[metmom]

Simple. Educate the kids instead of indoctrinate them and they'd learn to read, write, and spell just fine.

[metmom]

ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL

This ping list is for the “other” articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. Articles pinged to the Another Reason to Homeschool List will be given the keyword of ARTH. (If I remember. If I forget, please feel free to add it yourself)

The main Homeschool Ping List handles the homeschool-specific articles. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping list. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from either list, or both.

[Dallas59]

Double plus bad!

[whattajoke]

Don’t homeschooled kids dominate these things?

[Grunthor]

So because there are stupid illiterates out there, our school system should be (further) dumbed down?

[Dr. Sivana]

You can only remove my Merriam-Websters Unabridged 2nd Edition from my cold, dead hand ... and my compact OED from my other cold, dead arm.

[mnehring]

Oh good grief

[OldDeckHand]

I swear, I thought this was a satirical article. Public school teachers have been miserable failures teaching the nation's children to read and to spell, so they want to "dumb down" the language, rather than educate to a standard that has been in existence for two centuries.

It's pathetic.

[libertylover]

English IS at times a crazy language, but let’s not dumb it down to the level of texting and rap “music”.

[Dr. Sivana]

Maybee thay hav uh poynt. exsept for thuh fact that Ehneetheeng rittin beefor thee implehmentayshun uv this eyedeeuh wood bee az hard too reed az Chowser, thayr iz noe disadvantij.

[Let's Roll]

Gee, it didn't used to obstruct "...40 percent of the population from learning how to read..."

But now, everything is just so hard and so unFAIR.

[LonePalm]

These people probably don't know the difference between 'there', 'their', and 'they're' or 'to', 'two', and 'too'.

I am certain that they do not have a plan to differentiate between homophones other than saying, "The reader can figure it out from the context."

This does not help children or non-native speakers who have to attach meaning to the word in order to place it in context.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[PGR88]

surprise! That’s what Communists did when they took power.

In Russia, they simply eliminated several letters from the alphabet and re-spelled many words.

In China, the Communists “simplified” the characters, and at one point, on Stalin’s advice, even considered getting rid of characters all together.

Destroy the Culture, destroy the People, remake the People.

[JoeProBono]

[KarlInOhio]

said the current language obstructs 40 percent of the population from learning how to read, write and spell.

40 percent can't read, write or spell? 40 percent? So if I get a group of five randomly selected people two will be illiterate? Sounds like a dancing abacus needs to protest those bees over their innumeracy.

[GeronL]

What other stoopid cozzes arr awt thar anyways?

[Retired Greyhound]

[RichInOC]

Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

[metesky]

IIRC, even Noah Webster had a crack at this before he settled down and put together the first dictionary of American English.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Idiots. The only answer is to go to the metric alphabet. Just ten letters.

[chris_bdba]

Most of us learn English just fine and can spell IMHO those who have problems need to be tutored by their parents or by paid tutors. If neither work perhaps they have some other learning disability that needs to be addressed?