Why is Public Education Failing? By Tom DeWeese

Intellectual Conservative ^ | 13 January 2008 | Tom DeWeese

[mysterio]

Because many parents don’t insist their children study. That’s why.

[an amused spectator]

My view is that The Disruptors take over in the higher grades, and force the actual learning down to a lower common denominator.

I saw this in practice.

[P8riot]

Well maybe in a generation our country will be run by home-schoolers.

[an amused spectator]

I believe one of the reasons for this state of affairs is that it's easier to tax people who don't understand the system.

When the know-nothings get upset about the outrageous taxation, The Man flicks his thumb over his shoulder at the guys with guns paid for with your tax dollars: "Shut up and pay, peasant!"

[an amused spectator]

“Taxation without explication”

[RKBA Democrat]

“The bottomline truth is very simple: the majority of communities cannot afford to provide education to its citizens.”

I respectfully disagree. For the amount of money that is dumped into the government schools, we should be graduating kids whose educational attainment is second to none. Instead we’re graduating kids who have difficulty counting out change. This is not a problem that more money will fix. The underlying paradigm of the government schools is flawed. Perhaps what we have was adequate for the 1930’s, but it isn’t for a knowledge based society.

[Trystine]

That is too bad! Yikes. My 3rd graders last year knew the president, vice president, Speaker of the House, Kansas Governor, Senators, when the US won their independence and from who, the three branches of government and the basics of what each did, and we went through the voting process in class. That was just some of the facts they learned during our Social Studies lessons. Now just hope they remember it!

[Old Seadog]

Ooops! That slipped by me. I was willing to accept projectory.

[RKBA Democrat]

“I have been hoping that Rush or Anne Coulter would write a book or bring enough attention to it to bring it into the national debate.”

Ain’t gonna happen. Most “conservative” parents that listen to them accept public assistance and send their children to government schools. Neither of these folks is inclined to bite the hand that feeds.

[ChiMark]

Ah, you got that right. Trajectory.

I believe this extends beyond the politics of bureaucratic
the teachers union. This mimics socialism in that individual acievement is discouraged. A type of political indoctrination is common. Homosexuality, sociaism, enviornmentalism, feminism ismisms are taught as beliefs which are inalienable.

[ChiMark]

Ah, you got that right. Trajectory.

I believe this extends beyond the politics of bureaucratic
the teachers union. This mimics socialism in that individual acievement is discouraged. A type of political indoctrination is common. Homosexuality, sociaism, enviornmentalism, feminism ismisms are taught as beliefs which are inalienable.

[nmh]

I understand what you are saying however the METHODS and “academics” if you want to call it that aren’t conducive to KNOWLEDGE. What are your thoughts on that? What this article is critical of?

[rb22982]

I homeschooled from 3-6th grade and we listened to Rush Limbaugh while my mother taught us. When I came back to public school in 7th grade (my brother and I at the time wanted the socializing), we had to drop down to the math, english and science grade were were in (I was ahead 2 years in math and 1 in science/english while I homeschooled). The kids in public school were absolutely amazed that I knew how to do math in my head and could diagram a sentence properly.

[endthematrix]

"Social, political, multicultural and especially environmental issues are rampant in the new math programs and textbooks. One such math text is blatant. Dispersed throughout the eighth grade textbooks are short, half-page blocks of text under the heading "SAVE PLANET EARTH." One of the sections describes the benefits of recycling aluminum cans and tells students, "how you can help." "

Really one of the biggest problems in our culture today. Antonio Gramsci would be proud.

[darkangel82]

No, it would be a million times worse.

[tflabo]

Peruse the earlier history of academics in this nation.
The writing, use of language, historical facts and disciplines of science and math were much more solidly taught to students.
There were no calculators, computers or $ multiple millions spent on education yet they were a superior age compared to our modern travesty. Yet we hear the old tired lib canard that we don’t spend enough $$ for education and it’s a bald-faced lie just to extort more $$ from taxpayers. Shame on them all.

[WOBBLY BOB]

Seems RINOs and DEMS are only interested in protecting systems and monopolies,not people.Keeping the status quo is easier than innovating.

If vouchers are going to “siphon money from government schools” why isn’t the same true in higher education? I don’t hear state college professors running around crying about Pell grant(”government dollars”) money “unfairly” being used to attend St.Thomas,Gustavus,St.Johns or
other private religiously affiliated schools.

What happened to the imaginary wall of church and state there?

Since government doesn’t create wealth and only consumes it, how can it “give parents back” what was always theirs anyway?

Part of the beauty of being an American is choices.Look in the yellow pages. Thirty-one flavors or thirty thousand attorneys to choose from.Variety is a good thing.Some may choose schools for proximity,some for class size,some for shared belief systems,or a class for gifted
mathematicians.Why is choice and competition considered good in everything except education?

[Scarchin]

I was going to post essentially the same thing.

Much of this is just factually wrong.

[OCCASparky]

Now just hope they remember it!

If that Civics quiz they gave out to our college students (including Ivy League schools) is any indication, they won't.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/09/18/us_college_students_fail_civics_test/2883

I took that test cold. I missed ONE question.

[darkangel82]

We must be about the same age, although I was not in public school in 8th grade.