Here is one of the most important fault lines in American K-12....

Many children in elementary school don't learn to read in a timely way. The school naturally doesn't want anyone to think it's their fault. So they blame the pupils. The  children have something wrong with their brains, some genetic mistake, some disability. It's not the school's fault if they can't teach a damaged child to read.

Quite commonly in the US, this genetic mistake is…

 Ever since 1931, when our Education Establishment terminated phonics in the public schools, literacy has been in free fall.

This whole thing is grotesque. The Emperor has no clothes; he's covered with red sores that suggest a horrible infection, probably syphilis. But 1000 professors of education ooooh and…

 "....the content of their character." Martin Luther King clearly thought it's important.

 Children in public schools don't hear that message anymore. They're not encouraged to work harder, be all they can be, all that old-fashioned stuff.

 Now it's enough if children slide through at a slovenly level, cutting corners, maybe cheating a little, rarely finishing anything on time.

 The attack on character,…

Last week, a retired schoolteacher left a comment on one of my articles, probably the saddest comment I’ve seen.

 He retired after 30 years, then two years later he returned as a substitute. He said that he could feel the additional decline that had taken place in that short time. Another teacher commented by way of explanation: “The…

 Article discusses the phenomenon of students buying term papers on the Internet. Why do they need to do this? Simple. K-12 does a terrible job of teaching the basics: reading, writing, grammar, spelling.

 It really does appear, judging by quotes in this article, that students who can write a grammatical paragraph are the exception.

 Meanwhile, the…

 Even for liberal educators, even from the very start, didn't it strike everyone that Common Core was way too big, too sudden, too fast. A huge top-down governmental imposition that would transform everything from K to 12. Once it was locked into law at the federal level, we would never escape from it. There was NO testing, no confirmation that any of the ideas worked. They don't, unless the goal is to befuddle students.

It almost succeeded as planned by David Coleman,…

The more you study K-12, the more you will be astonished at the control that our Education Establishment has on every aspect of our society.

 Here is his weird injurious method, analyzed and explained in dozens of books, but kept perpetually in place by the interlocking powers-that-be. I've started to think the correct name is The Illiteracy Matrix.

 in any event, children are subjected to instruction that does not work. Typically the children have a lot of…

Announcing: my book of 65 education articles titled Saving K-12 to be published mid-November. Preorder after Labor Day.

 Books are being printed now. I just stopped by a local art gallery to set up a book-signing party (in Virginia Beach). I’m contacting radio shows, websites, and so on. I want to do what I can to promote this book. I don’t think there’s much hope for K-12 unless a great many people reassess what’s going on. I…

If you'd like to feel your head spin, try to understand the justification for Constructivism, a destructive pedagogical theory and method that has infested K-12 education.

 Let me sum up the situation with the words of Allen Ginsberg:

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by sophistry

 scheming  hysterical shameless,…

 Okay, maybe they don't kill it. They simply try to prevent students from learning very much of it.

 In our public schools, knowledge is a déclassé citizen, an illegal alien, a leper.

 You might think that knowledge would be an axiomatic part of K-12 education. Not so. Our Education Establishment is obsessed with limiting the amount of knowledge to be found anywhere in the school. This has been the pattern since …

 Typical stats say that we have more than 30 million illiterates plus a much larger group of people who are semi-literate.

if you define a reader as someone who can curl up with a good book, we probably have 75+ million nonreaders.

Think about it. How is all that possible? Easy. Our Education Establishment is really good at illiteracy. They play games – an endless charade…

 Children should be encouraged to do their best at all times.

Instead, here's what our public schools recommend: take it easy; cut corners; don't worry if you're late; don't memorize anything; if you didn't bother with your homework, no problem; don't pay attention in class;  guess; give up; drop out.…

 Unequal funding? That's not the main problem. What's unequal is the intelligence and compassion of the people in charge.

To an astonishing degree, they promote theories and methods that are known to be ineffective. The only connection to money is that the school system makes a lot of money by turning out unsuccessful students! Thank you, Title X.

 Consider this factoid: Jean Chall's …

I’m sure some are fearful of what Trump will do. I’m optimistic. Our Education Establishment is fond of “progressive” remedies that don't work. And I mean: they really do not work. What’s the answer? Get rid of these remedies.

Most reforms proposed in educational circles always involve more money, more and more money. What if this is a giant ripoff? What if the bad theories and methods are not just dysfunctional, they…

 The secret ingredient in the process known as  "the deliberate dumbing down of America" is a general recalibrating, redefining, and readjusting of every norm, every standard, everything once thought settled.

 The basic idea is to get rid of anything challenging, so that every child can get a B or even an A. Or give them the B anyway.

 In matters of crime and punishment,…

 There has been a long simmering debate over cursive. The Education Establishment doesn't want it, so we are seeing less and less of cursive.

Common Core downplayed phonics and tried to drop cursive. There you have two of the reasons that Common Core is widely reviled.

 Truth is, a good case can be made for cursive, especially in the early years of schooling. It helps children learn to read. It helps children…

Never forget the ambition and frenzy of the Communist International circa 1930. Lenin and Stalin wanted control of the planet. In some countries, they could aim for a military coup. But in any country, they could try to take over the weak, undefended targets such as the press and education.

 At the same time that the Communists were starving 5+ million people to death in the Ukraine, their sympathizers were…

 And also fixing it.

 My conclusion is that illiteracy in the United States is mostly a result of social engineering. John Dewey and the rest of his gang wanted all children to be in a muddle together. That is, after all, the central goal of socialism.

Reading has been badly taught for 85 years, with the results that millions of children don't read and often can't read.…

 Everything comes down to that question. Starting 100 years ago, the Progressives said: never mind knowledge, that's old-fashioned. What we want to teach is enlightened political attitudes.

 I wrote an article for American Thinker where I played off what Jamie Escalante and John Saxon would do (teach knowledge)  against what Heather Hackman, a social justice warrior, would do. That's her real name and she's very clear…