Posted on 12/04/2001 12:27:03 PM PST by Jean S
Conservative activist, author and lawyer Phyllis Schlafly told the recent AIM conference that America has become too open and accommodating toward people who cant read or speak English. This trend undermines our heritage and future as a nation. She said she wasnt surprised by the fact that most of the hijackers could not speak English very well. Yet they were here training to be airline pilots.
One of the most serious problems facing America is illiteracy. She said an eighth grade science teacher had called in to her national radio program and said that half the students in her class couldnt read. The teacher was pressured to read the tests to the students or record them on tapes so they could listen at their own convenience. At the same time, the subject matter on the exams was reduced by 30-40 percent to make it easier to pass the tests.
Schlafly, who has produced several books teaching phonics to children, said stories like that told by the science teacher make a mockery of claims about rising standards in schools and how more tests will solve the problem. She said Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, a former teacher, had told her that he remembers about a half dozen students in his class who couldnt read and he just passed them along to other teachers and other grades. If our citizens cant read, Schlafly emphasized, then the ability to govern ourselves through a representative democracy is at risk. Current figures show that 37 percent of fourth graders cant read. Among blacks, its 63 percent and among Hispanics, 58 percent.
Popular educational reforms are deceptive. Schlafly said one plan in Illinois to re-certify teachers, to make sure theyre competent, involved having the teachers go to a race track and place bets on horses. They got credit for a "course" called "Probabilities in Gaming." The rationale was that the teachers would learn something about math by going to the track.
At the beginning of our country, everybody read. But not today. Exams of Army soldiers over the last several decades show that, in World War II, there was a 4 percent illiteracy rate. By the Korean War, that had grown to 19 percent. By the Vietnam war, that had risen to 27 percent.
The real solution, Schlafly said, is teaching people to read through the phonics method. That teaches the 44 sounds of the English language and how to put them together. This effective method has been replaced over the years by something called the whole language or whole word system. This involves teaching kids to memorize a few dozen words and associate them with pictures. Much of it involves guessing.
Schlafly said this problem has come back to haunt the Democrats, some of whose constituents cant speak English and were not able to read that controversial butterfly ballot in Florida in the 2000 presidential contest. This may have cost Gore the election. Schlafly said some people confused the designation of libertarian on the ballot with Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate. For someone taught to read with the whole language system, the words looked the same. Well have more on the danger of illiteracy in our next broadcast.
Seeing as how I generally admire Mrs. Shafly, I'm pretty disillusioned to find out that she doesn't know what form of government our Founders actually set up for us. Guess she learned THAT in one of those "teachers colleges".
Gore (to his advisors at the DNC): "I TOLD YOU SONSABITCHES THAT WE SHOULD HAVE PICKED SOMEONE WITH A SIMPLE NAME LIKE KERRY TO BE MY RUNNING MATE !!!!"
I can almost excuse the Hispanics if they're recent immigrants and not too fluent with the language, but why the Blacks?
Guess the social engineers figure if they repeat that mantra often enough and can get others (read: school children) to repeat it, then that will somehow make it so.
Just one more in a long line of reasons that we pulled our children out of the government indoctrination centers two years ago. I was spending more time every evening UNteaching them the wrong information that had been inparted during the school day than I do home schooling them now!
Stop cheering me up!!
Please?????
I've known a lot of people who read English very well but couldn't speak it. Unfortunately, too many of them were T.A.s in college....
Schlafly said this problem has come back to haunt the Democrats, some of whose constituents cant speak English and were not able to read that controversial butterfly ballot in Florida in the 2000 presidential contest.
Hoist by their own petard. If they can't read they can't vote straight. If they can read, they're more likely intend to vote GOP or 3rd party.
FReegards
The Failing Teacher and the Teachers' Code of Silence
Source: CNSNews.com; Published: December 3, 2001
Author: Glenn SacksTime for outrage! Linda Bowles reports latest results in America's public schools
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: November 27, 2001
Author: Linda BowlesIlliterate in Boston: Samuel Blumenfeld explains U.S.'s ongoing reading problem
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: July 20, 2001
Author:Samuel BlumenfeldNEA - Let our children go!
Source: WorldNet Daily; Published: June 23. 2001
Author: Linda HarveyWhy Do Schools Play Games With Students' Minds ?
Source: The Detroit News; Published: April 1, 2001
Author: Thomas SowellThe Public School Nightmare: Why fix a system designed to destroy individual thought?
Source: http://home.talkcity.com/LibraryDr/patt/homeschl.htm
Author: John Taylor GattoDumbing down teachers
Source: USNews.com; Published: 2/21/01
Author: John LeoFree Republic links to education related articles (thread#8)
Source: Free Republic; Published: 3-20-2001
Author: VariousAre children deliberately 'dumbed down' in school? {YES!!!}
Source: World Net Daily; Published: May 13, 2001
Author: Geoff Metcalf {Interview}New Book Explores America's Education Catastrophe
Source: Christian Citizen USA; Published: April 2000
Author: William H. WildDeliberately dumbing us down (Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt's, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America"
Source: WorldNetDaily.com; Published: December 2,1999
Author: Samuel L. BlumenfeldCould they really have done it on purpose?
Source: THE LIBERTARIAN; Published: 07/28/2000
Author: Vin SuprynowiczFrom the Littleton Crisis to Government Control Littleton Crisis to Government Control
The UN Plan for Your Mental Health The UN Plan for Your Mental Health
The opposite would be equally true., The main difference is that the Libertarian premise is natural to human nature compared to the Democrat premise. The Libertarian premise stresses self-responsibility and thus less illiterate Libertarians than illiterate Democrats that shun self-responsibility in favor of government being responsible for the individual.
Okay, I've made an observation. Who's going to be the first to bash the Libertarians. Have at it. I'm not even a Libertarian.
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