I think the dumbing down of public schools is the biggest problem we have. This would be easy to fix.

Apparently, our education establishment believes the creed: make them dumb, our time will come.

This decline in general intelligence leads to lots of collateral damage. People hardly have common sense, never…

If schools are run properly, children will be full of confidence and enthusiasm.

If children are morose and failing, you know the people in charge are incompetent.

See Episode 35 on this podcast. Hope versus Hopelessness. It often seems to me that schools are organized to produce hopelessness. That's a terrible thought, isn't…

Ed Establishment worships rote memorization if it suits their social engineering goals. For example, forcing sight-words into the curriculum. One bad idea sustains another bad idea; together you get the crime of the century.

Note that in every other situation, professors of ed endlessly denounce memorization!!!…

Ed Establishment worships rote memorization if it suits their social engineering goals. For example, forcing sight-words into the curriculum. One bad idea sustains another bad idea; together you get the crime of the century.

Note that in every other situation, professors of ed endlessly denounce memorization!!!…

The Left likes to vilify colonialism and colonialists, people who take over other people’s territory. But what else is our Education Establishment but modern-day conquistadors? They think they are entitled to rule over our schools.

Short podcast explains the matrix.

Episode 32: Education Elite are Imperialists and…

 Illiteracy is still the big problem. The education establishment foisted a phony method on the American public. That would be sight-words, an instructional method that guarantees most kids will never learn to read. 

The podcast (and transcript) introduces three experts, all women accustomed to working with teachers:

Nora…

HERE'S WHAT PROMPTED SOME BIG THOUGHTS ABOUT K-12:

I read an article by a professor about rhetoric, communication, grammar, and such. It hit me that a person, to understand…

Everyone in education needs to know what the Reading Wars are all about. Here's a quick summary. Episode 21 on Let's Fix Education. 10 minutes. Share and subscribe.

https://letsfixeducation.buzzsprout.com

All my life I am primarily a writer. But until a few years ago I would never have thought to recommend my sort of education to anyone else.

The typical literary education seems to be putting too much emphasis on famous works and famous authors and the details thereof.

But the main activity in a liberal arts education is analysis of text.…

For thousands of years, virtually all educators were devoted to teaching facts and knowledge. So-called Progressive educators seemed to realize they did better when the students and the population were relatively ignorant.

So K-12 education became a hustle where schools pretended to teach traditional subjects, but in fact undermined that teaching. And that's why Charlotte Iserbyt coined the phrase "the…

Our education establishment is constantly telling us that some new gimmick is a new plateau, a new level for education.

Robinson died recently and there were a lot of articles about him, many of them negative. I was surprised as the press on him was enthusiastic for many years.

So here's a short introduction to why I was always suspicious of him, and why…

Starting with John Dewey, our Education Establishment tended to think of education as primarily social engineering.

In other words, their goal was dumbing down but for all the right reasons. Even if you agree with a socialist agenda, is it good to do all this in secrecy?

We need a lot more open discussion of what's going on in our schools. There is…

There are always the same two steps, first one and then the other. Identify the illness. Cure the illness.

There are so many symptoms of pathology. It's no good to pretend otherwise. Illness can't be cured until everyone understands that there is an illness.

 …

If students are upbeat, smiling, optimistic, then the school is probably doing a good job. 

But if the students are frowning, depressed, obviously not in a good mood, you know the school is failing.

The proof is in the PLODDING. If they're trudging around like convicts In a prison yard, you know the kids are having no…

A century ago, the field of education was roiled by constant philosophizing and posturing. These early thinkers believed they were creating a Great New World. They were not shy about explaining their plans and motivations.

All of this is captured in 10 quotes from John Dewey, Harold Rugg, George Counts, and the rest.

Podcast, 18 minutes,…

Everything you need to know about why our public schools are mediocre, in less than 20 minutes.

My goal is to turn everyone into an education reformer. You will have a lot of fun. Dysfunctional education is an affront to logic, common sense, truth, civilization, and even the smallest concern with decency or seriousness.

So why does…

Here are the two big changes of the last ten years:

First, public schools have continued a steady downward trend. Everything gets worse, nothing gets better. Does anyone suppose this is by accident? No, I think it's clear that the far-left has been operating strongly and successfully for the past century within the educational sector. John Dewey is a permanent resident in our public…

I think I wrote a long article about this topic six years ago.... But it keeps nagging at me. I suspect now it's worse than I thought it was.

Did you realize that people at the graduate levels are buying their papers on the Internet. That should not be remotely possible if the teachers are paying any attention.…

That would be the Communist avant-garde, arriving here in strength in 1921. 

This article is a quick history lesson about the fanatics that beset…

American public schools are full of pedagogical nonsense: New Math, Reform Math, Common Core Math. 

If you want the real stuff, look at the textbooks created by John Saxon, writer and publisher. (After 27 years in the military as a jet pilot.)

If you are dismayed by what you find in the public schools, read this short piece about John Saxon's life and…