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V.V.A.R. COMMENTARY: Vietnam vet reform group charges media with
covering up latest evidence of education failure. Calls on Vietnam vets
and African-Americans as major victims of leftist bigotry to join in
demanding reform.

by Leonard Magruder

July 24, 2003

Hiding it away on back pages, newspapers across the country tried to
keep the nation from the latest bad news about education, news that
should have been on front pages everywhere. Both local newpapers, such
as The Lawrence Journal-World, and national newspapers, such as U.S.A.
Today, barely mentioned the results of the latest national reading tests
by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Based on the testing
of 270,000 students, the results showed that only one third of students
in the three grades tested, fourth, eighth and 12th, were up to
profiency standards in reading. Among high school seniors, 36% were
proficient, down from 40% in 1998. One third of the students in fourth,
eighth and 12th grades can not show even a basic understanding of civics
at their grade level. Three out of four fourth graders could not name
which part of government passes laws. Half of all 12th graders asked to
pick an ally in World War II picked Italy, Germany, or Japan.

In the last international competition in science and math, American
students placed 19th. We are reminded of the famous "Nation at Risk"
conclusion of 1981, "If a foreign power had done anything to us like
this we would consider it an act of war." No society can survive a
failure of education such as we are experiencing.

Said Education Secretary Rod Paige of the poor results, "There are no
scientific answers."

There are definitely scientific answers as to why these results are so
poor. It can be found in a number of books. A good example is Dumbing
Down our Kids by Charles Sykes of Wisconsin Research. Some of the quotes
in this article are from this book. But generally it is the leftist
philosphy of life embraced by the National Education Association, a
philosophy hostile towards the predominant democratic and
Judeo-Christian values of the West that is the primary culprit. This
philosophy is essentially the same one used to betray the sacrifices of
our soldiers in Vietnam in the 60's. It is also the source of
totalitarian ideas being spread on today's campuses by those in the
social sciences and humanities as found in multiculturalism, speech
codes, political correctness, and gender feminism.

Following are some of the techniques being used in our schools that
research show have failed.

1) "Grades pit students against one another," complains Outward
Bound education expert William Grady, "implying that achievement and
success are inherently comparative and competitive." (which, of course,
they are, as is life) He sees the issue of grades in terms of "class
struggle." This reflects the continuing influence of Marxist thought on
American education, stemming from the radical movements of the 60's.

2) In reading and literature, as a result of "multiculturalism,"
selection of reading material continues to be based almost entirely on
gender, race, and class, rather than through literary merit.

3) Textbooks become more simple each year, designed to ensure
"success" in reading and contributing to "self-esteem." (In spite of the
fact that over 100 studies show no correlation between "self-esteem" and
achievement.) In these texts, multiculturalists, primarily feminists, in
their hostility to the democratic and religious values of the West, are
rewriting history. In one well known study at New York University of 90
such texts, only five dealt with any patriotic theme. In 30 pages on the
Pilgrims there is no reference to their religious concerns. Martin
Luther King Jr. is mentioned in but one text but without mentioning that
he was a pastor or that black churches played a key role in the civil
rights struggle. There is no question but what the leftist philosophy
that gave us multiculturalism is racist. As the noted liberal historian
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. once wrote of multiculturalism, "The result can
only be the fragmentation, resegregation, and tribalization of America."

4) Students who misspell words are considered "independent spellers"
by their teachers and correcting them a stifling of their "creativity"
and damaging to their "self-esteem." Spelling need only be approximate
to be accepted. Semi-literate, ungrammatical, run-on sentences are also
tolerated as multiculturalist philosophy seeks to free students from the
"restraints" of the English language.

5) Although research has shown it to be a bad practice, pressures
throughout the nation to create "inclusive" classrooms force teachers to
teach honor students at the same pace as students who are deficient in
even the most simple academic tasks. Said one educator, Lloyd Hasting of
Texas, "The ability grouping of students in a democratic society is
ethically unacceptable. We need not justify this with research. It is a
statement of principle, not science." Research doesn't count, only
ideology.

6) Dropping of class rankings-the movement to end distinctions,
honors, and valedictorians. Said one educator, "Excellence reflects an
outmoded white male culture of vertical (i.e. logical) thinking." A Pol
Pot approach to education, making everyone equal by ensuring that nobody
knows anything. (is dead) "All have won and all must have prizes."- the
Dodo Bird in Alice in Wonderland.

7) "Authentic assessment," substituting scrapbooks and the
collection of items for exams that require correct, and therefore
gradable, answers. Grading is viewed by multiculturalists as "unfair,
undemocratic, and racist," reflecting "class struggle."

8) Massive grade inflation, designed to encourage "self-esteem." The
juxtaposition of inflated grades with declining SAT scores clearly
exposes the deception being practiced on students and parents. Grade
inflation creates an illusory gap between where students think they
stand and what their actual achievements are. They drift towards
failure, and nobody will tell them the truth. Said Peggy McIntosh,
professor of social science at Wellesley and a leading multiculturalist,
"The emphasis on right/wrong answers is a culturally oppressive idea and
unfair to minority students." This is racist to the core. Said Jamie
Escalante, the legendary math teach of Los Angeles, "Ideas like this are
the kiss of death for minority youth and will significantly stall the
advancement of minorities." Again, the underlying racist thrust of
multiculturalism is obvious.

9) Writing papers as a group rather than individually, unfair to the
better students who do all the work. The better students resent having
to explain everything to students who don't listen, resent the time
taken from their own studies and feel used. Said one educator,
reflecting his leftist philosophy, "a student reading all alone is a bad
example for other students, if not anti-social, it is at least
self-indulgent and elitist."

10) Most students are already the victims of the "look-say" approach
to reading in spite of massive research that shows the clear superiority
of phonics. Rudolph Flesch warned that the abandonment of phonics was a
"time-bomb" primed to wreck educational havoc on the nation's schools.
Four decades and the "Nation at Risk" report have vindicated his
warnings.

11) Research shows that the psychological-conditioning courses in
high schools (sex education, values clarification, affective education,
death education, drug and alcohol education, etc.) stemming from the
naive humanistic psychology of Rogers, Maslow, and Kohlberg, etc., are
resulting in increased rates of drug and alcohol abuse, teenage
pregnancies, rape, violence, racism, and suicide. (Univ. of Toledo,
Stanford Univ., Allan Guttmacher Institute, Harris Poll, etc.)

12) For some decades now, schools have sought to undermine national
pride. Children do not know the Pledge of Allegiance, nor the words to
the National Anthem. References to religion and its role in Western
civilization have been systematically deleted, with America consistently
portrayed as the spoiler of the planet, an international bully, and the
source of all famine, war, and pestilence.

This is the direct product of the leftist and Marxist agenda that is
tyrannizing contemporary education. The fault is not with the teachers,
it is with the social scientists in our universities who design these
approaches to education, and the National Education Association that
promotes them. Following is a report from the battlefield of the left's
war on black children. Note the reference to the Vietnam War as the
excuse the left used to impose this racist horror on minorities (from
FrontPageMag):

"I spent 30 years in the Philadelphia public schools teaching high
school. When I began in 1965 the school was integrated and the students
in my French class read Victor Hugo and Molière. When I escaped in 1995
there wasn't a shred of knowledge, decency or honesty left in anyone's
heart, soul or brain, be it administrator, teacher or student. As you
well know, 1968 was the cut-off point, like B.C. and A.D. (Before
Counter-Culture and After Devastation). You went to bed one night with
one set of values in place and you woke up in a strange new world. It
was exactly like "The Invasion of the Body Snatcher." Human beings had
mutated over night into apostles of socialized education-the concept
that education was a right, free from any attendant responsiblities.
This meant caving in to every demand, no matter how outrageous,
emanating from the most infantile and hate-filled kids one could
possibly imagine. By 1972 the school was entirely Black and firmly
entrenched in an irreversible policy of passing the greatest number even
if they had no skills. This was presumably some sort of reparation for
the past cruelties to Blacks and some sort of redemption for " racist
America who was waging a racist war in Vietnam." In the classroom, we
all began fighting for our survival in the same way-by pandering to the
kids, appeasing them and diluting difficult subject matter on their
behalf. The behavior in the classroom was out of control. Many teachers
knew this was wrong but they put their heads in the sand and never came
up for air. Many left the system-there was a mass exodus out of teaching
back in the seventies. Sometimes a voice would be raised but the iron
curtain of political correctness stifled all attempts to establish
honest discourse among "professionals." It was no longer a profession
but a type of dull ritual devoid of meaning. My school was typical of
the many once excellent city schools that fell into depravity over the
30 year period.

[Note: for the full Comment submitted by Agatha in regards to blog
entry: The left's war on black children, click on the link.]

As for the anti-Americanism and lack of values that pervades
contemporary education, William Bennett, former Sec. of Education, in
his recent book, Why We Fight, wrote this:

For forty years, leading educators and intellectuals have been saying
and writing and teaching that the United States was no better and might
even be worse than its enemies, that Western civilization was a mask
under which one crime after another has been visited upon the poorer
nations of the world, and that good and evil themselves are a matter of
perspective, if not mere opinion. Some of the noblest ideas ever framed
by the mind of man, including democracy, patriotism, honor, and freedom,
have been systematically drained of meaning.

The attacks on patriotism, honor, and freedom began, of course, those
forty years ago with the effort by our academics to defeat our goals in
Vietnam. With those who served out of the country the university had an
open field to expand on, until now whole disciplines are dominated by
leftist thinking. As the former radical David Horowitz recently wrote,
"The American university is now nothing but a hugh patronage machine for
the Left." But we see now that this has weakened our country to the
point where all of us are in danger. This corruption in education must
be challanged and reversed. The logical leaders in calling for such
reform should be our Vietnam vets, many of them now professors. It is
they who know about patriotism, honor, and freedom. As Thomas Sowell,
the noted Afro-American scholar at Stanford and national columnist wrote
to me on Sept. 19, 1998, "Academic reform is necessary, and no one has
more moral authority to demand that they clean up their act than those
who put their lives on the line for this country." And anyone against
racism must obviously also be in the forefront of this struggle.

Be sure to read our Manifesto of Student Liberation from Leftist
Tyranny.