Posted on 01/01/2013 5:32:24 AM PST by IbJensen
After watching the viral video of the Obamaphone lady in October, I thought to myself — we are in a lot of trouble.
It forced me to consider just how literate are the voters and people of the US. It’s very hard to tell given so few studies nail it down to specifics. For some reason the federal government does not want to get an exact account of how many illegal immigrants we have or how much illiteracy there is in the US.
The census bureau delves into high school graduation levels, but not literacy rates. Perhaps because literacy and immigration and the problems of inner cities are connected. Such studies would not interest the multicultural US elites who do not really want to know the truth. In order to come to some conclusion about how educated the people of the US might be, one is forced to do guess-and-by-golly observations regarding why so many Americans seem so dumb, crude, and uncivilized.
As I discovered, educating for dumb and a dumber in the US goes back some time in our history.
Up until the late 1800’s a good education in the United States could be obtained without government interference or oversight. Surprisingly, 50 percent of a population of 3 million in 1776 were indentured servants and 20 percent were African slaves. Yet during that time 600,000 copies of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense had been sold in the United States and had been read by countless Americans.
By 1812, with a population of approximately 7 million, Pierre DuPont wrote in Education in the United States, “…that out of every 1,000 persons fewer than four can’t read or do numbers.” He attributed this fact to traditional dinner table debates over passages read from the Bible. In other words, children learned how to read with an understanding of what they were reading and they knew their numbers. All this education took place at home or in one room school houses, or “Dame Schools,” primarily taught by women. The children who came out of these schools grew up to be self reliant and individualistic, in marked contrast to the Prussian system which produced an obedient, collectivist trained populace..
Implementation of the Prussian System was to become the goal of Edward Everett, America’s first PhD. As Governor of Massachusetts, Everett had to deal with the problem of the influx of poor Irish Catholics into his state. In 1852, with the support of Horace Mann, another strong advocate of the Prussian model, Everett made the decision to adopt the Prussian system of education in Massachusetts. Unfortunately for the children and poor Irish Catholics of Massachusetts and elsewhere, the system produced a willing, cheap labor force with minimal reading and numbers skills. The Everetts of the world understood that people who could read and understand are dangerous because they are intellectually equipped to find out things for themselves, thus becoming a threat to already established power elites.
Shortly after Everett and Mann collaborated to adopt the Prussian system, the Governor of New York set up the same method in 12 different New York schools on a trial basis. Incredibly, within two weeks he declared the system a total success and took control of the entire education system in the State of New York. In a “blitzkrieg” action with no debate, public hearing, or citizen involvement, government forced schooling was on its way in America.
The Results of the Prussian System
The history of American education since the acceptance of the Prussian system is checkered with failure and elitism. From the time of John Dewey, who felt people should be defined by groups and associations and who believed that people who were well read were dangerous, to our own era, U.S. education has suffered. We have, in this day and age, the disheartening statistics showing 33 percent or our nation’s college graduates can’t read or calculate well enough to perform the jobs they seek.
Working against the concepts and principles the Founding Fathers provided in the Constitution, the Prussian system has produced a gradual but statistically provable decline in literacy and intellectual capability of typical Americans. We can track the five different stages that American education has gone through: 1750-1852—The idea of government controlled schools was conceived; 1852-1900—It was politically debated in state legislatures; 1900-1920—We had government controlled industrialized factory modeled schooling; 1920-1960—Schools changed from being academically focused to becoming socialized; and 1960 to the Present—Schools became psychological experiment labs.
In the year 1941 the Defense Department was preparing for World War II. In testing 18 million men between 1941 and 1944, the Defense Department found 96 percent of those tested were literate. During this same period, among African Americans who were tested—the majority of whom had only three years of schooling—80 percent were found to be literate. By literate we mean that Americans, both white and black, could read with understanding.
During the Korean War the Department of Defense tested three million men for service and only 19 percent were found to be literate. In less then 10 years there had been a 500 percent rise in illiteracy. Perplexed, the Defense Department investigated and found that the same test had been used during the two wars and the only difference was that those men and women tested during the Korean War had more schooling—at a significantly higher cost.
Twenty years later, around 1970, the same test was used at the time of a new war. Among the Vietnam draftees and enlistees who were tested for literacy only 27 percent were found to be capable of reading with understanding the material which they needed in order to serve in the armed forces. Again the major difference between American soldiers in the 1940’s and the 1970’s was more schooling for the latter group at a higher cost to the taxpayers.
Consider that the billions of taxpayer dollars were spent over the time period from the 1940’s to the present increased by some 350 percent with totally unacceptable results despite all the increased spending. In 1996 statistics prepared by the National Association of Education for Progress showed that some 44 percent of African Americans could not read at all. The same set of statistics shows that illiteracy among whites has quadrupled. Incredibly, educating Americans continues to cost massive amounts of taxpayer dollars to achieve unacceptable and devastatingly poor results.
Manipulating for the Collective State
As education expert and author Beverly Eakman states in “The Culture Wars: “… Americans bought critical changes in behavior, beliefs, and worldviews. By applying advertising and agitation in just the right proportions, our adversaries learned they could create a mob mentality and suppress independent thinking. Technically, this is called the science of coercion. If done properly, one can fool nearly all the people all the time.”
Mastery Learning, Outcome-Based Education, School-to-Work, Goals 2000, Profiles in Learning – all fads and educational trends put into operation in the nation’s school system since the late ’60s and early ’70s.
Now, those of you who have followed along thus far are asking: What does all this have to do with Emmanuel Kant, Hegel, Marx, the Frankfurt School of Sociology, Freud, Jung, Adler, Rogers and Maslow and the price of tea in China?
All these things are connected because they betray and explain a mindset. A worldview, a philosophy that seeks to shape humanity, the individual as a moral relativist, undiscerning, while building a thought pattern that denies or deconstructs facts – even those in math and science.
Because children are not given the grounding by doing the hard stuff of learning, the memorization, the drills, the creation of pattern and discipline, they will never be truly free to THINK on their own. Without the base, the technique, someone will always be manipulating or recreating them according to the latest fad, trend or totalitarian frame of reference that intellectuals usually succumb to.
According to Bev Eakman, one of the techniques that the educational mind Gestapo uses is that “Teaching techniques were … OBE [Outcome Based Education] inspired: cooperative learning, multi-age grouping, minimal failures, constant retesting and remediation, teachers as coaches or facilitators, inclusive classrooms, and the vacuous mantra, ‘All children can learn [at a high level].’ ”
The problem is that for most children, especially recent immigrants, inner city kids, and some rural areas, education is not obtained at a high level. Pew Hispanic Research claims that 75 percent of Hispanics graduate from high school. Meantime, American born black males have a 47 percent high school graduation rate. What this means is we have a home grown lower class that is ill educated and ill prepared in an era when college grads are flipping burgers and driving cabs. The outlook is not good and Obamaphone lady may be the new normal.
Conclusion
The cost to America of the under or ill educated can’t be measured in just dollars and cents. While the economic cost is monumental as indicated by the $30 billion annual Department of Education budget and billions more spent by local communities, the lack of results for the dollars we spend is catastrophic. We are paying billions to maintain a system which is ineffective and dangerous—because it is not teaching people the critical intellectual skills which are crucial to making economic and political decisions for themselves.
What is the answer? While the privileged class may choose to send its children to private schools, most Americans have only one option, public education. Public schools are the country’s largest employer and the largest mediator in contracts. Unfortunately, the public education establishment is so powerful it can outlast public outrage. Consequently Americans face a dismal educational future unless we insist on parental choice. Until then there is little likelihood that a Prussian inspired educational system will change and deliver the desired results—a literate, intellectually capable citizenry.
——McGuffey Readers——
My wife and I passed our copies we used for homeschooling our children to our home schooled grand children ....
I seriously doubt many college graduates could comprehend the third reader...
I have referred to the “Obamaphone” woman and those of her ilk as the “Worthless Class”. They contribute nothing to society but prey on the goodness of those who still believe in the American dream. The combination of the “Ruling Class” and the “Worthless Class” will control politics and societal evolution for the next 50+ years.
Maybe those old racist southerners were not so far off with some of their voting laws. I would propose a return of Voter ID, Poll Taxes, Literacy Tests, tax stubs and maybe even a deed to real property to vote. Welfare recipient’s are also disqualified
Elitist? Maybe, but at least we should eliminate the “Low Information” voter. (The voter that is really too ignorant to vote) Some of whom are really too stupid.
I sincerely doubt that. Large percentages of Americans never went past grade school in those days. And many only had a few years of schooling. I would guess a lot of people had the rudiments of reading and writing, but many most likely never read a book other than the bible after they got out of school. And I doubt many of them read the bible much. By 1940, only fifty percent of Americans had graduated from high school.
Reading accounts of major league baseball players from those days, many were semi-illiterate farm boys who liked saloons, drinking, and loose women a lot more than libraries and going to the opera. They were probably typical of many of the adults from that era.
A pox on both parties.
The Republicrats and Democans are the two faces of the Big Government party. America desperately needs a second party.
I’m with you, Tupelo!
I read all the posts through number twenty five and no one has mentioned the biggest bottleneck in the school system.
teachers colleges and education degrees
The schools can be fixed. Stop hiring education degrees. for grades K-6 hire high school graduates with a 3.0 or better GPA. Use the ASVAB to screen for those with an aptitude for teaching. For those who are going to start yelling, the high school grads did better in one room school houses than the ed degrees are doing now. For grades 7-12 some subjects can easily be taught by high school grads. for the math and science courses hire math or science degrees. Schools today seem to be engaged in feather bedding. there is no need for a principle, two or three vice principles and a half dozen assistant vice principles. The school I attended, 55 to 67, had a grade school principle, a principle for grades 7-12, a secretary for each, three custodial staff, three cooks and 28 teachers with a student body of 600. that was all. Schools now have more personal that don’t teach than they have that teach.
Exactly. When we started homeschooling I realized this, since I have a complete collection of bound Harpers magazines from number 1 on the 1840s to 1900, when the magazine began its' slide into liberal trash.
From that magazine and other books and magazines I figured Americans were the most literate in the mid to late 1800s.
Realizing that the influence for this must have come in the early to mid 1800s I began collecting more school books from that era.
The reason for the success appeared quickly.
I was taught to read in a one room school in Vermont before the state was invaded by the NY, NJ and CT trust fund hippies.
We were taught by an excellent, old rogue teacher who used the phonics she knew. This consisted of the single letter sounds, dipthongs and tripthongs (2 and three letters sounded together).
She (and I) believed there were a lot of words in english you couldn't read using phonics.
There were two sets of phonics rules that fell by the wayside and have been forgotten since the 1840s to 1850s. Those are the silent letter rules and the substitute letter rules.
By using these rules, our younger daughter, who wasn't infected by the public school system was reading at above second year college level at 3rd grade.
This isn't unusual as once you know the rules and have a 1930s or earlier dictionary, you can read anything.
I've had many discussions with so called teachers who use this ridiculous "whole word" program to "teach" reading.
Except for the few rogue teachers, this is a waste of time.
Most are so completely indoctrinated with the propaganda from the colleges that there is no way they will even consider listening to anything a lay person has to say.
There are two books, by Rudolf Flesch, "Why Johnny Can't Read - and what You Can Do About It" in 1955, and "Why Johnny STILL Can't Read" in 1981 that document and explain the sordid money trail that keeps the farce of the whole word program going.
The Whole Word system has kids memorizing 20,000 words like Chinese characters. They are taught to guess at words they don't know by the surrounding context.
Few people are going to remember 20,000 of anything they try to memorize.
When these crippled students hit math, history and science, there are many words not included in the 20,000.
The ignorant reading teachers scoff at phonics as "rote learning". They just look at you like a deer in the headlights when you ask them, well, which would you rather memorize, 20,000 of ANYTHING or 120? There are roughtly 120 phonics rules which enable you to read almost ANY word in the english language.
An older dictionary allows you to comprehend it.
I have posted the complete set of rules on one of my web sites in "cheat sheet" form to print out.
Who wants to bother memorizing even 120 of anything?
You begin to remember the most used rules as you use them. When you hit a word with a seldom used rule, that's why you have a cheat sheet!
Eventually you pretty much forget you are using the rules, it's just automatic.
The speedy "sight reading" just comes naturally as time goes on.
Many people learn enough phonics from different sources such as Montessori, reading the Bible (an older copy), re-incarnation from a soul that was alive in the 1800s or just figure it out on their own. The rest are out of luck.
The inability to read unknown words is what causes many people to have to go to classes to learn just about anything new.
They are unable to read the information they need to figure out things for themselves.
This was particularly obvious when computers were being introduced to our school system.
Almost all the teachers were saying they needed classes on how to operate and use computers.
Several of us asked why they didn't just read the manuals and figure it out like we did?
The reponse was that they couldn't learn that way. Translation, they were unable to read an comprehend the manuals because there were many words they couldn't read.
If enough folks bypass this mess by homeschooling and properly teaching reading, our country may survive.
If not, watch the movie, "Idiocracy". Don't rent it, buy it, you're going to want to watch it several times to catch all the nuances and to show to others.
And now here he is, getting ready to start his second term as VP, a heartbeat from the presidency.
Never saw that coming...but I can imagine what's coming next and I doubt it will be pleasant. We have an uncanny knack for doing what doesn't work, as our educational system demonstrates.
It will no doubt get better when obama nationalizes education like he promised he'd do, along with nationalizing our healthcare and energy.
Excellent post, Mogger ! I’m going to keep it as a reference.
I started school in the mid 1950’s at a four-room schoolhouse (two grades per room, one teacher) in a village here in Ontario. We learned reading using the phonics method. Every child could read comprehensively before entering Grade 3. Then again, kindergarten wasn’t available, so most of us had a little “kick-start” learning at home before entering school. I’ve always been thankful for my early schooling.
Only the educated are free.
Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD)
I was born with a talent in reading. My parents read to me every night, and I picked up words. In first grade...I was reading 5th grade texts.
I had a similar argument with my children's first grade teacher in the early 90's. They introduced "whole language" reading the year my daughter was in 1st grade. I told her teacher that phonics is the only way to learn to read and if she did not teach the phonics way of reading, I would do it at home and I did. Had my 4 year old son also learning phonics with his sister, he knew how to read and spell almost everything by the time he was in her first grade class, 2 years later.
BTW, phonics also helps with spelling. I was taught phonics in the 50's in southern CA, spelling is easy if you know the sounds letters make alone and in groups.
Brilliant Post. Brilliant response.
I wouldn’t consider myself to be the most literate person in the world, but I have found that the books purloined from my grandfather’s extensive library, from the 30s, are wonderful sources of information. Gramps was a lawyer in Idaho, and very well read. He had books espousing many perspectives, which are fascinating to read these days, particularly those blessing communism. How wrong they were, yet how persistent, and successful, they still are.
I hope that the message of your posts sees a wider audience. America’s future depends upon it.
Idiocracy comes to life.
“Americans bought critical changes in behavior, beliefs, and worldviews. By applying advertising and agitation in just the right proportions, our adversaries learned they could create a mob mentality and suppress independent thinking. Technically, this is called the science of coercion. If done properly, one can fool nearly all the people all the time.”
This is how Agenda 21 will become successful.
We keep making the mistake of projecting our thoughts and beliefs on the Democrat voters. What do you think about your vote? Have you even considered what a “vote” is? We look at our vote as an expression of our beliefs. We “vote” for people who we think will best represent our beliefs and thoughts. Is this what Democrat voters think? They see their vote as an investment. They are “investing” in the Democrat party. And, like all good old-fashioned investors, they expect dividends. We have to understand that they think differently than we do. They aren’t stupid. Somehow, these “stupid” people manage to find their way to the polling stations and find the Democrats on the ballot. These stupid people beat us this last election. They probably consider us to be quite stupid. I know the leaders of the Democrat party consider us to be quite stupid.
“Understand yourself and understand your opponents, and in one hundred battles, you will not be defeated.”
Good thing you weren't ordering a plain omelet, and she's lucky you weren't Jack Nicholson's character in the movie "Five Easy Pieces".
(kudos for your patience)
We have a complete original set. We used them a little, but mostly books from 1830 to 1850.
In New Hampshire you just have to send or bring a letter to the principal, or the district office or the state board of education stating you are going to homeschool and a copy of your curriculum.
We had been bandying about the idea of homeschooling for a while, but were pushed over the edge one day when I was under our Volkswagen and asked our older daughter to read me something from the manual.
She was in 3rd grade and getting As and Bs, so I though this should be no problem. I had taught her a smattering of reading before 1st grade, but then made the mistake of assuming the school system would do the rest.
She was unable to read it.
I slid out and we went to our library and I pulled out 1800s readers from 1st to 3rd grade. She was illiterate.
That did it. I wrote the short letter, and a one page curriculum, listing almost all books from the early 1800s and we started homeschooling.
In subsequent years, the last assignment each year was for them to write the curriculum for the next year.
They were tested each year by a certified teacher as required by NH law, which I prefer anyway to see where we may be behind or ahead. As it turned out we were usually ahead.
Our "schooling" was a little different from most, it took on average 2 to 4 hours a day, but didn't end there. Math was mostly taught while on the road. No calculators or paper allowed until they could do all the basics in their heads. Spelling the same way. Most "tests" also on the road, no paper.
The chairman of the school board and the assistant superintendent had become two of my best friends.
The chairman was a retired electrical and mechanical engineer, former B-24 pilot who has been involved in the development of a LOT of things that are well know by everyone.
The assistant superintendent a retired Special Forces ops colonel who is fluent in several languages, has doctorates in education and economics. He's also been in the middle of a lot of events that have been in the news. He also was in a Harvard think tank on the teaching of reading. He came to our district, seeking a small school system where he could "give back", with a huge sacrifice in pay compared to what he could have gotten elsewhere. He was hoping in that manner to be able to work at improving the system.
It would be an uphill battle with the teachers, their union and the administrators all digging in their heels.
Neither had ever met (to their knowledge) a homeschooled student.
One day they asked me if I would like to come with them to Barre, VT to check out their ROTC program as they wanted to bring ROTC to our school. I said, sure, but could my older daughter come along?
on the hour and a half drive they grilled her to see what she knew (pre-arranged). As we neard the school, she was asked if she would mind coming up with some questions for students in the program and getting their point of view, as she was more likely to get a true answer from them than any adult.
These were all juniors and seniors. She pretty much interrogated them and had plenty for the return trip. Along the way, I was asked, even though we homeschool, could she join the track team (amazon woman).
I responded, sure, but don't you have age restrictions? I asked them just how old they thought she was, anyway?
They conflabbed for a while and finally decided on 17 or 18 as she was still "in school". Then they asked her. Twelve.
I asked them if they thought there was any 12 year old in our public school who could have interacted with juniors and seniors at or above their level as she just had?
They said, no. One of the objections almost all "educators" bring up is "socialization", and how you need kids in school so they learn to "socialize". It is true, a few homeschoolers isolate their kids, usually religious ones from our experience.
Most homeschooled kids learn how to interact with people of all ages and backgrounds, not the artificial limiting to those of their own age.
We had many "discussions" over the teaching of reading in our district, but the idea of using phonics just wasn't getting anywhere with the assits. super.
In exasperation, one day I told him our younger daughter, who was in 3rd grade would come in and read and comprehend any book in his extensive bookshelves.
A few days later we had our fun. She had along a Calvin and Hobbs comic book she was reading. He asked her to read from it. I sad, come on, that's just a comic book, challenge her. He insisted. She read to him, laughing in the appropriate places and answered all of his questions about it.
He turned to me, amazed, and asked me if I knew what level that cartoon was written for? I had no clue, how should I know, it's a kids' comic book.
He said, no, it's for second year college level.
I responded that we didn't just now prove my daughter could read well, we proved that if this was supposedly second year college level, our country was in deep doo-doo.
He mentioned a problem he was having. He had a number of tests he wanted to "test the test" to see if any were something we might like to use in the district. The principals and teachers were dead set against it as they were afraid of how the kids would do.
I told him we were paying 50 bucks each per year for testing, free testing, graded by him would be great! Our kids became the most tested kids around shortly thereafter. Part of their assignment was to critique the tests for him.
We read in the homeschooling magazines these wonderful stories of how kids take off with it and often go for it by themselves.
Our kids hated it. I made their lives miserable with multiplication, division, addition, subtraction and spelling on road trips. It paid off though, and looking back they are both glad we did it.
Eventually the lefties in our district drove out the assist. super.
Since then he's taught at Beijing University and a Mongolian University, and now retired.
While as in any situation there are some good schools and some good teachers, overall, if you can, homeschooling is the better way to go.
At the very least, kids need the basics of reading with phonics and basic math.
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