Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Are Our Youth Being Intentionally Dumbed Down?
American Thinker ^ | 26 Sep, 2025 | Allan J. Feifer

Posted on 09/26/2025 5:25:44 AM PDT by MtnClimber

Much of America’s youth is in free fall, with the only question being why. On every metric, our kids lag behind the world, are abysmally unhappy and unprepared for a life that’s less kind and forgiving than it was fifty years ago. It didn’t happen by accident, and the divided nature of our country means we are unprepared to make necessary changes. Our society tolerates confrontation and excuses, always finding superficial reasons why Johnny can’t read, and why everyone’s so angry. It’s certainly not about money; we spend more per pupil than anyone else.

SNIP

During COVID, roughly 31% of students were chronically absent (missing ≥10% of school days). In 2022-2023, the rate dipped slightly to 28%, but that’s still 75% higher than pre-pandemic levels. In the 2023-2024 academic year, long after COVID’s lockdowns ended, approximately 27.4% of students were still absent.

But that’s just the start of the problem; if Johnny isn’t in school, he can’t learn. But what about when he’s physically in school? What are the underlying dynamics that prevent our young from having a fighting chance to obtain essential skills that are a requirement for living a good life?

It takes three things to take a young person and grow him into a scholar. A scholar must learn to think critically, read, write, and be both emotionally and logically prepared to live in the real world. That young person must eventually (with the help of loving parents) decide which direction to strike out into, whether it be a specific trade or higher skills requiring college or university. Treading water jobs that used to be transitional are now becoming permanent, stymying growth for millions because their schools failed them, and too often, their distracted parents as well.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Education; Society
KEYWORDS: education; leftism; youth
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-122 next last
To: Java4Jay

“”””Yes, this has been going on or 30+ years””””

I saw it starting in the second half of the 1960s, the teacher’s unions were gaining power and taking over education and nationalizing it, that was when the classroom experimenting and making curriculums “more relevant” started, followed quickly by bilingual teaching, teaching to the the “students culture” of origin, elimination of accelerated classes for the smarter students, integration of the retarded with the brilliant, affirmative action hiring of teachers and administrators, the unions requiring rewriting of the textbooks from the left’s agenda as they rewrote history and removed sexism, etc., the 1970s was a massive makeover of education in America.


21 posted on 09/26/2025 5:46:55 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Wow, where has this author been?

This has been happening for decades and it’s been obvious.


22 posted on 09/26/2025 5:47:05 AM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus….)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: aspasia

If Americans are stupid we can level the immigrant standards.


23 posted on 09/26/2025 5:48:16 AM PDT by cnsmom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: aspasia

Yes. And part of the problem is parents. They can’t stand it when their kids are smarter than them. So they keep em down.

++++++++++++++++++

100% agree.. I lived it.


24 posted on 09/26/2025 5:50:23 AM PDT by sonova (No money? You're free to go.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
The cause for the "dumbing down" is several things. The more prominent reasons are:

Everybody is equal, and nobody loses

Everybody deserves the same reward

Social engineering instead of educating

Schools know better than parents what the student needs

25 posted on 09/26/2025 5:55:05 AM PDT by eastexsteve
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: aspasia
And part of the problem is parents. They can't stand it when their kids are smarter than them.

I never met a parent with that attitude. Never. Conservatives seem to make up crap, just like their opponents.

26 posted on 09/26/2025 5:56:45 AM PDT by GingisK
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
"Are Our Youth Being Intentionally Dumbed Down?"

Well, DUH..!

27 posted on 09/26/2025 5:57:21 AM PDT by unread (God bless the "REPUBLIC".! And to hell with their democracy...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: aspasia
Yes. And part of the problem is parents. They can't stand it when their kids are smarter than them. So they keep em down.

Correct. For most part, American parents are too lazy and unmotivated to properly raise their children.

This is one of the main reasons why corporations want foreign workers.

28 posted on 09/26/2025 5:57:24 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: cnsmom
The teachers are told to pass everyone and don’t give homework

This occurs because parents sue the school system because it is too hard on their darlings. ALL of the failings of the school system start with the parents.

29 posted on 09/26/2025 5:59:00 AM PDT by GingisK
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: ansel12

Yada, yada, covid, yada. Horse hockey. The dumbing down has been decades and a couple generations in the making. Johnny can’t add because of common core curriculum. Johnny can’t read because he wasn’t taught phonics. Johnny can’t find his way out of a paper bag because mama and DADDY can’t be bothered to make sure he gets to school or even gets home at night. It all starts in the home. Of course, passing Johnny to get him graduated and out of the school’s hair isn’t helping. Remember Jay Leno and his Jay Walking segments which has been followed by today’s videos of asking simple questions that can’t be answered by college students.


30 posted on 09/26/2025 6:01:11 AM PDT by bgill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Social promotions and low expectations don’t help much. I mean when you ask what year the War of 1812 started and you get back a blank stare......🙄


31 posted on 09/26/2025 6:04:00 AM PDT by rktman (Destroy America from within? On hold! Enlisted USN 1967 proudly. 🚫💉! 🇮🇱🙏! Winning currently!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Does anyone doubt that “education” is under the control of the Left?

This is what they want - the Left’s way to “ride the tiger”. They want to make America more manageable, like Africa. By the time they’re done, there won’t be a difference.


32 posted on 09/26/2025 6:05:23 AM PDT by Empire_of_Liberty
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Bkmk


33 posted on 09/26/2025 6:06:10 AM PDT by sauropod (Loop I moo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

The image shows a big part of the problem, government union teachers.


34 posted on 09/26/2025 6:07:22 AM PDT by MileHi ((Liberalism is an ideology of parasites, hypocrites, grievance mongers, victims, and control freaks.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Does a bear defecate in the woods? /s

smh


35 posted on 09/26/2025 6:08:04 AM PDT by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 "/!i!! &@$%&*(@ -')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

There’s a reason education sucks, it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don’t want that.

But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting f___ed by a system that threw them overboard 30 f____ing years ago.

You know what they want? Obedient workers,­ people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly s___tier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

And, now, they’re coming for your Social Security. They want your ____ing retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this f___ng place. It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club.

-George Carlin


36 posted on 09/26/2025 6:08:56 AM PDT by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Presbyterian Reporter
Yes. How else can the enemy create a horde of ‘useful idiots’.

The Biden admin's intentional open borders policy coupled with
a) transportation from native countries to locations deep within the country in unmarked aircraft and,
b) immediate entitlement to taxpayer-funded welfare benefits with voter registration, runs a very close second.

37 posted on 09/26/2025 6:10:22 AM PDT by frog in a pot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
Google "communism's goals for America." On that list is the pledge to hijack America's schools. They succeeded. Stupid anti war hippies were the perfect segue for commies to take control of brainwashing American youth.

Failing brainwashing, simply to corrupt entire generations of American school children while their idiot parents continue voting for it.

38 posted on 09/26/2025 6:13:07 AM PDT by LouAvul (1 John 2:22: Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Add brainwashing to the dumbing down hypothesis.


39 posted on 09/26/2025 6:14:28 AM PDT by iontheball
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: aspasia
"Yes. And part of the problem is parents. They can't stand it when their kids are smarter than them. So they keep em down."

Well, I don't believe that. But I do think that younger parents are making a big mistake by sending their kids off to school too young. Pre-kindergarten, or even kindergarten might be just the thing for a hippie Mom who wants to set about and smoke pot all day, but it's a dirty rotten way to treat your kid... :(

40 posted on 09/26/2025 6:15:21 AM PDT by unread (God bless the "REPUBLIC".! And to hell with their democracy...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-122 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson