Category Archives: Out of The Past ~ The Archive Edition

As time allows, we continue to review many previously posted columns and articles from the first generation of several of the family of Kettle Moraine Publications, drawing from in excess of 90,000 published articles – yet many could have been written today. Others were a forewarning of (as H.G. Wells once wrote) “Things to Come.” So today we return to the days of yesteryear, or is it, Back to the Future? C’mon Marty – tell me which it is – or will we even have a future?

Bennett: The Way We Were…

…and the way it was!

I grew up in a little town about 25 miles north of Chicago called Northbrook, Ilinois at a time when everyone treated each other with respect. We didn’t eat a lot of fast food. We drank Kool-aid, ate lunch meat sandwiches, PB&J sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, hot dogs, but mostly home made meal such as meatloaf, fried chicken, roast beef & pork chops, black eye peas, snap peas…

We grew up during a time when we would gather glass bottles to take to the store and use the deposit money to buy penny candy. (We even got a brown paper bag to put the candy in). You sure could get a lot for 25 cents. We went outside to play games, rode bikes, jumped rope and raced against sibling played hide and seek, Red Rover, Red light green light, mother may I, kick the can and yes the games got more daring as we grew…There was no bottled water, no microwave or cable tv, no cell phones, no hair straighteners… Continue reading →

Bennett ~ 1957 The Autumn of My Youth

It is that time of the year once again – for those who still follow the game of Baseball – the 2025 World Series. I no longer follow sports – I have no time, but this is today – but this was yesterday!

I was nine years old – the Autumn of my youth – and I was out in the front yard of my Grandfathers home with Uncle Charles, and we were playing Monopoly while listening on the radio to the 1957 World Series. We lived near Eagle, Wisconsin – the state of my birth

I was at home and tuning in to the Milwaukee Braves…

This was my youth – and they were my Home Team. This is the Year that the Braves would win the World Series.

1957 World Series highlights (New York Yankees vs Milwaukee Braves)

Welcome to the Metropolis Café

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A Study in Education

What you are about to read was Originally published on Metropolis.Cafe’ when the site was but two weeks old. We felt that it is so timely to bring it back to the forefront. ~ Editor

April 5, 2016 ~ At the time the Constitution was written, education was not even considered a function of local government, let alone the federal government.

But the Federal Governments Department of Education’s shaky constitutionality goes way beyond that.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution enumerates the things over which Congress has the power to legislate. Not only does the list not include education, while there is no plausible rationale for squeezing education in under the commerce clause, We are sure the Supreme Court found a rationale, but it cannot have been plausible. Continue reading →

Caruba: The Subversion of Education in America

The Subversion of Education in America: Lesson #1

February 19, 2002 ~ I’ll bet you think that the problems with our nation’s schools are a fairly recent phenomenon. Wrong. It dates backs to the 1960’s. Those that have implemented the subversion of our educational system have sought to fly well below the radar of public awareness, depending on stealth and duplicity to achieve the wreckage that has already stunted the lives of thousands who have passed through it.

No other topic has evoked as much email as did our weekly “Warning Signs” commentary, Indoctrination, Not Education. Good. Time to wake up America!

In this and three other commentaries, I will walk you through the history of the problem with the help of an extraordinary book, “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America” by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt. The facts I will share with you are found in a fat compendium of research by this former senior official with the US Department of Education who discovered the mother lode, copied it, and fled. She is one of America’s unsung heroes. Continue reading →

Seese: Did the Founders Understand the Constitution?

Is the above just a stupid question? Did our founders, the ones who hammered out the Constitution of the United States, several of whom became presidents, fail to understand the Constitution of the United States of America? Why would anyone even ask a question like that?

Because either the Founders misunderstood the Constitution they drafted and the states ratified, or the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals is clueless as to the meaning and intent of the Constitution and our founders, as is evidenced by the order to Roy Moore, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, to remove the Ten Commandments from public premises.

That makes the title question valid. Either the Founders had no idea what they meant, or the federal courts and the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has invented another document out of what our forefathers wrote, and meant when it was written! Continue reading →

Schrock Taylor: Towards Better Reading

I was once told, “You chase yourself in circles, searching for answers that are not to be found within, for if they were, you would have found them by now. Look elsewhere!“

I often think of that advice in relation to the ever-worsening problems of public schooling. If the answers were there…there in any one of the 51 Departments of Education, or in any one of the thousands of schools being directed, manipulated, and warped by federal directives — the educational gurus would have found them long ago. Instead, educators rush about, grabbing for brass rings; fishing for fads; pushing for progress…all the while refusing to honestly seek answers…elsewhere. Continue reading →

1495 ~ Performing a Historectomy on America

Published in the ‘American Journal’ on the first generation Federal Observer, January 14, 2002

If you want to destroy a house, undermine the foundation. If you want to destroy a nation, do the same. If you want to debase people who are defined by ideas, destroy the ideas. If you want to bring down a society that is sustained by its history, perform a historectomy.

First, let me make clear that I am not referring to a hysterectomy, or removal of the uterus, but a historectomy, or removal of our history. Continue reading →

Why We Desperately Need To Bring Back Vocational Training In Schools

Even more appropriate today than when first published. ~ Ed.

Instructor helps a student participating in a woodworking manufacturing training program

September 1, 2015 ~ Throughout most of U.S. history, American high school students were routinely taught vocational and job-ready skills along with the three Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic. Indeed readers of a certain age are likely to have fond memories of huddling over wooden workbenches learning a craft such as woodwork or maybe metal work, or any one of the hands-on projects that characterized the once-ubiquitous shop class.

But in the 1950s, a different philosophy emerged: the theory that students should follow separate educational tracks according to ability. The idea was that the college-bound would take traditional academic courses (Latin, creative writing, science, math) and received no vocational training. Those students not headed for college would take basic academic courses, along with vocational training, or “shop.” Continue reading →

Caruba: A Very Different Generation

December 17, 2008 ~ They are called “Millennials” and, with the election of Barack Obama, have been dubbed “Generation O.” Born from 1980 to 2000, they are as different from their parents as previous generations were different from theirs.

It is common that older generations frequently look at the new one as creatures from another planet. Every new generation develops its own slang, has its own cultural heroes, and most importantly has been imprinted by the events of their early years as well as the kind of care they received from their parents. Continue reading →

1055 ~ Dumbing Down Standardized Tests: The Art Of Dodging Objective Reality

Published in ‘Village of the Damned’ on the first generation Federal Observer, December 4, 2001

“We will never devise the perfect test, a test that accurately assesses students irrespective of parental education and income, the quality of the local schools, and the kind of community a student lives in, but we can do better,” opined Richards C. Atkinson, president of the University of California system. Atkinson insisted, calling again on Nov. 16 for the elimination of the “SAT I” as an admissions requirement at the University of California’s eight undergraduate campuses.

In fact, while “perfection” is indeed an impossible standard, a test which does this extremely well does exist, and it’s called … the SAT. Continue reading →

1586 ~ Caruba: Our National Education System – a $49 Billion Dollar Disaster

Published in Village of the Damned on the first generation Federal Observer, January 28, 2002

Do you ever wonder why home-schooled children consistently do better academically than those passing through this mind-numbing system?

You had to know something was terribly wrong while you watched President George W. Bush stand at the podium and laud Sen. Teddy Kennedy. I thought he was going to stop talking just long enough to French kiss him. Nothing good can come of these two colluding on an education program and nothing will!

After you get through reading the 1000-page Education Bill, dubbed “Leave No Child Behind“, you will have concluded that the Federal government is now so fully in charge of your local school system that you have only one option. You will either home school your children or you will turn them over to a system that so mirrors the Communist model for education, they will belong to Big Brother long after they have left home to create their own families. Continue reading →

1078 ~ Black Democrats Push School Prayer

Published in the first generation Federal Observer, in the category, Deliver Us From Evil!, December 7, 2001

It was not surprising to see several state legislatures consider school prayer bills in the aftermath of Sept. 11. What was surprising was who sponsored some of those measures.

In Florida and Pennsylvania, the principal sponsors of bills to bring God back to the classroom are not conservative Republicans but black Democrats.

In Tallahassee, the state House in April easily passed a bill written by Rep. Wilbert “Tee” Holloway, D-Miami, to allow student-led prayers at graduations and student assemblies. With no sponsors in the state Senate, the measure went nowhere.

Things will be quite different when the next session convenes in January, Holloway vowed. As a parent, Holloway said prayer has been taken from him and his children. Under his proposal, students can recite non-sectarian prayers with no guidance from school administrators at events where attendance is not required. Continue reading →

1233 ~ Who Controls Our Children’s Education?

Published on the first generation Federal Observer in the category, Village of the Damned, December 19, 2001

~ Foreword ~
WASHINGTON, December 2001 – The Senate easily approved a massive school reform bill on Tuesday, sending it to President Bush for his signature.

The bill authorizes up to $26.5 billion for public elementary and secondary schools, much of it targeted to help narrow the achievement gap between low-income students and their wealthier counterparts.

A product of months of bipartisan compromises, the bill also requires states to test students in reading and math yearly in grades three through eight.

Schools that perform poorly will get additional resources, but students in those schools will also get new options, including attending another public school or getting tutoring or other supplementary services. Continue reading →

Caruba: Indoctrination, not education

NOTE: It has been over eighteen years since Alan Caruba penned this column for publication. Was anybody listening? ~ Ed.

The President’s education plan, with or without vouchers, suffers from an essential defect. In the U.S. Constitution’s enumeration of its powers and responsibilities as regards “raising revenue” (Article 1, Section 8) you will find no mention of “education.”

While education is a national priority, it is more properly a priority of the parents of students, their teachers, and local school boards. The flaw in President Bush’s education plans is the US Department of Education, an agency that since the 1970’s has racked up a dismal record when it comes to educating the nation’s youth. The “national standard” of education being discussed ignores the most fundamental issue. Under the DOE a deliberate plan to dumb down American students has been in place for decades. No one seems willing to discuss this. Continue reading →

Caruba: A Failing Grade for America’s Educational System

Editor’s NOTE: The following column by Alan Caruba was originally posted by Kettle Moraine, Ltd. Publications in March, 2012. Alan’s words are as direct and point-on as they were so many years ago. The late author’s referenced series, was published in it’s entirety on the Federal Observer, when it was but six weeks old. ~ J.B.

Back in 2001 I wrote a four-part series on The Subversion of Education in America and more than a decade later not much has improved. The causes are easily identified. One is federal control and the other is the National Education Association (NEA) which, despite its name, is a union.

Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey became a nationally known figure when he took on the teacher’s union for the way contracts with generous pension and health benefits were bankrupting the State. Other civil service contracts also came under review for the same reason. Continue reading →

REDUX: Our Schools, Dumb and Dumber

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The following column by Alan Caruba was originally published by Kettle Moraine Publications on August 29, 2010, however it won’t be long before the end of summer, and the victims of the Fed-ucation Holocaust will be returning to the den once more. Alan’s words are as direct and point-on as they were so many years ago. ~ J.B.

The Blood-Sucking Educator

As the nation’s children return to elementary and secondary schools, it is increasingly essential that their parents and communities coast to coast realize how poorly served they are and how their learning environment is increasingly tainted by a socialist agenda.

Our nation’s schools have long been factories of boredom, centers of academic incompetence. High school graduation rates have been in a fairly steady decline. At its peak in 1969, the rate was 77 percent. By 2007 it was 68.8 percent.

In mid-August, The Wall Street Journal reported that “New data show that fewer than 25% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT college-entrance exam possessed the academic skills necessary to pass entry-level courses, despite modest gains in college-readiness among U.S. high school students in the last few years.”

What caught my eye was a quote from Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington, who said that “if our kids aren’t dropping out physically, they are dropping out mentally.” Continue reading →

Caruba: The United States of Stupid

The following column was originally posted by Kettle Moraine Publications on May 22, 2011. It is quite probable that embedded links may no longer be active. ~ J.B.

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released a report titled A Nation at Risk that documented nationwide failure in American schools. Not much has changed since then and the federal takeover of school curriculum and testing methods has mercilessly continued with the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind and the Obama administration’s Race to the Top.

They are the top-down approaches to learning that have played a large part in the continual ‘dumbing-down‘ of American education. Once the province of local school boards, innovative schools, and individual teachers, the education of children has been taken over by Big Government.

Making matters worse, amid the confusion of federally mandated education requirements, state legislatures are now straying beyond their traditional roles to tinker with schools in unprecedented ways. Continue reading →

Education or Edjukashun?

Alan Caruba, circa 2002

February 16, 2009 – My father used to say that there was no defense against stupidity. He was a very smart man. When he entered kindergarten in the early 1900’s, he spoke his parent’s native language of Italian. The teacher seated him beside a boy who spoke both English and Italian, and he learned English. Nobody gave it any more thought than that.

Dad passed through the K-12 grades in Newark, N.J., and then worked his way through New York University to gain a degree in accounting. Then he studied some more and was among the youngest men to become a Certified Public Accountant. All that study and hard work helped him survive the Great Depression. It is a classic American story.
Continue reading →

Caruba: The Common Core Straight Jacket

American education was based on some very fundamental principles and, from the 1640s until the 1840s, they were, in the words of Joseph Bast, the president of The Heartland Institute, “real civics, real economics, and real virtues.”

Bast is the co-author of “Education and Capitalism” and in a recent speech at the Eighth annual Wisconsin Conservative Conference took a look at the way an education system that produced citizens who understood the values that existed before “progressives” took over the nation’s school system, turning it into a one-size-fits-all system of indoctrination. Continue reading →

Notes from Granny…

September 5, 2009 ~ It is now a major issue across America with folks finally saying NO to AKA and his indoctrination efforts toward our kids.

I have scanned over many of my news sources – have rec’d many emails from folks around the country – all being related to the UPROAR over AKA’s attempt to sway our Children to his ANTI-AMERICAN way of thinking. This is not a sit by in silence event – parents are up in arms – and – – – others are all bent over showing their kids how to bend over. Continue reading →