Posted on 04/24/2013 5:04:59 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Here's a theme I've been talking about for a few years. The country's intellectual and financial decline is partly due to the mediocrity of the public schools. This decline can be reversed by adopting proven theories and methods. That's a doable project:
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Free The Schools
a simple four-step plan
Our Education Establishment has an 80-year record of praising and protecting bad pedagogies. Enough.
Here is what we need instead, starting now:
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1. REAL READING. That means systematic phonics for several months until children learn to read. That means no Whole Word, no sight-words, no Dolch words, no high-frequency words. These gimmicks are all the same thing and the reason we have 50 million functional illiterates.
2. REAL ARITHMETIC. Schools use sensible, coherent programs such as Saxon Math, Singapore Math, or the like. (They do not use Reform Math in any of its forms-- Everyday Math, Connected Math, TERC.) Children master basic skills, know the multiplication tables, and can find answers. No more spiraling, fuzziness, or dependence on calculators.
3. REAL LEARNING. It’s knowledge-based and fact-filled. Children learn basic information in the fields of Geography, History, Science, Literature, etc. Students advance in a logical way from the simple to the complex--which leads to genuine critical thinking.
4. REAL EDUCATION. It’s academically correct (as opposed to politically correct). The emphasis is on building study skills and scholarly character. Students know a great deal, and know how to learn more. They can do independent work. They understand that precision, rigor, and honesty are the same things.
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FREE THE SCHOOLS
is simply what all good schools have done throughout history and are now doing around the world.
Good education is not rocket science. Get the asinine theories and methods out of the way. Real education will thrive.
We especially need this in the early grades, where lots of children have to play catch-up.
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If you can use or advance this campaign, please do so.
If there are people or groups we should contact, leave info at: Word-Wise, 757-455-5020.
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A short article on what NOT to do: 56: Top 10 Worst Ideas in Education.
A short article on what schools SCHOULD do: “A Bill of Rights for Students 2013”
[both on Improve-Education.org]
YouTube video version of FREE THE SCHOOLS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaT2S4Vep-w
The last straw: my paper in Norfolk just ran an article praising local schools for adopting all the recycled bad ideas from New Math, Reform Math, Constructivism, Cooperative Learning and all the rest. There is nothing new, not one good idea. But this newspaper is all aglow. How can parents defend themselves against this nonsense if the media always aid and abet the Education Establishment?
The short answer is that parents should not expect much help from the school system or local media. Parents need to familiarize themselves with the bogus theories and methods, understand why they don’t work, and know that we can easily do better.
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Perahps we should start at the beginning?
The country should return to God!
Private schools with endowments and home schooling are the only recourse available. Government and its sponsor unions will never give up control of the schools. Not ever gonna happen!
“Good education is not rocket science. Get the asinine theories and methods out of the way”
+1. As a teacher I have to operate in a world whose leaders are dominated by rubbish disguised as “best practices” or who sincerely believe that some article that name drops some behavioral theorist has validity in the real world. Most of this is just make-work trash to keep some so-called researcher employed and their grant money rolling in.
The objects of . . . primary education . . . are:
To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;
To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing;
To improve by reading, his morals and faculties;
To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either;
To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment;
And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.
To instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests and duties, as men and citizens, being then the objects of education in the primary schools, whether private or public, in them should be taught reading, writing and numerical arithmetic, the elements of mensuration...and the outlines of geography and history.
-Thomas Jefferson
Public schools these days are of the unions, by the unions and for the unions. Kids don’t really stand a chance at a decent education anymore, (especially in the inner cities), and it sure isn’t because we don’t spend enough money on them.
It’s because of union greed and leftist special interest agendas being foisted on our children.
Get your kids out of public education and into private schools or homeschool them. It’s well worth the time and money.
I couldn’t give tinker’s dang about the schools. I care about educating kids.
Screw the PUBLIC schools, save the children.
Save the public schools, screw the children.
Vouchers now.
Way too little, Wayy too late.
Us Birchers were screaming from the rooftops about how the FRANKFORT school was teaching teachers to teach statism.
We were told by our “betters” in the repubbie party, to go and put on our “tin foil hats” conspiracy buffs!!
Now, its way too late. You will NOT reverse this trend. You COULD have had you paid attention. Even as late as the early ‘90’s.
But now?
I’m resigned. All I hear now is the bleating sheep saying: “Oh, Who Knew, Just Who Knew?”
You voted for it, now live with it.
I taught high school math/science three years. The leftist Gov’t schools cannot be fixed; the politicians, the teachers and administrators, the unions, the parents, even the students will fight to keep the status quo. The best reform would be to give parents choice and the best way would be a voucher system like I think every European country has. Suppose the gov’t system costs $10,000 per student; then, give each parent that enrolls their child in a private school a $7,500 voucher and let the gov’t school keep the $2,500 one year. Kids get a better education and the taxpayers should soon see a cut in property taxes.
Interesting. I home-schooled and was pleased to read about phonics (wrote my own program and started a tutoring business), and used and LOVE Saxon Math. Great program!
There is nothing in the public schools to be saved. There are no resources left with which to rebuild the system. There are no teachers’ colleges that can learn to teach teachers to teach. There are multiple generations of teachers and students who have been totally separated from education. No one knows how to do it any more or even what to want to be done. The publicc schools should simply be ended. The doors should be shut permanently.
Use their own fetching system against them!
We have a federal Detp of Education......use it as o mandate study of the Founders, the Constitution and the hierarchy of gov’t.
Force the unions to teach capitalism and free markets.
These bustards used the Dept of Ed against us, so lets turn the tables!!!!!
Fight fire with fire or we will be extinguished!!!!
Your ideas may seem like a nice thought but politiczing education is a double-edged. The federal government has no business in education and until there are no students for it to control, they will not leave it alone. The system is too corrupt to change.
REAL CIVICS.
Constitutionally based.
REAL HISTORY.
Not revisionism.
I, too, am a teacher. My recommendation would be to abolish the public school system in its entirety and sell the physical plant to private enterprise.
Short of that, I would settle for burning it to the ground and canceling all promised pensions and perks - simply pay back what was deducted from wages. They failed to live up to the terms of the bargain - educating children - we fail to support their lavish pension plan.
And - the history of the world does not consist totally of the holocaust and slavery.
“My recommendation would be to abolish the public school system in its entirety and sell the physical plant to private enterprise.”
When the parents pay the teachers directly they will get quality education.
I am a teacher & I am really, really sorry to tell everyone this, but it’s too late. There is nothing. It’s locked in & the smart kids are suffering because there are SO many dysfunctunial kids from teen parents & messed up families that ALL resources are spent on providing services to them.
Anyone w/ the money is going to private or home schooling. It’s a mess, the testing is a mess, & as far as “progressive” ideas in education ( & by that I mean great, off the grid teaching) this administration is pitiful.
DON’T get me started on Arne Duncan. It is criminal that he is in charge or even collecting a paycheck. NO ONE should EVER be allowed to make education policy if their child(ren) goes to private school. And that goes for Obama & his privately educated kids.
Compulsory, government schooling was the 10th point of the Communist Manifesto (1848).
Massachusetts introduced the first compulsory attendance laws in 1852.
We lost our children to the communists a.long time ago.
Homeschooling has been the greatest development in education in 150 years.
Hear, hear!
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