More and more, my impression is that K-12 education is rigged to be bad. I sum this up by saying: the fix is in.

I have a new piece on American Thinker titled: Only you can prevent bad public schools.

 This perspective grew out of my sense that the Education Establishment, left to itself, will never fix the schools. Truth is, there are big bucks in phony theories and perennial failure.

 Think just of this one egregious example: K-12 schools dismiss phonics and make children memorize sight-words. This guarantees failure in at least half the class. Those kids will then be sent to remediation, which is a whole secondary industry. Reading Recovery is a billion-dollar business that should not exist. Furthermore, the kids who get psychologically messed up from not being able to do  what the other kids can do (i.e., read), are sent to psychologists (big bucks there) and they are put on drugs (lots of money there).

So this article is aimed at parents and citizens on the sidelines. Get more involved. You are the only hope.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/only_you_can_preven...