Posted on 09/13/2004 10:11:18 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
Monday, September 13, 2004
By Vox Day
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
The Los Angeles Daily News recently lamented the tremendous increase in "functional illiteracy" among the working population of Los Angeles County. In reporting the results of a recent study, it said:
In the Los Angeles region, 53 percent of workers ages 16 and older were deemed functionally illiterate, the study said ... It classified 3.8 million Los Angeles County residents as "low-literate," meaning they could not write a note explaining a billing error, use a bus schedule or locate an intersection on a street map.
While the article took note of the wasted "hundreds of millions of dollars spent in public schools over the past decade," it blamed the terrible results on an influx of non-English speaking immigrants and a 30 percent high-school dropout rate.
But the dropout rate can't possibly explain the low level of literacy, because if the public school system was even remotely competent, the children would be reading adequately long before they ever reached high school.
Long-time readers may recall a column titled, "A Tale of 2 Children," wherein I compared two 3-year old children, one of whom was being taught to read by his parents and one who was destined for public school. The two children are now 5 years old, and I recently examined their progress.
The child in kindergarten is not yet reading, but he has learned his complete alphabet now. The homeschooled child, on the other hand, surprised me by reading at an error-free fifth-grade level on the San Diego Quick Assessment test. I verified his competence by asking him to read selections from C.S. Lewis' "Prince Caspian" to me, a book with which he was previously unfamiliar. While he occasionally stumbled on words such as versification and centaur, (he pronounced them "versication" and "kentaur"), his comprehension was reasonably good as well.
Suddenly, it was not so hard to understand how homeschooled children, on the average, test four years ahead of their public-schooled counterparts.
The problem with public schools and reading is not hard to grasp. Whole language, the favored method, is a disastrous approach to reading that is destined for failure. Children who learn to read while being taught this method learn to read in spite of it, not because of it. Anyone who speaks Japanese and has learned both kana (phonetic) and kanji (whole language) can testify to the ease of the first and the extreme difficulty of the latter.
It's a pity that the Daily News does not have access to studies tracking the reading ability of children who are schooled at home in Los Angeles County. It would be interesting to see how well those children read compared to these illiterate workers, particularly immigrant children taught at home, because as hard as it may be for the Daily News to imagine, people who speak other languages, even Spanish, have been known to be able to read. I can't confirm this, but I have even heard rumors that there are reputed to be one or two authors, such as the suspiciously foreign-sounding Arturo Perez Reverte, who actually write in Spanish, if you can believe anything so outlandish.
The truth is that it is extremely simple to teach any normal child to read. All it requires is a consistent 15 minutes a day between the ages of three and five. If a child is capable of rote memorization, he is capable of learning the alphabet and the basic phonics, and reading will follow within months. The fact that the public schools so regularly fail at this simple task is not indicative of anything but the absolute incompetence of the public-school system – an incompetence that is not only designed into the system, but is its very raison d'etre.
One need only look at an elementary school's curriculum to realize that the bulk of a child's education necessarily comes from outside the school environment. It may come from parents, peers or the television, but very little of it comes from the free day-care centers that are the public schools.
Fred Reed has a simple answer for America's education problem. It is an inventive, capitalist solution involving the intimate interaction of cement and potassium cyanide with the teaching colleges, and bounties on certified teachers. But, as he has said himself, America isn't interested in solutions that will work – much better to wring our hands, hope for the best and condemn yet another generation to illiteracy, ignorance and idiocy.
And some kids will do well whether or not their school is any good or whether or not their parents participate in their education.
>>Public schools are often criticised for having teachers teaching subjects in which they have no specialized education - (e.g. math, science).<<
No, because the difference is that the person supervising my curriculm has all the knowledge I do not. I actually am not the teacher (it may be Bill Bennett who is the teacher) I am like the teacher's aide. I do not make lesson plans, my prepackaged curriculm does.
Some charter schools (we have one in my state)are now offering a classical education.
A classical charter school in Colorado is the second highest ranked school in the state.
The trivium just makes so much sense. It's unfortunate that many school officials think classical education is elitist.
The fluff over teacher certification is part of the lie that teaching (or learning) basic subjects is difficult and requires "expertise." Any adult who can read, write, and do arithmetic can teach up to 6th grade (under tutoring or homeschool conditions where crowd-management is not a deterrent ... which leaves out my house, I guess :-). If a child doesn't understand one explanation of a math concept or a grammar issue, for example, the other parent can explain a different way, or you get on the internet and look for another explanation, or call your curriculum provider for suggestions ... etc., etc., but usually it's not necessary at the elementary level.
Even math through high school is just not that hard, particularly with video courses available to help parents who never learned it :-). The main requirement for resources outside the home would be in lab sciences, but even then, a student who has mastered reading, writing, and math at home is going to be better off in college than one who hung around in a science lab, but can't follow written instructions, write up a report, or do advanced algebra.
We have a lot of logic, grammar, and rhetoric in our family. Sometimes I consider running the van into a telephone pole just to get a little peace and quiet :-).
I hear that. We're a relatively new homeschool family - oldest is 7 and the only one in school so far, but when she "got it" and really started to read (about halfway through kindergarten), what a feeling. I really felt like a TEACHER. And then more and more (especially this summer) she started reading every book she had with great pleasure - what fun to watch.
Lately she's started to write her own stories, which is something I didn't really expect. :)
If the goal is teaching children how to think rather than what to think and when to think it.
We are adding the "Well-Trained Mind" to our packaged curriculm! Great book. And the good thing about homeschooling is we school all year and have the ability to do 7 days a week. We can add anything we like!
This probably happens all to often. The student prevailed, however.
http://www.educationnews.org/courts-pedagogic-asserting-the.htm
You've got that right. It's probably not an attractive option for many of today's schools (and not only public schools) just for that reason.
Do you know about this site?
http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/
Great site!
I'll have to take some time to go through it. We have Gym and Swim at the Y and Polish Dance today.
Homeschooling keeps one busy!
"Parents who are not willing to make the slightest sacrifice of time or money to help their children get an actual education (as opposed to what happens in public schools) "
No debate necessary. You, and many folks do not believe education occurs in any public school environment, and that placing children in them is tantamount to felonious behavior. You use a pretty broad brush that simply paints an erroneous picture of reality. Perhaps it is true where you are, but it is a big world.
bump for later
I suppose --- but I think the parents encouraging education is the more important factor. There are too many parent(s) who don't care and who don't care if their 13 to 17 year old daughters start having babies because the only thing the parent themself knows is how to get a welfare check.
The social safety net is too secure now --- no one really needs to worry about making it or not.
The social safety net is not as secure as it was 15 years ago. There is a limit on how long someone can collect welfare today. Use up your limit and fend for yourself.
That was only one particular welfare program renamed TANF. It doesn't include Food Stamps, WIC, Medicaid, EITC, SSDI, housing subsidies, or all the many others. There is no way government spending for all the handout programs combined is lower than it was 15 years ago and many of the permanent welfare types were moved to SSDI.
Thanks for the information.
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