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THE FAILED EDUCATION "REFORMS" (12-year old cuffed for puddle jumping)
NewsWithViews.com ^ | April 14, 2003 | Tom DeWeese

Posted on 04/13/2003 3:23:34 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay

Sometimes a single incident can reveal the widespread rot that has affected the nation's school systems as they strive to indoctrinate the children entrusted to their care while neglecting to teach them the Three R's.

In Inverness, Florida, a 12-year-old boy was cuffed*, arrested, and taken in a patrol car to jail where he was held for two hours. His crime? You aren't going to believe it! Kyle Fredrikson was walking back to class from lunch when Deputy Tim Langer saw the boy "purposely stomping in the water" after being told numerous times by school personnel to stay with the group and out of the rain. Little boys like to stomp on puddles. Always have and always will.

He didn't comply and Officer Langer took the sixth-grader to a school office where he was handcuffed and taken to jail. Kyle was charged with disruption of an educational institution, a misdemeanor. After sitting for two hours by himself in a police holding room, the police released the boy to his mother and grandmother.

His parents were understandably outraged. "The inmates had access to him. Can you imagine that for stomping in a mud puddle?" said his father. Lt. James Martone, who oversees the school resource officer program, said Langer made a proper arrest. "He did his job," Martone said. "It's a fine line any officer in the schools walks."

Why was it a good arrest? Why do these things happen to children today, when earlier generations of children never faced such lunacy? The answer is that the school "curriculum" today is 100 percent behavior modification, not academics. Kyle was being a little boy, expressing his individuality and his indifference to overzealous authority. In today's educational environment, both are affronts to the "system" and must be dealt with quickly and severely. To the system, students are intended to be properly trained human resources. In the world of education today there are no children anymore.

An item from the Education Reporter reveals how, under the Socialist concept of Sustainable Development, schools are being restructured to enforce "cradle-to-grave life-long learning." Preschool, formally known as kindergarten, is becoming mandatory. Parents are told it gives children a head start, but it only gives schools a head start in their mission to indoctrinate them. It gives the school the priority of determining the children's values.

Retired educator and former Fulbright scholar Margaret Brogley who spent nearly 40 years in the classroom says public education is failing because of the methods and materials used, not because there aren't enough toddlers enrolled in preschool.

Mrs. Brogley noted that, over the past 40 years, education has been dumbed down, from fuzzy math to the dearth of phonics reading instruction to the inability of many students to use cursive handwriting. "For 50 years, we have heard of the necessity to improve education," she wrote to Arkansas state education leaders, "How long will it take? Every time the 'experts' fix the situation, it becomes worse. Now the child is to learn to read by the 4th grade. Why so long? I am no genius, but I learned to read before the first year was over."

"Will education be improved (by enrolling young children in pre-school)?" Brogley asked rhetorically, then answered her own question: "No, but it will cost billions of dollars…adding more school years to a child's life will accomplish nothing."

With preschool showing poor results, it should come as no surprise that the more than one billion dollars a year of federal aid for after-school programs in 7,500 public schools nationwide has not helped most children academically, according to a federally funded study.

The report, "When Schools Stay Open Late," conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., said children who attend after-school activities at public elementary and middle schools are more likely to encounter bullies, vandals, thieves and drug users than those who do not. The after school centers, says the report, have limited influence on academic performance, no influence on feelings of safety or on the number of "latch-key children; and some negative influence on behavior. Middle school participants are "more likely to report that they had sold drugs and were somewhat more likely to report that they smoked marijuana."

From being arrested for stomping on a rain puddle to the ineffectiveness of both preschool and after school programs, and everything in between, the failure of the US education system continues to demonstrate how thoroughly trashed it has been in the past half century of "reform." The reform that is necessary now is the return of control to local school boards, the reduction of the control that teacher's unions exercise, and an end to the disastrous federal involvement in the nation's educational systems.

It has been several decades since a government study revealed the failure of the nation's education system and nothing has changed, except for the worse. A new American Revolution is needed to take our schools back from those who have been deliberately dumbing down our students. We need real teachers in our classrooms, not "facilitators." We need a renewed emphasis on the basics, not the judgement-neutral curriculum that is more concerned with "self-esteem" than teaching children anything.

Tom DeWeese is the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report and president of the American Policy Center, a grassroots, activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, VA. The Center maintains an Internet site at http:www.americanpolicy.org


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: brogley; caruba; donutwatch; education; educationnews; homeschoollist
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*The above referenced "puddle boy was cuffed". Did it really happen? Yes. Was it punishment to fit the crime? No. Did I lure you into this article with 12-year old being cuffed? Yes. But would you have read this artilce. Some would, others would might not have. But, much more comes into play here. Remember Hillary Clinton’s "it takes a village" concept, many feel reflects the communist view that a Orwellian Educational society must be employed to form the views of students. Individualism is bad. Conforming to the group is good.

In an interview with Charlotte Iserbyt author of "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America", Are children deliberately 'dumbed down' in school? TalkNetDaily's, Geoff Metcalf, interviews the former U.S. education adviser.

Q: "If the government took all the money that is whizzed down that rat hole of the U.S. Department of Education -- and didn't give it to the states -- but somehow distributed it through block grants or something to the local schools, and put the local schools in competition ..."

A: "I think it's true, but you are always going to have the strings attached as long as you have the federal money coming in. That's why I would like to see us just abolish the U.S. Department of Education -- in which case, all the state departments of education are going to collapse because they get up to 80% of their operating budget from my old office.... then, we go back and restore the finest system the world has ever known. Now that to me would be even more devastating to the United Nations people -- the internationalists -- than getting out of the U.N. Because if the biggest country, the most important economic power in the world, the United States, all of a sudden decided to jump off board of the "School To Work" agenda, which is an international one, they are going to be in such trouble they will not know what to do."

The Subversion of Education in America: Lesson #1, Alan Caruba asks, "The President (Bush-Kennedy America 2000 Plan) has proposed a five billion-dollar program to help children learn to read. Please! Please, please, will someone explain to me why spending even more money will answer the question of why our schools, soaking up billions a year, are NOT teaching this already?"

Students may not know (verified by Jay Leno "on the street") where Brazil is on the map, but they "know" all the rain forests are disappearing. They don’t know when the Civil War took place or why, but they "know" that all the Founding Fathers were slave-owners. They cannot tell you what the Bill of Rights is, but they "know" the US is the leading contributor of "greenhouse gases" to the atmosphere, thereby causing global warming.

1 posted on 04/13/2003 3:23:34 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
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2 posted on 04/13/2003 3:26:10 PM PDT by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: fight_truth_decay
The Iraqis are gonna love us for exporting this crap...
Iraq will soon be a free society and the USA wont too bad we cant free ourselves...
3 posted on 04/13/2003 3:27:27 PM PDT by joesnuffy (Moderate Islam Is For Dilettantes)
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To: fight_truth_decay
*The above referenced "puddle boy was cuffed". Did it really happen? Yes.

Think how lucky the kid was not being a pet dog, then the brave cop might have shot him.

4 posted on 04/13/2003 3:30:51 PM PDT by scouse
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To: All
Correction: Excuse the "tired brain typo." Some would, others would might not have..
5 posted on 04/13/2003 3:36:15 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay (occupied)
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To: fight_truth_decay
I don't know where to begin. But our schools don't need more money; they need to be coerced into teaching. If they don't teach enough substantive and pertinent material, the States simply should disband the offending schools and send the children to a school of their choice that meets standards. In Pennsylvania, most "schools" have plenty of money, but teach nothing. I have students in a 400-level college science class who actually believe that 10 = 7. (They're failing miserably, and many appear to be cheating.)
6 posted on 04/13/2003 3:37:27 PM PDT by dufekin (Peace HAS COME AT LONG LAST to the tortured people of Iraq!)
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To: fight_truth_decay
One of those who bought into the "year-round" and "lifelong" schooling fads years ago is now Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-TN, a former secretary of education under the first President Bush.
7 posted on 04/13/2003 3:43:03 PM PDT by Theodore R.
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To: fight_truth_decay
Is the above story one of the reasons more and more parents in Florida are opting to homeschool their little savages?

You have a normal, disobedient boy and you cuff him and take him to the police station for jumping in a puddle? Parents are crazy to put up with that nonsense.

A friend of my brother's moved to Florida and took her daughter to the local public high school to check it out. The girl took one look at the cops patrolling the halls, the security cameras, and metal detector, said to no one in particular, "This place looks like a f??king jail," turned on her heel and walked out with her mother following her. She moved down there from my area where we don't have metal detectors, cameras, or cops patrolling the halls of our schools.

Her parents are now paying $20,000 a year in private school tuition.
8 posted on 04/13/2003 3:43:52 PM PDT by ladylib
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To: scouse
Think how lucky the kid was not being a pet dog, then the brave cop might have shot him.

If you're thinking of the same dog that I am -- the 140 lb. Akita (sp?) that latched onto the policeman's arm and got shot six times -- that dog deserved to die.

9 posted on 04/13/2003 3:45:01 PM PDT by The Other Harry
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To: ladylib
I have my kids in a Lutheran private school. $505 per month tuition for three kids, ten months a year, plus probably a grand and a half a year in miscellaneous expenses and the gas to get them there. Vouchers would help. Gah, our state income taxes are horrible, our local property taxes a huge bite, and the already-failing public schools are firing teachers left and right because of a budget crisis.

The school my kids would go to has pregnant 5th graders attending class with the other kids, gang problems, you name it.

The kids eat lunch (and usually their free breakfast, too) with grownups yelling at them through megaphones--no talking, no sharing, no loud chewing probably. If you drive past the playground at recess time, you'll see more than half the kids are sitting against the wall, in time out for some infraction that probably resulted from nothing other than pent-up energy with too few legal release mechanisms. Someone yelling at THEM through a megaphone is not uncommon, calling them by name if they twitch. It really reminds me of the re-education camps of East Germany.

Getting in trouble at recess when I was in school required an actual fight or destruction of property, and was a noteworthy event. If half of the kids at any given play period have lost their recess because of some infraction, there are too many rules!!!!
10 posted on 04/13/2003 3:52:04 PM PDT by ChemistCat (My new bumper sticker: MY OTHER DRIVER IS A ROCKET SCIENTIST)
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To: fight_truth_decay
I have no trouble believing this. My son's school went Rumplestiltskin because he was throwing spitballs one day. Spitballs! They called me about this "heinous" charge, all hyperbolic and accusatory.

"So, did you tell him to stop" I countered.

Apparently they hadn't thought of that.

11 posted on 04/13/2003 3:54:43 PM PDT by Scothia (If you pray for rain, prepare to deal with some mud.)
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To: fight_truth_decay
To be fair to the schools, blame also lies with idiot parents who have taken away the schools ability to discipline. Ultimately, the rot of public education is also the rot of American parents.
12 posted on 04/13/2003 3:56:00 PM PDT by moyden2000
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To: The Other Harry
That Akita is about as close to this kid as a drug crazed lunatic shooting at a cop. Dropping him is justified. A more appropriate analogy would be a puppy peeing on the rug after you've told him many times not to.
13 posted on 04/13/2003 3:58:30 PM PDT by Arkie2 (TSA ="Thousands standing around")
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To: fight_truth_decay; Jeff Head
Can you imagine what it was like when I took my .22 and shot Jack Rabbits outside of Boise, ID, when I was 12, or went Deer hunting when I was 16 in Peabody, Mass, had to go to NH for rifle season. The Horror a kid with a gun, aholes
14 posted on 04/13/2003 4:01:17 PM PDT by Little Bill (No Rats, A.N.S.W.E.R (WWP) is a commie front!!!!)
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To: ChemistCat
If half of the kids at any given play period have lost their recess because of some infraction, there are too many rules!!!!

That really would depend on what the rules were and how/why/when they were broken.

15 posted on 04/13/2003 4:02:58 PM PDT by mathluv
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To: moyden2000
100% correct!!!!!!!
16 posted on 04/13/2003 4:03:40 PM PDT by mathluv
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To: ChemistCat
Vouchers would help

I sympathize with your problem but I don't think vouchers are going to help you. Any time I have heard it mentioned by politicians, President Bush included, it has stated for lower income and 'qualified' students. In my cyncical mind, that doesn't include average, hardworking American taxpayers. I think people like you will be out of luck with vouchers.

17 posted on 04/13/2003 4:05:50 PM PDT by nanny
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To: joesnuffy

BUMP


18 posted on 04/13/2003 4:06:58 PM PDT by MatthewViti
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To: Arkie2
That Akita is about as close to this kid as a drug crazed lunatic shooting at a cop. Dropping him is justified. A more appropriate analogy would be a puppy peeing on the rug after you've told him many times not to.

I was only commenting on a story that was recently posted on FR about a dog that got shot by a cop. I think it was somewhere near Pittsburg.

As far as arresting the kid goes, how stupid do we get?

I'd like to see all the public schools shut down.

19 posted on 04/13/2003 4:07:03 PM PDT by The Other Harry
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To: nanny
I think people like you will be out of luck with vouchers.

Yeah, but...

Some vouchers are better than no vouchers. Certainly the kids in the D.C. schools deserve to get them. I can think of some other areas as well -- too many to list.

It's a start.

20 posted on 04/13/2003 4:11:10 PM PDT by The Other Harry
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