“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” – C. S. Lewis
For well over a century, the systemic dismantling of traditional education is an essential objective of transforming America into a despotic dependency.
Education is a process, not an indoctrination. Schools should be about tutoring in the methods of critical thinking. Sound techniques and competent teachers can assist learning development. However, it has been decades since public schools provided a positive function. Dysfunctional Public Education Is No Accident sums up the issue:
“Government schools have worked their socialization for several generations, with alarming success. Their objective is not the education of the individual pupil, but the assimilation of the next generation into society. The kind of conversion that is sought, impedes independent thinking. Areas of inquiry are now limited to ‘PC’ approved viewpoints.”
The ‘TC’ mindset is an outgrowth of the ‘PC’ culture. Government schools primary mission is to program underdeveloped minds with a State approved curriculum. The net result of this civic brain washing machine is a dumbed-down idiot that is unable to function as an independent individual. Totalitarian Collectivism is all about the supremacy of the State and a genuinely educated population is the greatest threat to the regime.
Government schools act as community social welfare centers. Outreach and remedial education is not just for “special needs” students, it is a staple of the state syllabus. Can this reality be attributed to genetic defects alone? Blaming it on the drinking water just does not fly. The more money spent on public education, the greater the decay in intellectual standards.
Culture, media influences and peer group pressure all reinforce the limited world vision that is the hallmark of producing obedient servants. Instead of working the fields, these serfs supply a boundless stock of sheep to eat the grass of government addiction. Their function is to consume useless products and services by running up debt. Honest work is discouraged, while government employment is preached as an ongoing community service. Service to the State and servicing the corporate economy is the sure recipe to become a valedictorian.
Lost in this assembly line factory and pseudo erudite mess is character development and moral values.
The National Character Education Center provides 10 reasons to Cultivate Virtues in Schools.
* Value-based schools and homes develop value-driven children.
* Children who are clear about their values have minimum problems in decision-making!
* Children learn how to respect others when there is a program on respect.
* Cooperation and collaboration are priorities in a value-driven school and home!
* Rules and laws alone will not improve our society!
* When children encounter problems, schools with a values program have clear performance and behavior reference points.
* A values program fosters personal responsibility and initiative in each child.
* A values program will develop an understanding, an appreciation, and an acceptance of diversities in children and in their cultures!
* Values develop inner strength and integrity, which builds a “you-can-count-on-me” generation!
* A value-driven program develops children with a positive mental attitude who have determination and perseverance.
Sounds good, but the question is what kind of value-based education should parents allow for the education of their children? National Education is too important to allow government control. “The children of America are not wards of your collectivist vision. Parents must retain the ability to educate their offspring according to the values that they hold. The scam of a national education policy is the kiss of death for our Nation.“
A new Rasmussen Report concludes that sixty percent (60%) of Americans with children in elementary or secondary school say most school textbooks are more concerned with presenting information in a politically correct manner than in accuracy.
This point is timely with the recent Texas Board of Education approval of a new school curriculum, which influences all textbooks. Some of their additions include:
* Question the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government
* Cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation’s Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state
* Stress the superiority of American capitalism while eliminating the word “capitalism” from the text
* Refer to the United States form of government as a “constitutional republic,” rather than “democratic republic”
* Give Confederate president Jefferson Davis equal footing with Abraham Lincoln
The ‘TC’ society is appalled at such heresy as constitutional restraints, which might be taught to young virgin minds. All that matters to the didactic validation masters is the official approval pedagogic propaganda. No, wonder that any challenges to the education establishment meet with vicious abhorrence.
The National Center for Policy Analysis refers to ‘a report out of Stanford University shows that parents like the idea of school choice and that children in the voucher system are more apt to stay in school, learn more and earn their high school diplomas.
The study surveyed programs operating in Milwaukee (which has two), New York City, Indianapolis and San Antonio. Together, the five programs are serving more than 7,000 students from low-income families.
Here are some of the findings:
Two to three times as many parents of voucher-school students gave “A” ratings to their schools as did parents of public school students.
While children of low-income families tend to change public schools during the year — often at a rate of 20 percent to 30 percent of the enrollment — the rate for voucher students in Milwaukee was no more than four percent to five percent.
Voucher students attending religious schools (New York and San Antonio) made remarkable test score gains; but data concerning those attending secular choice schools is flawed or incomplete because of lack of information about family background.
In New York, 69 percent of voucher students are staying in school and graduating, versus 39 percent of all students in public high schools, and 29 percent in the high schools voucher students would have attended.
The teachers union reflects the notion that government schools are untouchable and parents or local government must continue unlimited funding for excessive benefits and extravagant retirement costs.
School Vouchers Long Overdue cites the mindset that creates this accountability disconnect. Writing for the New York Times, Albert Shanker of the American Federation of Teachers referred to the potential of turning an education endeavor into a profit-making venture as the “threat of an educational industrial complex.“
Eliminating coerced government school attendance with a viable private sector educational competition could break the reckless cycle of pouring more money down the drain of ‘TC’ brainwashing. Abolishing property taxes to finance destructive institutions of mass disinformation needs to become a national cause.
In an exhaustive and comprehensive study from the Cato Institute – They Spend WHAT? The Real Cost of Public Schools, Adam B. Schaeffer provides evidence of financial disparities.
To put public school spending in perspective, we compare it to estimated total expenditures in local private schools. We find that, in the areas studied, public schools are spending 93 percent more than the estimated median private school.
Citizens drastically underestimate current per-student spending and are misled by official figures. Taxpayers cannot make informed decisions about public school funding unless they know how much districts currently spend. And with state budgets stretched thin, it is more crucial than ever to carefully allocate every tax dollar.
He outlines aspects of the Financial Transparency in Education Act, as a needed policy. This formula uses a base state and education fiscal transparency model for legislation that is adopted by the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Schools need to become cherished institutions for cultivating natural instincts and curiosity for intellectual development. What Price We Pay For Incompetent Education illustrates a case study in a broken educational system. “Public education has become government schooling by the ignorant, administered by the incompetent. . . . Embedded in the very composition of its organization are the kind of personnel that create and perpetuate this bureaucratic tragedy.”
College and higher education experience is worthless when functional idiots are granted matriculation for the price of an average starter house. The student loan fiasco is just another tyrannical entrapment into a system of endless debt consumption with diminished benefits. As the economic prospects for our offspring evaporate, future progenies will seek the rewards of real education and avoid the snares of compulsory stupidity.
The Totalitarian Collectivists fear an enlightened populace. A populist political schooling, based upon traditional values, classical training, founded upon a comprehensive study of history; has the best chance of producing individuals of character and moral fiber. The American chronicle is grounded and based upon this foundation. The ‘TC’ educational, politically correct, absolutism is anti-intellectual at its core. A purely secular government is a curse in the American Saga. The Texas Board of Education has its history right.
SARTRE ~ April 11, 2010
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” ~ Albert Einstein
~ The Author ~
Kettle Moraine Publications contributor, SARTRE is the pen name of a reformed, former political operative. This pundit’s formal instruction in History, Philosophy, and Political Science served as training for activism, on the staff of several politicians and in many campaigns. We invite you to visit his website at: Breaking All The Rules.