Free Republic

An article published this week in Quillette (which, along with Substack, is one of the best sources of thoughtful, intelligent journalism in America today) argues persuasively that grade inflation is destroying education in the United States. Author Shane Trotter describes a system where grades are no longer tied to actual achievement, where high school standards have been lowered so much that a college degree -- and absurd levels of debt -- now takes the place of a high school diploma, where self-esteem is more important than achievement and where the performance of American students relative to the rest of the...

The Department of Education just released results of the quadrennial National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in U.S. history, civics and geography given in 2018 to thousands of American eighth-graders: "Grade 8 Students' NAEP Scores Decline in Geography and U.S. History; Results in Civics Unchanged Since 2014." The tests were administered from January to March 2018 to a nationally representative sample of 42,700 eighth-graders from about 780 schools. The news is not very good. Only 24% of students performed at or above the "proficient" level in civics. Worse yet, only 15% scored proficient or above in American history and 25%...

Sometimes the timing of events is so auspicious that it is hard to attribute it to coincidence. The week of Jan. 26 is National School Choice week. First observed in 2011, for the 10th time, events will take place around the nation that are focused on raising awareness about parental choice in K-12 education and the options available to parents and children. A few days before National School Choice week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which will address the constitutionality of the so-called Blaine Amendments, arguably the greatest obstacle...

The downward spiral of learning in American K-12 public schools continues. Does anybody care? Where’s the outrage, headlines, or breaking news? Congress and Big Media are too preoccupied with the impeachment scam in Washington D.C., to notice a real crisis in America. Our fourth and eighth-grade kids can’t read, and they are struggling to subtract a two-digit number from a three-digit number to come up with the correct answer. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also referred to as the Nation’s Report Card, fourth-graders are the only ones to make a statistical gain and by only 1 point in...

Every year, almost every industry improves. We get more choices -- usually better choices, for less money. "But of all the products we make and the services we provide, there's one that stands out as an exception," according to the Cato Institute's Andrew Coulson. "One activity in which excellence doesn't spawn countless imitators or spread on a massive scale: schooling." Why not? What can be done about it? These questions are asked and often answered by Coulson's new PBS TV series "School Inc." It's a wonderful three hours, reaching back years to America's first experiments in education and traveling the...

It is difficult to ascertain which of President Trump’s cabinet appointment elicited the most resistance (because practically all were strongly opposed by Democrats); but the appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education was, certainly, one of the most contentious. Because two female Republican senators joined the Democrats in opposing her nomination, Vice President Mike Pence had to cast the decisive vote in her confirmation in a 50/50 split senate. The aggressive opposition to DeVos was led by one of the strongest constituents of the Democratic Party in recent election cycles, the National Teachers Union. This union’s power in opposing...

How would you reform the university system? How would you find a way to lower tuition and raise standards?

It's a joke widely told. This guy goes into a hotel restaurant and instructs the waitress: "Please bring me one tiny glass of frozen orange juice diluted until you can see through it. Two cold and burned pieces of toast. One infinitesimal and frozen pat of butter. Scrambled eggs that look like they were cooked the day before yesterday. And one piece of bacon cooked so long that, when you try to cut it, it splits into 37 different pieces." "Hey, what is this?" the waitress complains. "We can't make you a breakfast like that." "The heck you can't," says...

[Summary: To save public schools, we have to fix the underlying sophistries and fallacies.] ---- When we contemplate public schools, two things are certain. Almost everyone agrees that the schools are not as good as they should be, given the huge effort and expenditure. Second, everyone has a theory. You can hardly read a newspaper without some expert telling you yet another reason why the public schools are a mess. Much blame is heaped on parents. Other culprits include popular culture, the Internet, teachers, the students themselves, and of course, the perennial favorite, not enough money. We are often told,...

It’s a new year, and there are all sorts of “Best of 2014″ lists of this and that posted online. So in keeping with that trend, we thought we’d put up a few lists of our own – lists aimed at inspiring free-market conservatives.

Conservatives have regularly complained that the last time the Republican Party held both chambers of Congress and the White House – during six of President George W. Bush’s eight years in office – we missed a once-in-a-lifetime chance to dramatically roll back the federal leviathan.

Americans are waking up to how bad Common Core really is for education, but its nightmare does not go away quickly. Liberal education bureaucrats ("educrats") are now trying to enforce Common Core through the courts, with one lawsuit already filed in Oklahoma and another likely in Louisiana. In both states the governors tried to get rid of Common Core, but parents are shocked that it may return by court order as unelected educrats claim they have more power than the state legislature and governor combined. The Oklahoma legislature approved a law to repeal Common Core, and the governor signed...

Oklahoma recently took action to protect the state's children from the federal education bureaucracy by withdrawing from Common Core. Common Core is the latest attempt to bribe states, with money taken from the American people, into adopting a curriculum developed by federal bureaucrats and education "experts." In exchange for federal funds, states must change their curriculum by, for example, replacing traditional mathematics with "reform math." Reform math turns real mathematics on its head by focusing on "abstract thinking" instead of traditional concepts like addition and subtraction. Schools must also replace classic works of literature with "informational" texts, such as...

From a macro perspective, the most distressing aspect of America’s education system is that taxpayers spend a lot of money (more than any other people in the world, on a per-student basis) and we get very mediocre results. And it’s getting worse over time. This famous chart, prepared by my colleague Andrew Coulson, shows how spending and bureaucracy have skyrocketed since 1970 while test scores have been stagnant. Blacks and other minorities are the biggest victims. They are trapped in the worst-performing schools, largely because leftist politicians would rather curry favor with union bosses then help the poor. But I...

You cannot be a rational, true conservative who opposes Obamacare but supports Common Core education standards. There, I said it. I’ve chosen now to run for public office because I don’t want to see my kids inherit an America worse off than the one I inherited – it gave me the freedom to get an education, practice medicine, start a business, and raise a family. Unfortunately, all of our constitutional protections from an intrusive government are under attack by the Obama administration. The Washington mindset of tax, spend, regulate couldn’t be farther removed from common-sense Alabama values of fiscal restraint...

Have you had enough of the testing tyranny? Join the club. To be clear: I'm not against all standardized academic tests. My kids excel on tests. The problem is that there are too damned many of these top-down assessments, measuring who knows what, using our children as guinea pigs and cash cows. College-bound students in Orange County, Fla., for example, now take a total of 234 standardized diagnostic, benchmark and achievement tests from kindergarten through 12th grade. Reading instructor Brian Trutschel calculated that a typical 10th-grade English class will be disrupted 65 out of 180 school days this year...

The biggest fallacy in politics is that we need "another Reagan" or more "Tea Partiers" in Congress if we want to save the country. Granted, either would certainly help, but America's structural problems are much bigger than any personnel issues we have in D.C. Even if you're an extremely talented craftsman, you're going to have trouble building a house if the only materials you're allowed to work with are sand and straw. It wouldn't matter if Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant were all on the same basketball team if they were only allowed to put three players...

Holly Wrote: Why not also name all the other presidents who used this program?- Rand Paul Versus Barack Obama Dear Comrade Holly, I’m not sure if you’re asking me why I don’t name them in my column or if you are asking Rand Paul why he doesn’t name them in the lawsuit. In either case, the answer is the same: The only president who actually can be forced to do something about it now is the president who sits in the Oval Office. This isn’t a punitive suit seeking damages from the presidents for civil right violations. It’s as suit...

Former high school teacher, Representative Mike Lair (R-Chillicothe), chair of the state education appropriations committee, is bucking to become former Republican representative to the Missouri House from Caldwell, Carroll, Clinton, and Livingston Counties. This week Mike made the terminal decision to hi-jack the state appropriations process to insert “$8 for tin foil hats,” according to Missouri.net. “The line item’s exact language reads, ‘For two rolls of high-density aluminum to create headgear designed to deflect drone and/or black helicopter mind reading and control technology.’” The line item is was inserted to chastise all those anti-Common Core activists who seem to have...

The ninth of November marked the twenty-fourth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, probably the most important historical event since World War II and the most important lesson about human freedom experienced within the living memory of most of us. Presumably, next year there will be more of a commemoration, but the salient question now is how this lesson is being taught in the nation’s classrooms. For while those of us in our forties and older remember the fall of communism and its causes, today’s teenagers are wholly in the dark. What, then, are the high-school students of...