Education

*All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind are convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. Aristotle (687)

*The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. William Arthur Ward (2749)

*Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. Plato (2262)

*Imagination is more important than knowledge. (1854) (Thomas Edison)

*Not by years but by disposition is wisdom required. (2272) (Plautus)

*Not to know is bad. Not to want to now is worse. African Proverb (1746)

*If I am through learning, I am through. (2740) (Coach John Wooden)

*My people perish for lack of knowledge. (2440) (Hosea 4:6)

*To be ignorant is to be afraid. (672)

*The lack of knowledge invites shame and remorse. Elie Wiesel (2401)

*Some people like to drink from the fountain of knowledge – other only gargle. (1846)

*Some of us learn by other people’s mistakes. The rest of us have to be the other people. (606)

*Other person. (727)

EDUCATION IN AMERICA

In a keynote speech at a 1989 Governors Conference in Wichita, Kansas, Shirley McCune said, “What has changed in education today is that we no longer see the teaching of facts and information as the primary outcome of education.”

“While academic accomplishment languishes, the appeal is annually brought forth for more money for health education clinics in schools, school-to-work programs, community service programs, AIDS education, sex education, drug abuse education, multicultural learning experiences, professional educator development programs, global citizenship programs, self esteem, student emotional and mental health counseling programs and reform programs ad infinitum with little or nothing to do with student academic achievement.” This is a quote from “How much more do we have to spend to achieve a totally illiterate society?” by Dwight Williams. It’s a real eye-opener. You can read it at htttp://i2i.org/SuptDocs/Education/illiterate.htm This article not only explains many problems with our public school system, but also gives many good solutions.

Much of the information used in this tirade is from that website, and also from Sean Hannity’s Let Freedom Ring.

Americans have been spending more and more on education only to have a higher ands higher percentage (25%) of high school graduates who cannot read their diplomas. In 1998, former education secretary Bill Bennett released a report, “A Nation Still at Risk.” This report says that since 1983, “More than 10 million Americans have reached the 12 th grade without having learned to read at a basic level.” One of the reasons might be that our public education establishment tossed out phonics, which has been used successfully for thousands of years, and instituted the new “whole-language” method of teaching reading, which was invented by psychologists.

If a person cannot read their diploma, that means they have never read a book in their life. How much can a student learn and remember by only listening to lectures and not even being able to take notes?

How about math? In Mr. Bennett’s report he says that since 1983, “More then 20 million have reached 12 th grade unable to do basic math.” In 1989 the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics issued standards that rejected “computation” and “other traditional skills” because it might stifle the student’s creativity. These people felt that students might benefit more from inventing problem-solving strategies rather than having teachers teach them how to do math.

Remember “New Math” from a few decades ago? It was supposedly invented to free students from ancient methods of computing and deliver them into a brave new world of numbers. One thing it did accomplish was to practically prevent parents from helping children with their homework.

How about history? Another shocking statistic from Mr. Bennett’s report says that “25 million have reached 12 th grade not knowing the essentials of U.S. history.” How did this happen? Want a clue? Check this out:

Last year the liberals in New Jersey’s Dept. of Education wrote a new set of history standards for New Jersey school children. If these new standards were put into effect, the unfortunate school children of New Jersey would go through school without ever hearing of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, the Pilgrims, and the Mayflower. There was also another president who was not considered worthy of mention, uh… what was his name… oh yeah, somebody named Abraham Lincoln.

Fortunately, the public was alerted, and the liberal’s agenda was swept into the trashcan of history.

The national history standards were released in 1994 to be used by America’s public schools as a guideline to teach American history. The B&HRClinton/Gore administration made some interesting changes to our history. Never mentioned were: Paul Revere, Thomas Edison, Daniel Webster, Robert E. Lee, the Wright Brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Clay, or Jonas Salk. A man named George Washington happened to be mentioned in passing.

There were a few things that were considered important enough to include. The KKK was mentioned seventeen times, and McCarthyism nineteen times.

The head of this national history standards project, Gary Nash, supported this new and improved version of our history. He said, “Let’s let the kids out of the prison of facts, the prison of dates and names and places.…” And remember folks, this was all paid for with $2,000,000.00 of your taxes.

Fortunately, the public was alerted, and these liberal’s agenda was also swept into the garbage.

What’s been going on in your neck of the woods? Have you read your child’s history book lately?

There’s an old saying “Those who don’t remember their history are doomed to repeat it.” Do we want our children to unknowingly repeat the mistakes of every generation before them? Obviously there are some who do.

How is it possible the U.S. is turning out so many uneducated graduates? When only 41% of the school day is spent on core academics, as a 1994 government study found, it’s not surprising. When, for the past 20 years, 40% of new school employees have non-teaching jobs, it’s not surprising either.

The tax-and-spend liberals say the decline in our school system is because of money and large class size, and is the fault of those cold-hearted, stingy conservatives, but…

In 1993, Washington D.C. ranked 5 th in spending the most tax dollars per student. It had the smallest average class size. It finished 49 th place in SAT scores, and 50 th place in graduation rate. The same year Utah spent a little over 1/3 as much per student as did Washington, D.C. Its class size was exactly twice as large as Washington, D.C.’s. Utah’s students finished in 4 th place in SAT scores, and in 10 th place in ACT’s. What do the tax-and-spenders have to say about that? (One more thing about class size: Japan, which is not known for its multitudes of uneducated graduates, has an average class size of 40 students. Let that sink in for a minute.)

In 1992, the top five per-student big spenders were New Jersey, New York, D.C., Connecticut, and Alaska. On SAT scores they ranked 39 th, 42 nd, 49 th, 35 th, and 31 st, respectively, for an average of 39 th place. That same year the bottom five per-student spenders; Utah, Idaho, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama, ranked an average of 14 th place in SAT’s.

In ’96, New Jersey spent $9,461 per student. Across the river in Pennsylvania they spent $ 7,152 per student, and across the bay in Delaware they spent $7,077 per student. That’s a $2,382 difference. What’s up with that? That same year Utah only spent $3,810 per student. That’s $5,651 less per student than New Jersey. Is Utah such a backward state that they write on flat rocks with charcoal? No. It’s always had a very low crime rate, and a very high life expectancy. Its capitol, Salt Lake City, has always been known as a clean and beautiful city. It gave us the Osmonds. And it got the Olympics!

Here in Kennewick, our neighborhood got a brand-new grade school with all the bells and whistles. It’s our local polling place, so I’ve been in it a few times. During the summer of ’04, the school’s administration had the unenviable task of sending letters to all the parents of this school’s students, and going on TV to announce that their school failed the “No Child Left Behind” regulations. They sheepishly mumbled that the law forced them to notify all parents that they could send their children to a better school if they wanted to.

Our town was jolted awake to the realization that new school buildings do not equal a good education. (And re-awakened us to the fact that many of America’s greatest citizens were educated in one-room schools without central heating and air.)

The tax dollars American have spent on public education has gone from $21.3 billion in 1965 to $263.5 billion in 1994. That’s a twelve-fold increase in thirty years. Are there twelve times as many students today? No – the last of us Baby Boomers left school a long time ago. Are teacher’s salaries twelve times as much? Ha! Prices of stuff aren’t twelve times as much, so what are all these tax-dollars being spent on.

Federal programs and mandates take up a big chunk. Federal programs have gone from just a few in 1965 to 249 in 1995. And those are just the ones that survived. Many more programs have come and gone in the meantime. 33 disappeared in 1995, or the total would have been much higher. In Colorado, the cost of complying with federal mandates is conservatively at 40% of total administrative costs.

Even though the Constitution gives NO provisions for the Federal Government to involve itself in public education, tax-payers are having to fork over ever increasing amounts of their incomes to pay for its mostly useless meddling.

What forces are behind America’s schools becoming third rate? The National Education Association (NEA) is probably the main player. In a report in Forbes magazine, the NEA is described as “part labor union, part insurance conglomerate, part self-perpetuating staff oligarchy, and part political party.” The report continues; “The public may be only dimly aware of it, but the union’s growing power has exactly coincided with the dismal spectacle of rising spending on education producing deteriorating results….”

The NEA is basically running the federal Department of Education, and uses its power-base to promote legislation and regulations that increase the number of school employees. That way it can increase the base for NEA membership. But why would the NEA support a trend toward more non-teaching employees (up 40% in 20 years) over teachers (up 17% in 20 years). If the numbers were switched would the NEA be able to whine for more tax-dollars because the class sizes were too large?

If the NEA didn’t have all those extra tax-dollars pouring into the public school system to support all the extra programs (and the staff needed to run those programs) would the NEA be able to control the nation’s largest “teachers” union without all the extra non-teaching members? The NEA has a membership of more than 2.3 million, and there are only 2.8 million teachers in America’s public school system. (Teamster’s only has 1.4 million members.)

Sean Hannity said, “[T]he NEA is a glorified political lobbying group forever advocating policies that have little to do with education and everything to do with the liberal political agenda.”

What are some of the things the NEA is urging school districts to teach our children? How about disarming our nuclear forces. The NEA passed resolutions to this affect in 1982 and 2000. How about disarming our conventional military forces. The NEA passed resolutions to this affect in 1982 and 2001. The NEA urged teachers to teach their students “strategies for disarmament.”

Get this— the NEA rejects any legislation making English the official language of the U.S. It passed resolutions to that affect in 1987 and 1993. The NEA said this would “disregard cultural pluralism” and “deprive” people of “education, social services, and employment.”

Another thing the NEA wants to accomplish is to encourage a radical sexual agenda for children. In 1969 and 2001 it passed resolutions stating that “it is the right of every individual to live in an environment of freely available information and knowledge about sexuality.” The things the NEA wants our children to learn about are: “birth control” “diversity of sexual orientation” “sexually transmitted diseases” “homophobia” and “incest” And teachers and health professionals “must be legally protected from censorship and lawsuits.” The NEA also wants “to provide students and education employees and the general public with accurate, objective and up-to-date information regarding the needs of, and problems confronting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students.”

February 8, 2002, NEA board approved a plan that encourages school districts to enact policies making schools safe and hospitable for, and punishing harassment and discrimination of: gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students and employees. And employees. Should our 2 nd graders have to contend with men schoolteachers making out with other men and dressing and acting like women, and vice versa, etc., etc.? How about passing a resolution making school a safe and hospitable place for fat kids, skinny kids, ugly kids, nerdy kids, unpopular kids, non-athletic kids, short kids, poor kids, religious kids, handicapped kids, stupid kids, etc., etc.?

School districts have used this “encouragement” to hold classes that are nothing more than graphic “how-to” sessions in homosexual sex. An example was witnessed by a member of “Parent’s Rights Coalition” in Massachusetts. This parent was interviewed on Hannity & Colmes and disclosed just exactly is being taught to our 14-year-old children. It will not be disclosed here.

If you or your organization would like some information on how to disassociate yourself from the NEA, check out www.educationpolicy.org/EPIseries....

When talking about our educational system and powerful organizations, we can’t leave out the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Here’s something to think about:

In New York City during the 70’s, Harlem public schools were really bad. Some innovators started a few independently-run, public schools that parents could choose to send their kids to. It worked.

One school, just for girls, has an enrollment of 60% Hispanic and 40% black. Most come from poor and broken families. More than 80% of the 7-12 grade students read at or above grade level. In English 100% of the students passed the state tests. In Spanish and math state tests; 100% passed. In biology; 97%. In Global Studies; 94%. The average of the rest of NYC is around 50%.

100% of the first senior class graduated. One student joined the Air Force, the rest went to 4-year colleges. Sounds like a success story to me. Even Oprah Winfrey went to this school in 2001 to deliver the commencement speech.

Unfortunately, New York’s guardian of civil liberties, the N.Y. Civil Liberties Union didn’t like this school because it was for girls only, so they sued to shut it down. Way-to-go, brainless fools. Fortunately the N.Y.C.L.U. lost.

America’s public school system was becoming the laughingstock of the world, so our education bureaucrats got together and decided that something had to be done – so we done it! In 1994 (with the B&HRClinton/Gore’s blessing) we dumbed-down the Scholastic Assessment Test. We removed entire sections of the test and lengthened the testing time. Students were also allowed to use calculators on the math test for the first time. The scores rebounded! Sort of. Even though the liberal media loudly proclaimed a dramatic improvement, some states gained less than 1% in total scores.

So we done it again! In 1996 we “re-centered” the scores by adding 50 points to the median score to lift the average up to a more acceptable level. Cool! Why didn’t they think of that when I was in school? But is putting a bandage on a person in cardiac arrest going to solve the problem?

How about just lengthening the school year and using summer school to fix things up?

They tried it. Last year, in New York City, 36% of the high school students failed the state’s English and math standards. 56% of elementary school students did too. So did 77% of middle school students. In one school in the Bronx, 73% of the students flunked basic reading. So to remedy the situation, 1/3 of the students in NYC public schools (330,000) were sent to summer school. But even after going to summer school, records numbers of students are being sent back to the same grade.

It seems as though our education bureaucrats had no real solutions in mind.

Enter Mr. Joe Clark. He is the hero of the movie Lean on Me, and probably knows more about our public schools than you and I put together.

Sean Hannity interviewed him, and these are some of the things Mr. Clark said:

“[O] ur [government-run] educational system is…an abomination. It’s the epitome of fraud and hypocrisy when you’re turning out, in the inner cities, black American kids [who are] impotent intellectually. I want to equate them [status-quo education bureaucrats] with doing something diabolical.” “I think that the government school is antithetical to the premise of democracy, which is competition. If there is no competition, there can’t be any accountability.” “[For status-quo education bureaucrats] it’s not about the young people, about the kids, it’s about the almighty dollar.”

“Teachers, by and large, do a good job under adverse circumstances. They’re overworked, underpaid, and denigrated for everything that goes wrong.” “But basically, public education—especially in the inner city—is brain dead.

Does he have a solution in mind? Yes. Mr. Clark said, “I certainly believe in the voucher system.” Get that? School vouchers.

Is it really so unusual for a black person to support school vouchers? A 1999 survey by nonpartisan research group “Public Agenda” found that 68% of blacks favor vouchers.

Do vouchers work? Starting in 1997 in New York City, 1,300 school vouchers, which were paid for with charitable donations, were made available to students who qualified for the federal lunch program. Twenty thousand families applied! 85% of the students accepted were below average. Test scores became a lot higher for these students than their peers who were left in public schools. And 42% of the parents of voucher students gave their kid’s schools an “A,” compared to only 10% of the parents of students left in public schools.

Even some liberals are seeing the light! State Representative Annette Williams of Wisconsin, who is a black liberal Democrat, said this about school vouchers, “We’re constantly funding failure. We need to begin funding success and excellence…. Low-income families are not dumb, they’re just poor…. Choice is the best thing that has come to my people since I’ve been born. It allows poor people to have those choices that all those other people, who are fearing it, already have.”

Other Democrats are joining in, too. Democrat Mayor of Milwaukee, John Norquist, also supports vouchers, “There’s something fundamentally wrong with a system where what the parents think isn’t very important.”

Michael Leo Owens, of Emory University said that vouchers “offer the only hope available to many poor students trapped in the nation’s worst schools.”

Liberals are always ranting on and on that they support choice. Here’s a good chance for them to put their money where their mouth is, and help give us choice.

If status-quo, non-choice public schools are so admired, then why do 20% of the congressional Black Caucus, 40% of Representatives, and 49% of Senators send their kids to private schools. You might think that status-quo, non-choice liberals would look forward to sending their kids to status-quo, non-choice public schools - but think again. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, and Jesse Jackson are a few liberals who opted out of status-quo, non-choice public schools and sent their kids to private schools.

Is your child’s education important to you? Do you want to send him to the best school possible? Then tell your elected officials you support choice in education.

President Bush recently had a chance to allow Americans to choose, but he caved in to the hard-line, status-quo, non-choice liberals and co-sponsored a budget-busting, $28 billion education program that did not include vouchers. But remember, G.W. was hired, so he can be fired.

Back in 1960, our school system was a rather placid institution of learning in which the main behavioral problems were horse play, chewing gum, running in the halls, talking out of turn, and spitballs. When a student came to school he sat down, shut up, and listened. If he didn’t want to do those things, he was expelled.

Forty years later our schools resemble war zones with metal detectors and uniformed police, and in which the main behavioral problems are vandalism, gangsterism, violence, drugs, suicide, irresponsible sex, abortion, rape, and mass murder. Nowadays, if a troublemaker is expelled, he sues his teacher or the school board (with lots of assistance from liberal civil rights groups), or is transferred to a different school with sealed school records.

When a student is forced to go to school to be indoctrinated, ignored, or patronized, and not to be empowered with a good education, and because of this knows his future as an uneducated illiterate is flipping burgers or an endless series of manual labor jobs, do you think his outlook on life is gong to be positive and gung-ho? When he is forced to spend so much time in a “learning” institution that is nothing more than a miniature anarchy, do you think he will develop respect for law and order?

Hopefully, most parents find this at least disturbing. Maybe some parents will become motivated enough to involve themselves in their children’s education and attend a PTA meeting. Maybe at that meeting those parents will let the PTA board know that it is the parents who decide which ones stay on that board, and what, or if their children will be taught. The parents might also mention that they choose our elected officials who determine where our tax dollars are spent.

The Bible says that parents have total control and authority over the education of their children. (That’s probably one reason the liberals have such a problem with Christian conservatives.) Will you parents assume your God-given, rightful role as guardian of your children’s education?

In Tri-Cities, Washington (a sun-drenched, mostly upscale metropolitan area at the confluence of the historic and scenic Columbia, the bountiful Snake, and the gentle Yakima rivers), you can send a child to a good private school for around $3,000 a year, which is quite a bit less than the approximately $5,800 we spend to educate a child in our public schools. You can home-school your child yourself if you want to buy the books and teach your child yourself. There are many excellent organizations that will sell you the whole kit and caboodle for around $750. If you want to buy a “video school” correspondence course and have a talking head teach your child, you can do that for about $900.

I’ve heard people say that you shouldn’t put your children in private schools or home-school them because they will become socially retarded. Nonsense! My youngest sister and her husband had their children in home-school and private schools. Two of them have graduated from a top-notch private college at ages 20 and 22, and the third one is almost ready to graduate. They are well-educated, self-assured, gregarious, witty, helpful, moral, obedient, have never been in trouble with the law, have always been popular among their peers, and are the delight of their family, fiancés, neighbors, and bosses.

When parents are so concerned that their children get a good education that they are willing to invest the time, effort, and finances to accomplish this, it can only mean that they love their children very much.