Posted on 11/02/2019 6:28:02 PM PDT by Windflier
Widespread illiteracy and the ignorance it produces represent an existential threat to the United States today. But it was not always this way. And it can be fixed.
Fortunately, neither the cause of this crisis nor the solution to it is a mystery—at least to anyone who has studied the issue.
To blame for this dangerous phenomenon are socialist “educators” going back to the mid-1800s. In particular, it was their quack methodologies ostensibly aimed at “teaching reading” to children.
The answer to the illiteracy crisis is simple, though: America must go back to what worked for thousands of years and continues to work today: systematic phonics instruction.
Americans were almost certainly the most literate people on the planet in the 1700s and 1800s.
In fact, the earliest settlers in Massachusetts, the Puritans, were so passionate about reading that in the 1640s, they passed the “Old Deluder Satan Act” mandating that everyone learn to read. The thinking was that, without knowledge of the Bible, the devil would be more easily able to deceive their communities. And so, it was understood that every town must strive for universal literacy.
This passion for literacy translated into what would become the most literate society that mankind had ever produced up to that time.
According to University of Montana scholar Kenneth Lockridge’s study “Literacy in Colonial New England,” 90 percent were literate by 1800, with numbers approaching 100 percent in cities like Boston.
Even among women, that was true. According to estimates by Joel Perlmann of Bard College and Dennis Shirley of Boston College, virtually all women born in the early 1800s were literate.
At the time, Americans realized that as well. In his ground-breaking 1812 study “National Education in the United States of America,” Du Pont de Nemours estimated that even among young people, not more than “four in a thousand are unable to write legibly—even neatly.”
And in 1800, the Boston Review reported that no other nation in the world had a larger percentage of its population with at least basic literacy skills and an understanding of the “rudiments of science.”
Considering documents such as the Federalist Papers, which were addressed to the common American man, it’s also clear that the level of literacy by the late 1700s was extraordinary—especially by today’s standards.
Remarkably, this was all accomplished with virtually no government involvement in education at all. In fact, most children learned to read from their families using simple but highly effective resources such as the Noah Webster’s “Blue Back Speller” and the “New England Primer.” These two tools taught reading using phonics while providing valuable moral lessons. Literacy Crisis
By the middle of the 20th century, everything changed.
A crisis in literacy was brewing that is without precedent in the history of the world. Literacy rates began plummeting, particularly after World War II. And today, the government’s own data shows evidence of a catastrophic decline in reading.
In 1993, the U.S. government conducted the most comprehensive literacy study ever performed up to that time. And the results were shocking.
On Sept. 9 of that year, citing the study, the Boston Globe reported that “nearly half of Americans read and write so poorly that it is difficult for them to hold a decent job.”
Many other analysts concluded, based on the findings, that almost half of the nation was either illiterate or at least very close to functional illiteracy. In short, the United States had been handicapped.
Another federal study performed a decade later found similar results.
The numbers are even worse in certain areas, and among America’s youth.
According to the federal government’s most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, only about one-third of high school seniors are proficient in reading.
And in Washington, D.C., a recent State Education Agency report revealed that two thirds of the adult population is functionally literate, falling to 50 percent in some wards. In response, top D.C. officials took a trip to communist Cuba to see how that murderous regime “educates” children.
Of course, there had been a sneak preview of what is now being observed in Boston under then-Massachusetts Secretary of Education Horace Mann—a collectivist Utopian who led the government takeover of schooling in his state and beyond—in the mid-1800s.
But the quackery there had been quickly and ably exposed by experienced and professional educators, limiting the damage. Quackery Pushed by Collectivists
The root of the problem stems from the method used to teach reading. The writing system in English is based upon phonetic characters, with each letter representing one or more audible sounds. For instance, the letter “b” makes a “buh” sound, while a “p” makes a “puh” sound.
So, from the time this writing system was developed thousands of years ago by the Phoenicians, teaching an individual how to read has involved giving the student the knowledge to sound out letters, blend them together, and then decode words.
A great Christian minister and educator, Rev. Thomas Gallaudet of Connecticut, after learning from a French minister in Paris, pioneered a new system. It would come to be known variously as the “whole-word” method, the “look-say” method, or the “sight-word” method. It seems clear that Rev. Thomas Gallaudet had nothing but the best of intentions, even if his ideas ended up producing so many problems.
In his capacity as director of the American Asylum at Hartford for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb from 1817 to 1830, Gallaudet worked to refine methods to teach reading to children who were deaf and mute. Because deaf children are incapable of hearing sounds, obviously, teaching them to associate certain sounds with certain symbols—letters in this case—was not feasible.
So instead, he taught the children to look at whole words as ideographs or pictographs, similar to the Chinese writing system, as if the words themselves were the symbol, rather than a group of symbols each one representing a sound. Instead of teaching a child that the word “hat” includes three symbols, each one representing a specific sound, Gallaudet would show them the entire word, along with a drawing of a hat, encouraging children to memorize the whole word and its meaning.
For deaf children, this was an enormous leap forward. But Gallaudet and others theorized, incorrectly, that this same method might help non-deaf children. Gallaudet even created a reading primer based on these ideas, and began promoting his methods in educational circles and publications.
Just a few short months after being selected to serve as the commonwealth’s first ever Secretary of Education in 1837, Mann, a collectivist who seemed always ready to embrace quackery, would oversee the introduction of this new system into the government primary schools of Boston.
It was a disaster.
Basically, children suddenly struggled to learn how to read, with many of them displaying symptoms that today would be diagnosed as “dyslexia.”
Within a few years, the schoolmasters of Boston joined forces to expose and repudiate the quackery before it did more damage. In a stinging paper, over 30 school chiefs wrote that “such a change, as that proposed by Mr. Mann and others, is neither called for, nor sustained by sound reasoning.”
The critical comments, made in the “Remarks on the Seventh Annual Report of the Hon. Horace Mann,” pointed out that many of the arguments made in support of the whole-word method were “fallacious” and “based upon false premises.” Others were irrelevant.
And the results were clear, too: “There has been a great deterioration during the trial of the new system.”
That was the end of that—at least for a while.
It started with segregation. Yes,the truth is sometimes racist but facts are pesky critters.
We need phonics back in our schools.
This is true, and many of the clergy actively helped.
I completely agree with that assessment of the facts presented, but I disagree with the stated time frame. The decline did not begin until some few years after 1962, when the high school SAT scores reached their highest level. I believe that those levels were not matched for many years, if ever. In about 1975, the test was changed so drastically, comparisons are rather meaningless. I actually do remember the armed forces leaders during the Veit Nam War complaining about the obvious decline in the education levels of incoming recruits/ draftees plummeting in the 1970's.
A good friend dubs public schools “failure factories” churning out grnerations of kids who cannot read, do simple math or have any understanding of basic science. Add to the failure many of todays kids cant read cursive writing or tell time with analog clocks. It is little wonder that so many young people are embracing socialism
The Library of Congress has a website with digitized old newspapers dating back to the founding. It is called Chronicaling America. Newspapers from all states are represented. Many states have similar newspaper sites.
I have been reading newspapers from the 1800’s. I am amazed at the quality of writing and the in depth content of stories about the major issues of the day.. Even in poor rural counties the quality of journalism is astounding by today’s soundbite standards. The adults educated in one room schoolhouses in the 19th century were more literate than today’s college graduates. They were also much better informed about the key issues of the day affecting their communities, states and the nation.
Reason, not emotional hyperbole, drove the policy debates of the day. Certainly there was partisanship and passion involved in public discourse of the time. However debates involved facts and reasoned conclusions from the facts. The public was into the details, thanks to the quality of writing, depth of reporting, and the higher journalistic standards of the time. Furthermore the people were curious, valued reason, and treasured good citizenship.
WTH are you talking about?
link?
A dumbed down mass is a controllable one
I am so thankful that my wife and I were able to get our daughter all the way through high school without ever setting foot in a public school. As a high school freshman, she was already out performing the average high school graduate of public schools.
The liberals are the “Scoffers”, they hate America.. Proverbs #9
And the school district representing my smallish Arizona town has announced the almost-immediate end to spelling tests.
THE NAKED COMMUNIST: 45 COMMUNIST GOALS
On Jan. 10, 1963, Congressman Albert S. Herlong Jr. of Florida read a list of 45 Communist goals into the Congressional Record. The list was derived from researcher Cleon Skousen’s book “The Naked Communist.” These principles are well worth revisiting today in order to gain insights into the thinking and strategies of much of our so-called liberal elite:
1. U.S. should accept coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. should be willing to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war. [Note: These encapsulate the Kennan Doctrine, which advocated for the "containment" of communism. Establishment figures supporting the amoral containment policy at least implicitly worked with the communists in scaring the wits out of the American people concerning atomic war. President Ronald Reagan undid the doctrine when he took an aggressive stand against the Evil Empire by backing freedom fighters from around the world that were struggling against the left-wing communist jackboot. As a result, the Soviet Union and its satellites imploded, a considerable and unexpected setback to the international communist edifice.]
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the U.S. would be a demonstration of "moral strength." [Note: The nuclear freeze advocates supported a freeze on American nuclear development only. Rarely were Soviet nukes or those of other nations mentioned in their self-righteous tirades. The same advocates now call for reducing American military might, claiming that there is something immoral about America preserving its military pre-eminence in the world.]
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war. [Note: Today, there are calls to end the embargo on the slave island of Cuba, there were complaints about the embargo against Iraq, and the U.S., not Saddam Hussein, was blamed for the suffering of the Iraqi people. Would they have advocated for free trade with Hitler and his National Socialist regime?]
5. Extend long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination. [Note: Such aid and trade over decades contributed greatly to the left-wing communist liquidation of over 100 million people worldwide, according to the well-documented "Black Book of Communism." This aid and trade marks a shameful chapter in American history. Without the aid and trade, the left-wing international communist behemoth would have imploded on its own rot a lot sooner and umpteen millions would have been saved from poverty, misery, starvation and death.]
7. Grant recognition of Red China and admission of Red China to the U.N. [Note: Not only did President Jimmy Carter fulfill this goal but he also betrayed America’s allies in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Iran, Afghanistan, Angola and elsewhere.]
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the Germany question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the U.S. has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. [Note: There are still American intellectuals, and elected members of Congress, who dream of an eventual one world government and who view the U.N., founded by communists such as Alger Hiss, the first secretary-general, as the instrument to bring this about. World government was also the dream of Adolf Hitler and J.V. Stalin. World government was the dream of Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers.]
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party. [Note: While the idea of banning any political party runs contrary to notions of American freedom and liberty, notions that are the exact opposite of those held by the left-wing communists themselves, nevertheless these goals sought to undermine the constitutional obligation of Congress to investigate subversion. The weakening of our government’s ability to conduct such investigations led to the attack of 9/11.]
13. Do away with loyalty oaths. [Note: It is entirely proper and appropriate for our government to expect employees, paid by the American taxpayer, to take an oath of loyalty.]
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the U.S. [Note: In his book, "Reagan’s War," Peter Schweizer demonstrates the astonishing degree to which communists and communist sympathizers have penetrated the Democratic Party. In his book, Schweizer writes about the presidential election of 1979.]
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions, by claiming their activities violate civil rights. [Note: This strategy goes back to the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union by Fabian Socialists Roger Baldwin and John Dewey and Communists William Z. Foster and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn among others.]
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for Socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations that are under Communist attack. [Note:The success of these goals, from a communist perspective, is obvious. Is there any doubt this is so?]
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV & motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings," substituting shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. " Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV. [Note: This is the Gramscian agenda of the "long march through the institutions" spelled out explicitly: gradual takeover of the "means of communication" and then using those vehicles to debauch the culture and weaken the will of the individual to resist.]
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural and healthy." [Note: Today those few who still have the courage to advocate public morality are denounced and viciously attacked. Most Americans are entirely unwitting regarding the motives behind this agenda.]
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch." [Note: This has been largely accomplished through the communist infiltration of the National Council of Churches, Conservative and Reform Judaism, and the Catholic seminaries.]
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state"
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American founding fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of "the big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over. [Note: Obliterating the American past, with its antecedents in principles of freedom, liberty and private ownership is a major goal of the communists then and now.]
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture – education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand or treat. [Note: The Soviets used to send "social misfits" and those deemed politically incorrect to massive mental institutions called gulags. The Red Chinese call them lao gai. Hitler called them concentration camps.]
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose communist goals. [Note: Psychiatry remains a bulwark of the communist agenda of fostering self-criticism and docility.]
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce. [Note: Done! The sovereign family is the single most powerful obstacle to authoritarian control.]
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents. [Note: Outcome-based education, values clarification or whatever they’re calling it this year.]
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special interest groups should rise up and make a "united force" to solve economic, political or social problems. [Note: This describes the dialectical fostering of group consciousness and conflict, which furthers the interests of authoritarianism.]
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally Reservation so the U.S. cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
Another Reason to Homeschool
Great read!
Thanks for posting
I saw a 1980s “60 Minutes” segment on Chicago teacher Marva Collins’ phenomenal success teaching inner city kids to read using Open Court Headway Reading, which is now online -
http://wigowsky.com/school/opencourt/opencourt.htm. Worked great with both our daughters and later with our 3 homeschooled grandkids too.
Link to Chronicling America website (Library of Congress Digital Newspaper Site) mentioned in my post #8:
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
bmp
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.