Author Archives: Jeffrey

Benson: The Last Place You Want Your Kids

Anyone who has read any of my work knows where I stand on the public school system. That is no secret. I remember, many years ago now, one of my main mentors, Rev. Ennio Cugini, made the comment to me that the public school system was a place to keep students up to date on the latest propaganda produced by the communists. When you look at what is being promoted today in these so-called institutions of learning, things like Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project, it is difficult not to agree with Pastor Cugini’s assessment of public schools. Continue reading

Public Eduction: Factories Producing Compliant Global Idiots

As innocent children come into the world, their minds are a clean slate, ready to listen, absorb and learn. They trust and follow those that have been assigned the task of leading them to knowledge. For decades, that same innocent trust has been accepted by the parents to feel confident that the American education system is designed to teach basic academic knowledge to their children, while it’s up to the parents to provide love, family values, and moral integrity. Continue reading

American History: Original Sin

American Slavery, American Freedom (Colonial Virginia 1607-1676) The swampy environs of Jamestown, Virginia, claim the life of another 17th-century English settler in this painting by National Park Service artist Sydney King.

Origins matter. Every nation-state has an origin myth, a comforting tale of trials, tribulations and triumphs that form the foundation of “imagined communities.” The United States of America – a self-proclaimed “indispensable nation” – is as prone to exaggerated origin myths as any society in human history. Most of us are familiar with the popular American origin story: Our forefathers, a collection of hardy, pious pioneers, escaped religious persecution in England and founded a “new world” – a shining beacon in a virgin land. Of course, that story, however flawed, refers to the Pilgrims, and Massachusetts, circa 1620. But that’s not the true starting point for English-speaking society in North America. Continue reading

Ronald Reagan ~ A Time For Choosing

Los Angeles, California, October 27, 1964“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth…”

In a speech supporting the Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, Reagan spoke of big government, high taxation, and the “war on poverty.” He addressed foreign policy issues including the risk of appeasement, “peace through strength,” and the Vietnam War.

Continue reading

YAY! ~ Parents Are Pulling Kids Out of Public Schools

All indications are that this trickle could turn into a flood now that parents know what’s going on in their children’s education.

A recent study released from the National Centers for Education Statistics revealed that public schools have been experiencing a decrease in enrollment. Almost 4% of students were pulled out of public schools in the 2020-2021 school year. This was especially evident in the younger grades. According to the report, “Preschool enrollment dropped by 22 percent, and enrollment of kindergarteners fell by 9 percent.” Continue reading

Our Failing Students Are Crippled for Life

Thirty-odd years ago, I taught adult basic education two nights a week in a minimum-security prison in Hazelwood, North Carolina.

The men in my classes had committed a variety of crimes. The majority were incarcerated for drug-related felonies, mostly possession and dealing. One major dealer from Charlotte was rumored to have killed a rival, while another inmate had murdered his wife in a lover’s quarrel. Still another had once lived across the street from me and burglarized various houses in the neighborhood, though as he told me, “I never hit your place, you know.” One young man was behind bars for child molestation but, given his limited intelligence, would probably have fared better in a psychiatric unit.

The great majority of these prisoners were white, reflecting the demographics of Western North Carolina. Some were in their late teens, a few in their 60s. Some had grown up on farms, some in cities. Some were serious about learning, while others were clearly in the classroom to escape the dormitory for two hours. Some spoke lovingly of their parents, spouses, children, or girlfriends. Others were bitter, including one old man who swore to several people in class that he was going home to kill his wife when he was released. The police shot him dead in a chicken coop on his property when he tried to do that very thing. Continue reading

George Washington: America’s Most Indispensable Veteran

He left us a legacy of wisdom in what he said as well as what he did.

An engraving of George Washington from 1859.

To honor America’s vision along with those who served to protect it, we should remember how that vision was put into words as well as actions by perhaps our most indispensable veteran—George Washington.

Washington was essential to our revolution’s success, the creation of our Constitution and the precedent of how to govern under it. Perhaps most telling of the latter is the fact that he voluntarily stepped down from power out of principle, which King George III said made him the man of the age.

Washington knew his efforts were a means to an end—maintaining liberty. We would profit by reflecting on his words and whether the vision we act upon today reflects that vision or distorts it. Continue reading

America’s First Experiment With Paper (Fiat) Money

In 1690, Massachusetts Bay Colony embarked upon a short-lived experiment in unbacked paper money. It did not go well.

George Washington – surveyor, farmer, soldier, and statesman – never thought of himself as an economist but experience taught him a great deal about fiat (unbacked) paper money. When the Congress foisted it on his Continental Army and tried to pay for food with it, his men suffered privation.

By contrast, the nearby British ate well because they paid in gold and silver. Continue reading

Benson: Marxist Propaganda In Public Schools Posing As Education

I have written about Critical Race Theory before, and I probably will again. It is such a pernicious world view that it deserves all the negative publicity possible. At this point, several state legislatures around the country have bills in their legislatures to ban the teaching of this theory in their public schools and, while I have no use for the public school system, I do applaud these efforts. At least some in these state legislatures recognize what a horrendous insult to real education this leftist drivel really is. Continue reading

Shakespeare vs. Molière: Who’s the Better Playwright?

Vive la différence between British and French culture in two of the greatest playwrights in history. Britain has a rich literary heritage, but Shakespeare, “the Bard,” is widely recognized as the greatest writer in the English language. In France, a number of writers — Voltaire, Hugo, Proust, Flaubert — can compete for that title, but Molière is viewed as the most acclaimed writer of French comedy and satires, even more heralded than later satirists like Voltaire and Anatole France.

This year, specifically January 15, 1622, is the 400th anniversary of the birth in the heart of Paris of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, son of wealthy carpet-dealers, who became Molière. He is being honored by new statues, a postage stamp, a costume exhibition, and new staging of his plays, starting with the controversial originally banned version in 1664 of Tartuffe. Continue reading

Percentage of Women in the Workforce Plummets

But is this really a bad thing, or is it a boost for families?

According to Tami Forman at Fortune, the women’s work participation rate is down to 57%. It has not been this low since 1988. It is especially bad, according to Forman, because many women have now been out of the workforce for two years . Having this large a gap on their résumés a is problem for prospective employers.

Why are women not returning to the workforce? Continue reading

Homeschoolers Turn Out Happy, Well-Adjusted, and Engaged

Homeschooled children fared better than children who attended public schools in many categories.

Researchers at Harvard University just released findings from their new study showing positive outcomes for homeschooled students. Writing in The Wall Street Journal last week, Brendan Case and Ying Chen of the Harvard Human Flourishing Program concluded that public school students “were less forgiving and less apt to volunteer or attend religious services than their home-schooled peers.” Continue reading

4 Positive Education Trends to End 2021

The exodus from government-run schooling continues

There is a lot to be frustrated about as 2021 concludes. Some places are back in lockdown over rising coronavirus cases, while others are re-imposing previous restrictions and introducing new ones—including my city.

But at this joyful time of the year, I choose to be optimistic and focus on all the good things happening right now, particularly in the world of education. Continue reading

Who Was the Founding Father of the Fourth Amendment?

He sparked John Adams’s passion for independence.

February 5 marks the birth of the American who had the greatest hand in what became the 4th Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures – James Otis. Unfortunately, “one of the most passionate and effective protectors of American rights” is too-little remembered today.

Otis’ efforts applied the celebrated English maxim, “Every man’s house is his castle” – or, as William Pitt said in Parliament in 1763, that “The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the crown” – to the colonies, in resistance to Crown-created writs of assistance. They were broad search warrants enabling customs officials to enter any business or home without advance notice, probable cause, or reason, which Otis asserted were unconstitutional. Continue reading

People get ready…: Website Update

…there’s a CHANGE a’ comin’ Don’t need no baggage – ya’ just get on board!

We are way past time to provide our readers with a few needed updates on this site. Over the next few weeks, we will be performing some updating to the site – little if any will affect our readers. The first phase of our conversion is nearing its conclusion. Soon – our OLD email address will also be in place and a few other upgrades which our domain masters lied about. ~ Ed.

Why is it that we are unable to teach children how to read when nearly every single child 100+ years ago could read and write? We do not need more money. We do not need more teacher training. We need to return to what has been proven to work. When we choose to use a curriculum that has been demonstrated with fact and figures to be inferior, then the only conclusion is that it is a deliberate effort to ensure the destruction of your child’s potential. You are going to have to get involved with the education of your children. IF your superintendent will not fix the problem, then fire him. If your school board will not fix the problem, then fire them. Your children’s future is at stake. To save America, we must save one child at a time. It starts with education – at home and at school. ~ Rosemary Stein, MD

Stand by… we’re comin’ atcha!

Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s History Lessons

King understood the nation’s challenges as part of a continuous narrative. Today, a narrow view of America’s past could imperil its future.

On March 25, 1965, at the conclusion of the brutally consequential march from Selma to Montgomery, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered a speech titled “Our God Is Marching On!” He spoke to a crowd of twenty-five thousand people on the grounds of the Alabama state capitol, in view of the office window of the segregationist governor George Wallace. The address is not among King’s best-known, but it is among the most revelatory. King argued that, in the decade since the bus boycotts in that city, a new movement had emerged and an older order was starting to fall away. Continue reading

Who Gets the Blame When Schools Shut Down?

Somehow, it is teachers who are held responsible -more than government failures or even COVID-19 itself – for pandemic-era school closures.

Illustration by Nicholas Konrad – The New Yorker

On Wednesday, January 5th, the Chicago public-school system shut down classes for all of its three hundred and forty thousand students, amid a surge of Omicron cases and a deadlock between the city’s administration and its teachers’ union, the latter of which is demanding a more comprehensive COVID-19 safety plan. Later that day, Leana Wen, a former Planned Parenthood president and Baltimore health commissioner, who is now a professor of public health and a frequent pandemic-era television commentator, tweeted a video clip of her latest CNN spot, filmed from her living room. She wrote, “Would it be ideal if all schools had daily tests & great ventilation? Sure, but that’s not reality. . . . Schools must be open.” She also pointed out that bars, restaurants, and sporting arenas had not closed down. Among those who replied to her tweet was the comedian Judah Friedlander, who asked Wen why she did not use her public platform to urge the government to close down restaurants and other venues (and make payments for business owners’ lost revenue), as that would slow the spread of the virus and improve schools’ chances of operating safely. Wen answered, “Lack of political will and public backing. Public health policy needs to be practical. Don’t call for something that’s not going to happen.” Continue reading

Homeschooling for Beginners: Top 10 Questions

While I was in the military, my wife decided to homeschool our two boys. After 2 years we asked the boys if they wanted to attend public school and come to find out, they were about one year ahead. The kids attended for a year anyway but didn’t like that type of learning environment and they decided to continue with our homeschooling program. ~ Earl Leighton