Posted on 07/24/2019 7:21:56 AM PDT by John Conlin
This past weekend the country celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It was, for those too young to recall, the first time any nation put humans on an alien world. It was an amazing feat of engineering, ingenuity, and courage.
And it happened just eight years and 56 days after President John F. Kennedy had issued a challenge to the nation to do it. From a presidential speech to footprints on the moon in eight years and a couple months!
That same president also had a plan to “reform” K-12 public education, as has every single president since. We walked on the moon in under a decade, yet in the 57 years since Kennedy’s challenge we are still only talking about reforming the failing K-12 public education system.
One has to ask how serious any of these plans were if they have achieved basically nothing in six decades—unless you want to count further decline as “something.”
According to the College Board, which administers the Scholastic Achievement Test for college admissions, 12th grade reading scores reached a 40-year low in 2012. Richard Nixon was president when similar reading scores were produced. Would you like to go to the hospital today to receive across-the-board 1973 treatments?
Most 4th and 8th graders are not proficient in math or reading. Ask yourself, how can an organization whose only purpose is education not be able to teach children of average intelligence to read at grade level in an eight year time span? Kennedy and NASA got us standing on the moon in a similar span.
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
Maybe off topic, but I heard we would not able to go back to the moon for many many years, because we don’t have the rockets and manpower and “know how” at NASA anymore.
It’s hard to believe we don’t have the technology and equipment on hand anymore.
America was different then.
It’s not just a matter of power and know-how...but of aspiration, vision, and heart.
How many decades of this game do Americans have to witness before they get it?
Parents need to be teaching (and UNTEACHING) at home, regardless. I have had personal experience of both ends of the spectrum, in myself and in my grandson, and I can attest to the problems maleducation presents, in a very up-close way.
Schools have turned into houses of propaganda, social engineering and activism
The solution given is correct in the long run, but can not be instituted over night.
Also there are thousands of students who do not want to be in school. The schools need to be able to remove these trouble makers to accommodate the needs of the many.
The country needs to realize some kids refuse to be taught for various reasons. It is better shut them out of serious schools, than to hands them bogus degrees and claim them educated.
Also it is not the teachers fault if Jonny does not do the required work; and yelling at the teachers will not improve their child’s education.
First, no matter how you carve up the money, legally the state stands in loco parentis in public education. That effectively means the state calls the shots. It also means you can't expel miscreants below 16 yrs of age. Thus, while maybe if you complain you can get a little more math and a little less sex Ed and an anti-bullying campaign here and there, everyone and no one has a say except for the bureaucrats. The rot is systemic.
Two, I disagree that ...government-funded public K-12 (is) a good thing. I totally get the fear that we'd have a nation of imbeciles if we took away taxes and public school. However, as your story suggests....we're already there. As long as Leviathan is collecting money, nothing will change. Furthermore, I would submit to you that if we removed the taxation-based funding of education, we'd see a massive surge of private education and even philanthropy to help the neediest and poorest get an education.
In the Comminist Manifesto the 10th "plank" is:
10. Free education for all children in public schools.
I don't believe a framework coming from Marx & Engles is something to be sustained. It is time to realize the system is inherently destined to failure, and go back to private and home education which worked for millennia.
I remember watching some documentary in 8th or 8th grade, early 1970s.
The forerunners of SJWs were crying about the money spent going to the Moon.
Great civilizations can survive a lot of things, but not impoverishment of spirit.
He may be right, that the space race offered civilization something toward which we should strive, that enhances our spirit. However, from my perspective this 50th Anniversary of the Mooon walk has conjured up all sorts of New Deal light statism in the ranks of usually Deplorable stock. That is, typically Constitutional conservatives are looking wistfully at the 1960s-era govt-run space program (and if someone can explain the Constituional basis for NASA or the FAA I'd love to hear about it...and please do not say "the Commerce Clause"), where we beat the Soviets to the Moon, and want to revive the old-time statist spirit to Go to Mars.
Maybe, just maybe, mankind got over their romance with space flight in the 1970s because we had Better Things To Do...like defeat Communism. Sure, the Moon shot helped give America a shot in the arm after Sputnik, but we lost all of that spirit until Reagan got us back on track.
It is the same situation today...the loss of spirit needn't be re-discovered in the stars or Mars of Elon Musk, but on Earth...in America...in defeating Antifa/statism/tyranny/collectivism/anti-God threat of the Deep State. That will require a much more challenging changing of hearts and minds vs living on Mars.
...which, ironically given Kennedy's words, is why so many people LOVE the idea of going to Mars... because it IS easier than changing hearts and minds. But they payoff of converting a bunch of Dems and centrists (and maybe a few MSNBC-types) to Deplorables is outta this world.
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.