November 6, 2015 ~ Last week the Nation’s Report Card announced that no more than 40% of America’s 4th and 8th graders are proficient in reading and math. Those are scary numbers, but the numbers for writing are even more frightening: only 27% of American 8th and 12th graders attained proficiency.

Why are American students such terrible writers? Continue reading →

I recently dug up a 1908 curriculum manual in the Minnesota Historical Society archives. It provided instructions on everything from teacher deportment to recommended literature lists for various grades. As a book lover, I was especially interested in the latter!

With the exception of a few textbook-like anthologies, the chart below lists the recommended reading material for Minnesota 7th and 8th graders in 1908: Continue reading →

While at a gathering of friends several months ago, I stopped to chat for a few minutes with a twelve-year-old boy whom I’ll call Davy.

Although the youngest in a family of all girls, I knew Davy was all boy. He liked guns and animals and all manner of typical boy subjects. Because of this, I was delighted to see that he was sitting there reading a book, an activity that doesn’t seem to be a popular pastime with most of the male sex. Continue reading →

If one was to name a leading institution of higher education in America, Harvard University would definitely be one of the first to come to mind. After all, anyone with the name Harvard on his resume is practically guaranteed an open door to all kinds of profitable careers. The trick, then, is to get into such a prestigious school.

In recent years, various individuals have proclaimed that their entrance into Harvard was paved by homeschooling. But what about after they get in? Are they up to the task and able to succeed? Continue reading →

The ability to critically think does not develop in children until around age 12. It begins after the child’s fundamentals are drilled into them. We used to understand this basic principle of education. This is why classical education was so effective. It was also why prior generations of Americans were so successful in life. The educational ‘Elites’ decided that a population that was able to critically think was too difficult to control. They changed our education system to remove critical thinking. Our children have suffered for their arrogance. It is time to take an active role in the education of your children. ~ Rosemary Stein, MD

By now it’s old news that many Americans can no longer think for themselves. True, they have strong opinions, but often those opinions are influenced by prominent leaders and can turn around as quickly as the winds of political favor.

Unfortunately, such a state is likely driven by the education system. Although schools purport to be fans of “critical thinking,” many schools no longer teach the philosophy or logic classes which were once a prominent part of high school education. Continue reading →

In recent years, many Americans have adopted the idea that public education is neutral ground. Such a mentality has undoubtedly sprung from the fact that the public school is the agent of the government, an entity which strives to keep itself clear from sectarian, political, or other ideological viewpoints.

But in recent years, the falsity of this idea has been coming to light. A prime example of this is the Edina public schools, where teachers have been giving lessons driven through the lens of race, class, gender, and other social justice norms.

As reports indicate, such news has not gone over very well with parents, many of whom express shock and disappointment that their children are being indoctrinated rather than educated. Continue reading →

If there are no studies that demonstrate that preschool benefits children after third grade, why is the government pushing for all children to be taken out of the home and be in it. The answer is to destroy the maternal child bond. If they accomplish this, it is much easier for the ‘Village’ to place it’s values into your children. Parents, not the ‘Village’, must decide what is best for your child. To save America we must save one child at a time. Join the cause. ~ Rosemary Stein M.D.

Sometimes it seems that America is on a never-ending quest to boost achievement and make education better. One year, classroom technology is the answer to the problems. The next year, the answer is universal preschool. The year after, test abolishment is believed to be the solution. And on it goes.

But what if we’ve had a major answer to these educational woes under our noses the whole time, but have simply chosen to ignore it? Continue reading →

We all want the best for our kids. Because of this desire, it’s quite discouraging to see when efforts to boost progress in reading, math, and other subjects flatline in schools across the country, as the chart below shows. Continue reading →

One of the hallmarks of modern America is the tendency toward prolonged childhood. While it used to be the norm to enter the adult working world by one’s mid-to-late teens, students now extend their preparation for career well into their twenties (and sometimes beyond), enabled by parents who act as their caretakers, education experts who insist that they get as much classroom education as possible, and a government that encourages them to stay on the family health plan until age 26. Continue reading →

To many Americans, high school seems like a normal part of life. To not attend is unheard of; to fail to graduate is a death sentence for one’s future.

But what we often forget is that the modern high school is a relatively new concept. As Paul Beston notes in a recent article for City Journal, a hundred years ago America was in the early stages of a high school boom, with 2 million students attending classes. That number rose to 6.6 million by the start of World War II. Today, the number of public high school students measures at 15 million.

But as Beston goes on to explain, the high school as we know it now isn’t the one America knew in its earlier years. That school was far more rigorous. Today’s high schools are the result of several decades of the gradual dumbing down of curriculum.

This dumbing down began in earnest during the Depression years, but as Beston notes, had been encouraged as early as 1912: Continue reading →

For generations, each autumn has bestowed the unofficial arrival of adulthood on young people as they head off to college for the first time.

But while the entrance into the Ivy Halls has occurred for years, one part of that ritual seems to have disappeared, namely, the entrance examination.

Oh sure, we have SATs and ACTs which are taken with religious fervor by any student who wants to advance to higher education, but there seems to be quite a different flavor between those and the examinations of the past.

Take, for instance, the 1922 English entrance examination for the University of Illinois. The first section contains five elements with multiple questions. Students were asked to choose two in each group and answer them in written form. This requirement – written, not multiple choice like a majority of today’s SAT-like exams – is the first difference between the two. Continue reading →

Since Donald Trump got into office and appointed school choice supporter Betsy DeVos as the national education secretary, a good deal of ink has been spilled on the issue of school vouchers.

On the one hand, vouchers seem to promise a better choice and education for students at a lower cost. On the other hand, recent studies suggest that vouchers don’t improve reading and math scores, and therefore are simply a rabbit trail in the quest for better education.

The takeaway from these two viewpoints? Vouchers are an emotionally charged issue which require some careful thought by concerned citizens.

With this in mind, it’s interesting to note what the late Steve Jobs had to say about vouchers. In 1995, Jobs, generally viewed as a political liberal, expressed his support for a school voucher system in an interview with Daniel Morrow: Continue reading →

According to the Nation’s Report Card, only 27 percent of 8th graders attain proficiency in writing. But no problem, right? They’re just leaving middle school. Give them a few years under the instruction of high school English instructors and all will be well.

That seems to be wishful thinking, for the Nation’s Report Card shows that writing proficiency is still 27 percent by the time students head to college. Unfortunately, college doesn’t improve the writing woes of American students either. As writing expert John Maguire explains in The Washington Post:
Continue reading →

According to a recent article in the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, preschool-age children have a special talent for memorizing and remembering rhymes. As the Digest explains, a recent study found that, compared to their parents and other older adults, young children are able to recall “nearly twice as many correct words” from the rhyming stories they hear, all while making “far fewer errors.”

Anyone who has been around children for a time would readily affirm such findings. Children, as Oxford scholar Dorothy Sayers noted in 1947, follow three stages of development, the earliest of which she calls the “Poll-Parrot” stage: Continue reading →

For a number of years, it was assumed that public education was swimming along, efficiently educating children of all ages. More recently, the products coming out of public schools have caused a troubling concern to leap into the minds of adults: are schools dumbing down the content they teach to students?

That concern seems to have now made its way into the minds of university professors, as evidenced in a recent study conducted by the Times Higher Education. The study examined over a thousand higher education professors and administrators in several English-speaking countries such as the U.S., Canada, Australia, and predominantly the U.K.

Judging from the comments of these professors, the students they are seeing come through their classrooms are ill-prepared, unwilling to study, and in need of kid-glove treatment. Some of the choice comments from these professors include… Continue reading →

The other day, a judge used a unique punishment for a handful of teens who desecrated a historic school building with derogatory statements: read books.

The novelty of the sentence testifies to the fact that kids simply don’t read very much anymore.

But why this dearth of reading? After all, parents try to get kids to read. Teachers bend over backwards to get their students into books. Politicians and other public figures continually tell us that “readers are leaders.” Why then, with all this encouragement, are only 37 percent of high school seniors proficient in reading? Continue reading →

It’s no secret that homeschooling has experienced exponential growth in recent years. So much so, that Chris Weller noted in Business Insider that the homeschool population may soon overtake that of charter schools.

As Weller goes on to note, this popularity is attributable both to the advance of technology, the growing familiarity with homeschooling, and last but not least, evidence that “homeschooled kids do better on tests and in college than their peers in public schools.”

But apparently, some colleges have yet to get the memo on that last point, particularly Kennesaw State University (KSU) in Georgia. Continue reading →