so they won't be so big an obstacle to ideologues trying to transform the country.

Communists speak constantly of their ideals and superior motivations but H L Mencken summed up the situation better: “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.”

The proper goal of a public school system can be simply stated. We lift every child up to each one's potential. Today, we are sub-educating millions of children. We can easily teach 99% of children to read, do arithmetic, find Antarctica on a globe, and understand all those thousands of elementary things that define our civilization. But we don't do this.

In their zeal to undermine our school system, the Progressives systematically discarded all the good ideas. I realize now that traditional education is the best education. We have to eliminate the clunkers introduced throughout the 20th century, and bring back the proven ideas that always worked. That's the goal embedded in this eight-point reform program.

--

(These reform ideas are explained in greater depth in Saving K-12, this writer’s guide to fixing public schools.)

© Bruce Deitrick Price


TOPICS: Education; History; Reference; Society
KEYWORDS: commoncore; curriculum; illiteracy; k12; learning; literacy; phonics; reading; schools; teaching
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

BUMP

9) NO TEACHERS UNIONS, get rid of The NEA. They are Public Employees.
10) Eliminate “Tenure”, see above.


21 posted on 01/03/2021 3:28:30 AM PST by Rumplemeyer (The GOP should stand its ground - and fix Bayonets)
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice
Some people can't figure out how to give change back. I was at a well known convenience store, do I told the cashier (who looked as if she spend her elementary school days at the tattoo and piecing store) when I gave her a 20 that I had the change. The bill was 7.38, so she took the 20 and when I gave her the 38 cents, she got confused. Our 7 year old told her, 13 dollars is the change. ConservaTeen is I line after another group, so he told us, the girl said that people should give change, it confuses her.

I think that is why people want plastic instead of paper...

22 posted on 01/03/2021 4:48:29 AM PST by Deplorable American1776 (We might be DEPLORABLES, but we don't CHEAT like Dems)
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

Teach the CONSTITUTION again.


23 posted on 01/03/2021 5:20:37 AM PST by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

Don’t reform.

Privatize.


24 posted on 01/03/2021 5:22:45 AM PST by mewzilla (Break out the mustard seeds. )
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To: BigB60

Charter schools are choked by unions?


25 posted on 01/03/2021 5:28:16 AM PST by aspasia
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To: PGR88

That’s right; that one step would improve the schools dramatically (if teachers would be let go for non-performance, like most people at their jobs). When the teachers come up with a list of issues outside their control that prevent learning, concede and reduce their pay (and BENEFITS) to those of daycare workers.


26 posted on 01/03/2021 6:01:54 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

Critical thinking skills, civics, and real history.


27 posted on 01/03/2021 6:11:15 AM PST by LastDayz (A blunt and brazen Texan. I will not be assimilated.)
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

WRONG!

Until Marxists are removed from the Education and Journalism Depts. in colleges and universities, public schools remain brainwashing centers.

And no one has a proposal for a way to do that.


28 posted on 01/03/2021 6:40:21 AM PST by Arlis
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

I went to a one room school thru 7th grade.

I cannot express how grateful I am for that education.


29 posted on 01/03/2021 6:44:00 AM PST by ridesthemiles ( )
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To: Mermaid Girl

God bless you. It breaks my heart to see college students with such low knowledge, skill and motivation. Most of them know they have been robbed somehow, but they don’t really see the route to overcoming it.

They get themselves to a college that will take them, but then the colleges give only simple assignments and pass them along pretty much no matter what—rather than chase away their government-funded customers.


30 posted on 01/03/2021 6:51:29 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: mewzilla

As soon as you simply privatize the feds become the private schools’ main customer—and start calling the shots there just as well.


31 posted on 01/03/2021 6:52:38 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

Privatize all education. Government has no responsibility to educate. Use tax money to help with tuition, not infrastructure, curriculum, or teacher salaries. Let the market determine what is needed and private institutions will make it happen.


32 posted on 01/03/2021 6:53:43 AM PST by timza
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To: Mermaid Girl

“....and the big thing these kids were nuts for — cursive writing!!”

Please tell us more about this. In all the discussions of cursive I’ve seen, nobody mentioned what the kids like.

I.e., the Education Establishment is even more derelict than I thought.


33 posted on 01/03/2021 6:54:14 AM PST by BruceDeitrickPrice (education reform)
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To: Deplorable American1776; All
Sometimes I wish FR has an edit button... Also, I need coffee before posting...

I meant to write: ConservaTeen was in line, and he said that cashier told the people in front of him: 'People shouldn't give her change, it confuses her! ' ConservaTeen gave her lots of change for his purchase... 2.64 cents along with a 6 1 dollar bill for his 8.64 purchase.

34 posted on 01/03/2021 7:22:37 AM PST by Deplorable American1776 (We might be DEPLORABLES, but we don't CHEAT like Dems)
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice; Mermaid Girl

Are you sure they were nuts for Cursive Writing? Maybe they thought you said Cursing Writing... 😀


35 posted on 01/03/2021 7:26:45 AM PST by Deplorable American1776 (We might be DEPLORABLES, but we don't CHEAT like Dems)
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To: mewzilla

Abolish the DOE, then salt the Earth.


36 posted on 01/03/2021 7:28:45 AM PST by Calm_Cool_and_Elected (" Undecided Voter: someone who parades their stupidity as proof of their morality." ~David Burge)
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

eliminating cursive writing in schools eliminates the ability to read the documents that were written by our nation’s founding fathers...


37 posted on 01/03/2021 7:42:21 AM PST by heavy metal (your reward will be in heaven not on your paycheck...)
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To: heavy metal

Cursive script is a symptom of a disciplined mind. If you want reform, you won’t get there by teaching cursive script. That’s the cart before the horse.


38 posted on 01/03/2021 9:46:03 AM PST by aspasia
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To: heavy metal

Besides, we are digital now. Documents and Sütterlin is for paleographers.


39 posted on 01/03/2021 9:51:09 AM PST by aspasia
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To: BruceDeitrickPrice

Break teachers unions.


40 posted on 01/03/2021 11:15:07 AM PST by tbw2
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