Actually this is embarrassing. I write hostile articles about Common Core. I think I’m telling people the exact truth. And then I stumble on a new book that says things are Even Worse Than I’ve Been Saying.

OMG, that bad?!?

 In other words, this thing is not just at the level of a bad virus or a broken arm. This thing is toxic. It’s going…

One of the weirder ideas to hang around for much of the past century is  that children can start off with advanced, adult activities, without bothering to learn the facts of history, science, or anything else.

Sure they can.

 Malkin Dare, one of the few famous educators you can trust, has a long piece on her site titled "Ten Keys to Successful Teaching." I asked her for…

Reform Math has a peculiar trait. Kids bring home homework that parents can’t do. 

 How can this happen? The kids are maybe seven or eight. The parents are 30 or 40, many with college degrees and lots of experience in the real world.

Could such a strange divide happen by accident? Most unlikely.

Even at…

Around 1910, all the plans were in place. John Dewey and his socialist pals would control the schools of education; these schools would indoctrinate the young teachers, who would then be sent out across America to change the country. None of this would result from legislation or public discussion. Everything would be done by stealth.

The question is, how much secrecy is legitimate? Communists would say: we have no power so we have to sneak around the back…

 Most articles about Common Core try to  plunge into this extremely complex and unexplainable thing, and explain it. Good luck on that. Very quickly, everyone is adrift.

 I tried to do more of a panorama shot, standing well back. I argue that  Common Core is an unholy alliance between the wrong people (Bill Gates and our Education Establishment), both trying to sell the wrong ideas for the wrong…

In my part of Virginia, the media and all the powers-that-be pushed Common Core aggressively, from the very start, five years ago. 

Typically, I'm a contrarian intellectual and it happened again in this case. The more I studied this thing, the more  I thought, this will be a disaster.

I think it will be a disaster at the same level as ObamaCare and for many of the same reasons: elements in the government trying to grab too much, too fast, for all…

Oh no, more on-sight-words. I'm always trying to figure out a way to explain this thing in 100 words or less. But it's not so easy. Our Education Establishment could not keep this hoax going for 75 years if it was easy to explain. See PS.

Here's my most recent shot, on American Thinker, titled "The most obvious conspiracy in the history of the world." As is usually the case on American Thinker, the article has a lot of smart comments, from a great range of…

Strange but true, our Education Establishment has managed to keep almost every bad idea about reading in play.

 Remember that, circa 1935, the official dogma in the United States was that every child should memorize every English word as a DESIGN. This was known as Look-say. It was completely insane. This official hoax has suffered many slings and arrows. But the amazing thing is that it’s still alive, a little…

For 100 years, there has been a prejudice In the schools against facts and knowledge. Now we see the same tendency in the media. 

The Times has become the very paradigm of what can only be called Unmedia. There seem to be many striking resemblance to the old media but they don't do much of a job. Thus the term Unmedia. Compare Uncola.

 I think we live in what…

There was once upon a time a person called a school teacher, who was very well educated, who was steely, who took control of the class, a veritable sage on a stage.

 Well, you can kiss all that good-by.

 As part of its general disdain for education and indeed civilization, our Education Establishment has waged a war against the very concept of a teacher.

1) As chronicled in "Ed School Follies" 20 years ago (see my review on Amazon), ed schools got…

Mona McNee, who lives in the UK, is a life-long phonics advocate. She is almost 90. She is still fighting!

 Mona is the author of "The Great Reading Disaster," which explains the UK situation, which is  perhaps even more pathetic and dismal than the USA situation.

 She is also the creator of the "Step-by-Step" reading program, which you can get on the Internet for free.

Her story, and her beliefs, are an excellent way for people to…

After World War II, all the people who had joined the Resistance were hailed as heroes. Everyone else was considered a weakling and/or a dupe.

If we ever win the Education Wars (by that I mean, if ever sensible pragmatic education practices become the norm), we're going to look back at the Education Establishment we have now as subversives and greedy careerists.

Well, that’s my sense of it.

Accordingly, I’m always…

Most articles about education argue for this or that alleged cure-all: more money, greater parental involvement, longer hours, better instruction for teachers, clearer “standards,” universal pre-K, a community that really cares, etc., etc.

Some articles can go on for pages without mentioning the immediate things we should do if we want better schools ASAP.

(Suppose a…

For those who think our school system has gotten off track by embracing a multitude of failed methods, I have some good news.

There is a very aggressive new book that names names, deconstructs theories, and explains that the worst sort of people are taking over our schools and our economy. The author's message is that we have to understand what's going on and stop it, otherwise all the lights are going to be turned off. Specifically, everyone needs to…

I just put an important article (at least I think it is) on American Thinker. The title is “Public Schools versus Christianity.”

In the first day the article got 125 comments, which is a good thing. The bad thing is that a lot of these comments are concerned with supporting or attacking Christianity.

I want to make a confession. My concern is not primarily with religion. I did not write the article to support…

When I first heard about krokodil, and the horrific damage it does to addicts, I started thinking about the damage done to children by dysfunctional teaching methods.

You might think, isn’t that a stretch? The physical damage done by krokodil is so obvious and horrific, you might want to think it’s in a category by itself. Can this obvious physical damage be compared to the hidden cognitive damage done by…

Wouldn't you confidently predict that our Education Establishment is full of people who spend a lot of time complaining about imperialism. They do this because they are smugly confident that it's Other People who commit this crime, and especially the United States.

But what after all is imperialism but trying to tell everybody else what to do. Not just tell them but make them.

And who does all that more than our own Education…

I heard the comment many times, as an all-purpose excuse: "They mean well. They just can't get their act together."'

I puzzled over this. I pondered and I pondered. More and more it seemed to me that they don't mean well at all.

And our big national problem is that they do have their act together.

Just take any one item: 50 million functional illiterates and millions of children who never learn to read…

Yes, we can reverse the dark tide in American education. Easily. Teach facts.

First, fully confront the nihilism you are up against. Some people want to pull the plug so that everything substantial drains out of the classroom. All facts, all knowledge, gone. The children will spend their time discussing problems in society, preparing portfolios, working on projects. Nothing these children say or think will mean very much because they won’t know any…

Sure, you'll call me cynical. But the evidence is very clear-cut. Our Education Establishment is not good at very much except excuses.

A good excuse is an example of sophistry. I'm a big admirer of sophistry. Remember the brothers who killed their parents, and then petitioned the court for clemency. On what grounds? Because they were orphans! It doesn't get much better than that. And that's the world our Education Establishment lives in.

No matter how…