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 skier is carried off the mountain with a broken leg. Isn’t the first job to set the bone and put on a cast? Would it be helpful to talk about how we need more grooming machines, the quality of the snow has deteriorated in recent years, visibility was limited that day, if only people would stop skiing on slopes beyond their ability, etc., etc.? Point is, it’s always easy to come up with an array of largely irrelevant talking points that do not deal with the immediate problems.)

So here in the interest of brevity is the Smart Parents’ Four-Point Program For Saving Their Kids:

1. Be sure children learn to read in the first grade with phonics.

2. Be sure children master basic arithmetic so they can add, subtract, multiply and divide (at the level that ordinary children could routinely do before 1960).

3. Be sure children learn the foundational knowledge that all citizens should possess (e.g., basic geography, history, science, etc.) 

4. Be sure children learn to think and act for themselves, not as part of a group forced, for example, to read the same dull passages over and over until a consensus is reached.

(To facilitate these strategies, eliminate Whole Word, Reform Math, Constructivism, and Cooperative Learning. Arguably, these methods are used because they don’t elevate children, they level children. Frighteningly, Common Core embraces all these dysfunctional methods.)

The following article provides a somewhat longer statement of the four-point program:

http://www.examiner.com/article/norfolk-virginia-beach-parents-need...

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