He neglected that one of the biggest and most important American proponents of whole language was none other than Noam Chomsky.
As such, Chomsky has done more to “keep down” black Americans than anyone since Jefferson Davis.
When whole language was introduced into the US, black students, even in segregated schools, were almost on a par with white students in English proficiency, despite a large difference in prosperity and educational opportunity.
When whole language was introduced, white parents immediately reacted with things like hiring tutors, and white schools worked overtime to get failing students back on track. But black parents often did not have this luxury, nor were black schools as concerned about these setbacks.
So within 10 years, black English proficiency test scores plummeted, and soon dragged down the rest of their grades. This condemned them to lives of minimum wages and government dependency.
But due in large part to the advocacy of Chomsky, whole language became an article of faith with socialists, so despite voluminous evidence that it was an utter, total and complete failure, they still push for it in public schools.
To make matters worse, in the northwest they recently introduced the equivalent of whole language but for mathematics instruction. Within months it was an utter disaster, utterly rejected by parents, who had to spend a lot of money to get math tutors and special classes for their children, so they would not continue to fall behind their peers.
Importantly, from the onset, the arguments used by the socialists have been the same. First of all, that whole language had *not* failed at all, *despite* the objective statistics that demonstrated that it had failed.
Second, that “if” whole language failed because it had not been applied *extensively* enough—an obvious logical fallacy.
Third, that *if* whole language failed, it was only because it had been starved for funding, that throwing money at it would make it work.
And finally, their fourth argument was that whole language *would* have worked, but that it had been *sabotaged* by nefarious people, including teachers, parents and others, who either did not want the children to succeed with whole language, or who supported the evil and corrupt (capitalist?) system of phonics English language instruction.
In any event, the next time, and any time, you see a black American living in despair and poverty, stripped of his or her dignity and future, criminalized and institutionalized, your first thought should be about how there is a good chance that Noam Chomsky is responsible for their condition.
He truly is “The anti-Martin Luther King”.
I absolutely agree.
It’s the Cloward-Piven strategy applied to education.
And...There are plenty of teachers ( lowest SAT scores on campus) who are willing to be Useful Idiot warriors in the war against our nation.
Second, that “if” whole language failed because it had not been applied *extensively* enough—an obvious logical fallacy.
Third, that *if* whole language failed, it was only because it had been starved for funding, that throwing money at it would make it work.
And finally, their fourth argument was that whole language *would* have worked, but that it had been *sabotaged* by nefarious people, including teachers, parents and others, who either did not want the children to succeed with whole language, or who supported the evil and corrupt (capitalist?) system of phonics English language instruction.
Wow, that's the progressive argument for every single one of their abysmal failures. Thanks for the great post.