Time for public schools to throw in the towel?

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | January 27, 2003 | Dr. Laura Schlessinger

[Tailgunner Joe]

I've been collecting clips about schools and teachers around the country for the last year, and I have to tell you that I genuinely fear for the republic. I say that because, for us "old folks" who were actually taught American History in school, a thriving democracy depends upon universal education – an education that prepares the citizens of a nation to govern themselves through their elected representatives. (Of course, it was the presumption of the framers of the Constitution that if one attended school, one could be counted on to emerge educated!)

Is it really because they don't care that so many Americans don't vote? Or is it because they can't read the ballot? We tend to blame lackluster politicians or negative campaigning for low turnout at the polls. But what if the real reason is that most of our citizens are not sufficiently educated about the basic concepts of democracy to understand the issues – even those that directly impact their self interest? And what if that ignorance is compounded by illiteracy?

Last fall, the Center for Civic Information at the Manhattan Institute published the report of a telephone survey of over 1,000 fourth- and eighth-grade teachers. Among the not so surprising findings was that only about 25 percent of those surveyed said they most cared about whether a student got the right answers. More of them most cared that students tried hard or used a creative approach.

That absurd state of affairs has come about because this generation of teachers, and probably a few generations before, have themselves been raised to believe there are no right answers, anyway. So what difference does it make?

For example, our public-school children hear that the Founding Fathers are not to be revered. They were greedy, patriarchal oppressors who were in it for the money and the power. America is not a noble experiment in freedom and equality. That was the cover story, as we stole the land from the indigenous people. America wasn't recently attacked by terrorists. America is the terrorist!

Furthermore, there are no such things as great books, since all the books we were misguided enough to think of as great, were written by those same old white male misogynists from the evil empire of Western culture. What's just as great is any diary written by any woman, slave or Native American and recently discovered in someone's trunk. And woe to anyone who disagrees.

Of course, none of it matters anyway, because language itself is fatally tainted, and words don't mean anything. They only mean what my idiosyncratic point of view believes they mean. Just ask the deconstructionists.

Those deconstructionists have been very busy, because they didn't stop with the English language. They have also pretty successfully deconstructed family, religion, values, ethics and morality as well. We all know that, if there can be no right answers, there obviously is no right and wrong. No one's behavior can be judged because the most heinous acts can be excused on the basis of what the perpetrator may have suffered at the hands of his parents, the police, the inequitable society. Yada, yada, yada.

This leads inevitably to "understanding" that immigrant children shouldn't be penalized in school because English is not their first language. And what's so great about patriarchal, oppressive, English anyway? Embrace over 100 languages in the classroom (as we do in the Los Angeles School District) so that no one learns anything – least of all the immigrant children who are one day going to grow up as Americans and not even understand what that means, let alone what it requires of them or entitles them to.

God is dead (although the Wiccan goddess still has a fighting chance, I guess) – traditional morality is destructive; excellence is discredited and devalued; grades are antiquated. Discipline is discriminatory because there's no such thing as bad behavior, just children with "special needs."

No wonder teachers are trying to find ways to make their work meaningful, since accomplishment and achievement can no longer be benchmarks of success. After all, the unaccomplished and underachievers in the class are likely to feel bad. Worse, their parents might sue for cruel and unusual punishment.

For a few years now, I've been urging parents to send their kids to private religious schools and/or homeschool them. I truly see no other options for raising and educating children to be morally fit, well informed, appreciative Americans and contributing members of society.

A shortage of teachers, a kaleidoscope of standards, endemic failure, annual budget shortfalls, states taking over local school districts and guns in the classroom are unavoidable signs of public-school collapse. I think Oregon may have the right idea. They are looking to shorten the school year by 15 days. How long before it's clear to them and to us, that we should simply close them altogether?

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[Lizavetta]

I think Oregon may have the right idea. They are looking to shorten the school year by 15 days

I don't suppose they'll refund back to the taxpayers 15 days' worth of educational dollars.

[stanz]

For a few years now, I've been urging parents to send their kids to private religious schools and/or homeschool them

What's wrong with private secular schools? This article skates around the premise that one can't be moral or upstanding, or for that matter, patriotic, without being religious.

[Types_with_Fist]

Well, my wife and I have already thrown in the towel on public education. After a couple of years of "gay tolerance," the violence in public schools, indifferent teachers who didn't want parents involved and just hearing the crap the kids were learning and, mostly, not learning - everything from pagan rituals to communist dogma - the last straw for us came when my son came home with an English assignment to "write a witch's spell." We've been homeschooling ever since and now my children actually are learning American History and Geography.

I can assure you, however, that our government will never allow us to "throw in the towel" on tax-payer-funded public education. Where else can the left cull and create new homosexuals, atheists and communists? If homeschooling becomes too much of a threat, they will try to force the kids back at the point of a gun, such is their fanatical desperation. Today's News

[Davis]

Here is an interesting approach

http://www.atrentino.com/ColumbusProblem.html

[yendu bwam]

Well, my wife and I have already thrown in the towel on public education. After a couple of years of "gay tolerance," the violence in public schools, indifferent teachers who didn't want parents involved and just hearing the crap the kids were learning and, mostly, not learning - everything from pagan rituals to communist dogma - the last straw for us came when my son came home with an English assignment to "write a witch's spell."

Our kids go to private religious school now. Our public schools became oversized, filled with generally disinterested teachers, started pushing homosexuality in sex ed classes (in addition to encouraging pre-marital sex and abortion), changed their teaching curricula and philosophies every year (usually with new and untested ideas), didn't allow parents to find satisfaction after raising issues, etc. etc. In short, the public schools wanted our kids to do with what they wanted. We got out, for the sake of our kids. But the homosexual thing was the last straw. My sons do NOT need to learn about anal homosexual sex in 6th grade. That was child abuse.

[dc27]

My kids will never go to a public school. My kids are in a religous private school and are learning at a pace which is 1-2 grades higher than that of the local public schools. BTW the new district super was fired after 3 months because he wanted to hold the teachers and principals accountable for the test scores. I just wish that I had vouchers in my state. (CA)

[yendu bwam]

I just wish that I had vouchers in my state. (CA)

Hey dc27. Good for you and your children. California public schools scare me.

[Question_Assumptions]

Some friends were thinking of sending their daughter to their town's (highly rated) public schools after 8th grade (where her current religious school stops) but seem to have had a change of heart after encountering a parent desperately trying to get their daughter back into that school after hearing not only the language but the drugs being sold in the hallways, in front of 6th graders. I think it now likely that their daughter will be going to a religious high school as well.

[Bullish]

And if kids act up in class just drug them. < /sarc >

[LaineyDee]

What's wrong with private secular schools? This article skates around the premise that one can't be moral or upstanding, or for that matter, patriotic, without being religious.

We do have secular schools....that are called government funded public schools. Secularism is a religion in and of itself....teaching no moral boundaries and worshipping the god of "if it feels good, do it"......which is why we have the mess we are in today.

Private parochial schools have moral boundaries of right/wrong...making it understood that we are accountable to a Creator as well as our community...and are undergirded with the foundation of truth and facts in their education.... not teaching the curriculum the way they'd have "liked" it to have been...IMHO

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

So many of those who home-school or send their children to private school will still go ahead and spend their life savings on a college education which will undermine everything they have ever taught the child. We need an all-out attack on the funding of public universities which teach lies, communism, anti-Americanism, secular humanism and general debauchery.

The public university system in the United States is a disgrace and is undermining the best traditions and values within this country.

The tenured professors are mostly leftists and have contempt for anyone who does not believe their crap which is mostly propaganda or pseudo-science.

These professors censor speech with which they do not agree and have made a travesty of higher education. The system can only be stopped by starvation of money. When these public universities cry out for money, consider the crap with which they are filling our young people's minds.

If you think I'm exaggerating, take some courses in some of these universities and listen to the bilge coming out of the mouths of these incompetents.

A lot of these so-called professors would be shouting on street-corners as homeless derelicts if not for the taxpayers paying them handsomely to brainwash the young people of our country.

Am I anti-education? No. I am in favor of the intellectual pursuit of the truth from every point-of-view. That is not happening in the universities of the United States of America.

Check it out for yourself before you turn over your life savings to these propaganda mills.

[OBone]

I don't disagree with anything you said. There are a few good colleges left, but they are not public institutions. You just have to search for them and hope to God you can get your child into one of them.
OB

[stanz]

I wasn't talking about public schools. I was talking about private schools. My daughter attended both elementary and high school at private secular institutions.
Secularism, the last time I checked, merely means the absence of institutionalized religion. My point is that religion does not have the monopoly on morality.
We consider ourselves decent people, but we have no religious beliefs. This article reflects the same things you are saying- - - that "truths" can only be found in church and that worshipping is the only route to decency and civic responsibility. There are some of us who disagree with this assumption.

[LaineyDee]

Secularism, the last time I checked, merely means the absence of institutionalized religion. My point is that religion does not have the monopoly on morality.

Actually.....Secularism is a "belief" system or philosophy, which is exactly what religion is. If you don't use the Word of God to gauge morality... with what reference point do you gauge right or wrong? If you depend on our laws.....then that would refer you back to our Judeo-Christian heritage on which this nation was founded. BTW....those beliefs worked very well until the secular humanists felt we no longer needed the constraints of God in our society....or even patriotism for that matter. No loyalty to anything or anyone except SELF. Things started going downhill fast after that, IMHO.

[Gal.5:1]

It's all true, everyone! You wouldn't believe the stuff going on here in CA taxpayer funded government schools. It is criminal.

Our children have been spending the last 7 years reading some of the "great books"(classic children's literature) and learning American History, Ancient History, Geography , Poetry , Natural History and a little Greek thrown in just for fun. This sure did not happen in a public school.

[stanz]

It is not a belief system. I don't believe in anything spiritual. I gauge my actions by the fact that people are all human and deserve to be treated fairly. When I'm not treated fairly. I reciprocate. That's not Christian teaching, that's innate evolutionary behavior. Just observe chimpanzees in the wild.

As for God in our society, I don't really care about the references to God in the Pledge of Allegiance or saying prayers in school - - as long as I don't have to say them. It means nothing to me. As for patriotism, stop thinking that only the religious are entitled to call themselves patriots. We support and defend this country's principles and the rights that were handed down in the Constitution. We pay taxes, attend rallies, write letters to appropriate parties when members of the Left (and by the way, we are not members of the Left)try to convince everyone that America is evil or that she doesn't have the right to protect her interests. We are loyal to this country. Don't generalize so much. Just because we don't embrace all your beliefs doesn't mean we're any less American.

[LaineyDee]

It is not a belief system.

Yea....it is. Look it up.

I don't believe in anything spiritual.

Didn't say anything about spirituality.

I gauge my actions by the fact that people are all human and deserve to be treated fairly. When I'm not treated fairly. I reciprocate. That's not Christian teaching, that's innate evolutionary behavior. Just observe chimpanzees in the wild.

So....you're an animal with "instincts". *chuckle* I'm sorry....I don't "believe" in the "theory" or the "religion" of evolution. (this could be an all nighter) Why are there still chimpanzees? What happened to their evolutionary processes?

We support and defend this country's principles and the rights that were handed down in the Constitution.

So you support the Judeo-Christian heritage that this country was founded on.....but you don't believe in it? I'm so confused! Why would you fight to defend something you don't believe in?

[stanz]

The Constitution was not put together by a bunch of fundamentalist Christians. It was set down by people who wanted freedoms. Included in those freesoms were the separation of church and state. Jefferson was a deist. This is a quote from Jefferson taken from a Deist website:

"Because Deism is based on nature, and the laws of nature, it is a natural religion as opposed to revealed or man-made artificial religion."

I don't have to look up anything. I recently discovered that I could be considered a secular humanist.Formerly, I was not aware that there was a classification for the way I perceive things. Secular humanism varies, but basically, the thinking is as follows:

Belief in Deity
Not considered important. Most Humanists are atheists or agnostics.

• Incarnations
Same as above.

• Origin of Universe and Life
The scientific method is most respected as the means for revealing the mysteries of the origins of the universe and life.

• After Death
An afterlife or spiritual existence after death is not recognized.

• Why Evil?
No concept of “evil.” Reasons for wrongdoing are explored through scientific methods, e.g. through study of sociology, psychology, criminology.

• Salvation
No concept of afterlife or spiritual liberation or salvation. Realizing ones personal potential and working for the betterment of humanity through ethical consciousness and social works are considered paramount, but from a naturalistic rather than supernatural standpoint.

• Undeserved Suffering
No spiritual reasons but rather a matter of human vulnerability to misfortune, illness, and victimization.

There is no set of rules or laws written down to embrace. There is no organized "church." As I said, I only recently discovered that there was a name for the series of notions which I believe makes the most sense for me.

Spirituality is a major part of religious acceptance. I merely said I reject it.

Lastly, evolution is not any religion. Science doesn't "chuckle" at those who blindly cling to myths to explain phenomena - - it only wants to be left alone to analyze and collect data to support its queries. Queries...questions...skepticism...that is what science is involved in. Only creationists "chuckle" and want to indoctrinate those who disagree. I spent the major part of my life right through graduate school studying the mechanism of and evidence for evolution. The reason why there are still chimpanzees is a complex one, but for here, suffice it say that no organism, including humans in modern primitive societies, will change if there is no pressure exerted on them environmentally to do so. If you are interested, which I do not think you are judging by your need to "chuckle", then I can forward several articles which will explain it in detail.

And, by the way, don't be confused. I support my country because I live here and have benefitted from receiving an education here (private), because I don't have to worship, because I despise totalitarianism and repression other societies are subject to, because there is the right to choose abortion if my daughter or anyone close to me decides that is the right course, because our lifestyle here is precious enough to defend and lastly, because there is a separation of church and state so I can ask all the questions I need to without succumbing to dogma based on little else but faith.