Posted on 05/30/2002 10:18:13 AM PDT by robowombat
High Schoolers Don't Know History...Surprise!
Well, the U. S. Department of [mis]Education continues unabated on its triumphal march toward the total educational lobotomization of America's school children. A recent National Assessment of Educational Progress report has revealed that less than half of America's high school seniors have even a rudimentary grasp of U.S. history and what the events therein were all about. According to an Associated Press release: "Only 43% of 12th graders had at least a basic understanding of U.S. history, unchanged from 1994, the last time the test was given." So, with all the millions these educrats have spent in the years since 1994, there is no improvement. Kind of makes you wonder what the money went for doesn't it?
Diane Ravitch, a historian and education professor from New York University is a member of the test's governing board. She has quite succinctly noted that "Clearly our high schools are failing to teach U.S. history well and to awaken mature students to the value of history as a study that matters deeply in their own lives and in the life of our nation." Ravitch has labeled the recent set of test scores for high schoolers as "truly abysmal." According to an article in USA Today "On the test: 57% of seniors could not perform even at the basic level. 32% performed at the basic level...One per cent were advanced or superior." So, what this all amounts to is that our high school seniors don't really know diddly about their history or heritage and have no concept at all of how this affects their lives, or how it will affect the lives of their children some day if they don't wake up and smell the coffee. I realize that the first emotional response to these test results will come from parents who've had their heads in the sand for years. They will now moan about the test scores. Many of them will be Christians and/or conservatives to whom ignorance has been bliss. And their first gut-level response will be "This is just terrible. Our kids don't know their history [as if very many of the parents even know it.] We've just got to find some way to spend more money for quality education so our kids won't grow up ignorant." Might I be so presumptuous as to suggest that this is exactly the response the government education establishment desires from you? No matter how much of a boondoggle they have made of the charade we call 'public education,' they are always able and willing to let the con-game continue as long as they can continue to play the public for suckers and keep the cash flowing. I can see it even now - calls from somewhere deep within the bowels of the federal education establishment for programs to 'improve' our student's history scores. We'll have to have scores of new history 'facillators' and new textbooks that will make our history seem more 'relevant' to our high schoolers. Of course all this will cost a bundle - but hey, aren't the kids worth it? And, as the naive American public goes for it, hook, line, and sinker, these educational hucksters will be laughing up their sleeves all the way to the bank! Let's honestly face it, if over half of our high school seniors are that ignorant of their history and heritage, IT IS NO ACCIDENT.
The governmental education establishment has labored mightily for decades to create a student that is basically dead from the neck up - a student incapable of thinking on his own, of reasoning on his own, and one that will respond emotionally, without rational thought, when the right psychological buttons are pushed, exactly the way the system wants him to. The education establishment does not want thinking, reasoning, questioning students. Such students often raise issues that the history books have purposely ignored or buried. Why do you think the establishment hates home schoolers as they do? It is precisely because the home schooled kids will not think or react in the same manner as the government school clones do. Therefore, they will be an irritant to the system - the fly in the buttermilk, if you will. When was the last time anyone saw an American History book that dealt honestly with all the varied reasons for the War of Northern Aggression? Don't all answer at once, now. And, even in the home school and Christian school Movements, how many really good history books exist? Not nearly enough. None of the 'history' books I've seen even comes close, except a couple older reprints that hardly anyone ever sees and they will only ever reach a small minority.
So those people that are genuinely concerned about their kids being able to learn proper American history already have two strikes against them. There are very few decent history books out there for the kids to learn from. Just about all the material I've seen from government schools that passes for history is nothing more than a multicultural abomination and far removed from the truth. Better the kids shouldn't even attempt to learn some of that! Unless a sizable segment of our Christian conservative folks begins to wake up to what the government education system is really all about and firmly decides to take their children and secede from it, nothing will change, except to get worse. And we may, at some point down the road, in a few decades, be graduating from our government brain laundries students that are, at best, dithering idiots, capable of nothing more than flipping burgers at the local greasy spoon.
In the early 19th century in this country, Christians mostly abandoned the Christian schools in favor of partaking of the 'new' government education system started and promoted b Horace Mann, Robert Owen, and an entire plethora of Unitarians and socialists. It was educational apostasy - and many Christians willingly partook. Maybe now, the chickens are coming home to roost. Worse yet, maybe judgement is coming upon us because of our educational apostasy.
Copyright ©, Al Benson Jr. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED P.O. Box 1883 Arlington Heights, IL 60006 Al Benson, Jr. is also the Editor of the Copperhead Chronicle, and can be reached at cpprhd10@aol.com
This is a surprise?
Along a similar line, this is what my namesake, Polybius (200-118 B.C.), wrote in regards to his Universal History:
I have recorded these events in the hope that the reader may profit from them, for there are two ways by which all men may reform themselves, either by learning from their own errors or from those of others; the former makes a more striking demonstration, the latter a less painful one.
George Santayana
I remember when my younger son got in a major American History class in high school I asked him how worthy the course was turning out to be. His reply was, "Well Dad, after sitting at the dinner table with you all my life, this class is, just basically, review."
LOL, I was tickeled.
So what? That's still less than half!
Stoopid kids. :)P
Obviously the author has his head in the sand.
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