Category Archives: Perspectives

Training Teachers to FAIL

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the reading crisis in U.S. schools. Careful reporting has pinpointed a common problem: Many newly-trained and veteran teachers are not aware of the latest research on early reading instruction or comprehension. In 2016, NCTQ reviewed the syllabi of 820 teacher preparation programs across the country and found that only 39 percent of programs were teaching the basics of effective reading instruction. Four years later that number of programs has risen to 51 percent. While this signals a positive trend in adopting evidence-informed reading instruction, the fact remains that 49 percent of incoming teachers do not have the tools to effectively teach reading. Continue reading

Public Education, Ben Shapiro, and the Trojan Horse in Our Culture

Perhaps the most successful myth that has been foisted off on a gullible American citizenry is that the education of our children, from kindergarten through high school, is the responsibility of the government. And implicit in that assumption is that the natural rights and duties of the family over the education of its offspring must in nearly all situations take a back seat, must be diminished and not interfere with the prior and dominant role of the state.

By and large, since the mid–20th century this assumption has been considered undebatable truth. No one, not even the most resolute conservatives, will question its basic veracity and the resulting need to continue funding, to shower with taxpayer dollars what has become the most expansive and most successful conquest of the revolutionary managerial state in its advance to complete control over our society. Continue reading

Benson: Training Your Children To Be Compliant Little Marxists

The ‘ism’ of Marx

Recently, I did an article about Herbert A. Philbrick’s book “I Led Three Lives.” In that article I mentioned Louis Budenz, the director of the Communist newspaper “Daily Worker” and how he had broken with the Communist Party and returned to his Catholic faith.

According to one account I read, Karl Marx said “The education of all children, from the moment they can get along without their mother’s care, shall be in state institutions.” This would be consistent with the 10th plank in his “Communist Manifesto” which said, in part, “Free education for all children in public schools.”

This was something Louis Budenz sought to warn people about after he broke away from Communism. He wrote an autobiography, “This Is My Story” as well as other books and articles which exposed what the Communists were trying to do to this country. 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

Zappa on Civics and more!

I remember well, that, in Illinois, to graduate from High School, you had to pass a US Constitution Exam. You were first were given the test in your Sophomore year, and a small group of knuckleheads were still taking the test two years later, in their Senior year. However, we all passed the exam before graduation. Apparently many of those people washed all of that information from their brain shortly afterwords. ~ Phillip Meier

Mr. Meier was a classmate of mine back in the day. ~ Ed.

Change American Government School Education Or It Is Game Over!

When people think about modern government school education, the name of the God hating John Dewey usually comes to mind. Of course, it is true that Dewey had a lot to do with the overall decline in the quality of government schools. But there are others who joined in the effort to literally destroy the quality of education. In particular, Chester M. Pierce, (1951-2019) who like other leftists was educated at Harvard, was openly filled with hatred against the God ordained role that parents should carry out in teaching their children the values and traditions that made the United States a great and exceptional republic. Continue reading

The Mike Wallace Interview with Ayn Rand

Sixty years later, we are on the brink of financial collapse and dictatorship. She correctly anticipated the trajectory of the United States, and was a visionary.

Wallace: “Do you actually predict dictatorship and economic disaster for the United States?”

Rand: “If the present collectivist trend continues and if the present anti-reason philosophy continues, then yes, that is the way the country is going.”

The Decline of American Culture

We are in uncertain times indeed. Anyone with half a brain who researches their own information knows there are very dangerous paradigms in play that have historically had disastrous consequences and were catalysts to future chaos from their respective points in history. But there are many things going on that have NOT happened before. These are the things that I wish to talk about.

It is common knowledge that establishment media in any form is disinformation, regardless of the platform conveying the message. Let us start with the the birth of a child in today’s age. We are told that we must inject our children with many forms of chemicals because it will keep us safe from disease and sickness, even though it has been proven to have adverse effects. Studies of which are manipulated and distorted through MSM by being politicized to maintain the pharmaceutical profits and controls that the FDA is all to happy to enforce. Continue reading

Happy Banned-Books Week…

This image depicts the most banned books from public libraries and schools in America today.

ALL of those works were mandatory reading and book reports in early 1960’s. ~ Robert E. Lipscomb

“Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator. Funerals are unhappy and pagan? Eliminate them, too. Five minutes after a person is dead he’s on his way to the Big Flue, the Incinerators serviced by helicopters all over the country. Ten minutes after death a man’s a speck of black dust. Let’s not quibble over individuals with memoriams. Forget them. Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean.” – Ray Bradbury

Cultural Marxism In The Classroom ~ it ain’t new folks!

This is not a new subject for me. I have written about it for several years now. I guess I keep writing about it because so few people seem to get the message. When it comes to Marxism in the public school classroom people just don’t want to hear about that–and so they tune it out, pretend it doesn’t exist. That way they don’t have to do anything except ignore it and maybe it will go away. It hasn’t and it won’t and you are heaping “coals of fire” upon your children’s heads if you can do something to get your kids out of that situation and you don’t bother.

I just read an article by John Eidson about what cultural Marxism is doing to public schools in this country. Mr. Eidson states, quite accurately that “Cultural Marxism is the gradual process of grinding down western democracies by subverting the pillars of their culture, the structures and institutions of family, religion, education, politics, law, the arts and the media, as they provide the social cohesion necessary for a functioning society. Continue reading

Challenge: That which MUST be said…

Good day to you all. My name is Jeffrey Bennett and I am the Editor and Publisher of this site and several others. What the other sites are and what they deal with is of no matter as relates to this post – however, what you are about to read and review MUST be viewed and what is stated – MUST be said.

For some months now, I have been receiving several emails a week from “Education Week” – a post that I have come to looking forward to receiving – until September 24, 2020 – the one you will soon be able to look over (snapshot images). I do this, so that you will also understand my response to the publishers of their web-site. It is harsh – but I felt that it had to be said. Continue reading

How would you define slavery?

To me slavery is the loss of freedom; when my life; my property; and my rights can be taken from me without my consent based upon the whim and caprice of others. If there is nothing that I can call my own, then I am, in fact, a slave.

Your government can, and does, tax you to its heart’s content. It may allow you to keep a portion of your earnings, but if it raised the income tax rate to 90%, 100%, what could you do to stop them from taking every penny you earned. Government can seize your property through liens and eminent domain; and there’s not much you can do about it. Government can also take your rights; as it has through all the gun control laws, and the laws and programs enacted to fight drugs; terror; crime; and any other social injustice. Continue reading

H.L. Mencken Quotes on Government, Democracy, and Politicians

Today (September 12th) is H.L. Mencken’s birthday. The “Sage of Baltimore” (pictured above) was born in 1880 and is regarded by many as one of the most influential American journalists, essayists, and writers of the early 20th century. To recognize the great political writer on his birthday, here are 12 of my favorite Mencken quotes: Continue reading

Homeschool or Traditional?: The Teacher Speaks!

First, let me explain my qualifications for answering this question. I am a fully certified teacher in two states. I have credentials for teaching K-6 general education and K-12 special education. I have a BA in special education and a Master’s in Learning and Technology. I am currently a 6th-grade teacher in a public charter school and teach leadership and STEM. But my most important qualification for answering this question is that I homeschooled my own children for 24 years. (I did not teach outside of that during those years, but I did start a private cottage school and ran that for 7 of those years). You want to know why your grandson gets finished with assignments in such a short amount of time. It does not take as long in homeschool with 1 on 1 learning. There is no better learning situation than 1 on 1. You do not have interruptions like you do in a classroom. We were always finished with our core academic schoolwork at home in about 1.5 – 3 hours depending on the subject. Keep in mind, I have twins with autism as well (which is why I had the cottage school) and my other two sons had/have dyslexia. Continue reading

The Problem With White Parents?

When kids are pulled from failing schools, leftists blame the parents of white students.

For most parents, the 2019-20 school year was turned completely upside down and inside out thanks to the coronavirus-induced closure of school buildings. Millions of parents who were suddenly out of work themselves gained the added experience of shepherding their children through weeks of virtual school, with teachers doing their best to educate via computer. For some students, it was a welcome distraction they could handle, but for others it detracted from the hands-on classroom experience. Continue reading

Socialism in Education

It would be virtually impossible to find a better example of socialism here in the United States than the public schooling systems that exist in every U.S. state. Ironically, it is this socialist system that is primarily responsible for the widespread belief among non-libertarians that “the United States has never been a socialist country,” as New York Times columnist Timothy Egan stated in a recent NYT op-ed. (See my two recent articles “A Life of the Lie on Socialism” and “Socialism in America, 31 Years Ago.”)

It is worth noting that public schooling is a core feature of the educational systems in Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam, all three of which are widely known as socialist countries. That’s because public schooling is a socialist system. Continue reading

Russian government recommended banning Wi-Fi and cell phones in primary schools

 

On July 17th, 2020, the Russian Ministry of Health published recommendations to schools to ban the use of Wi-Fi and cell phones in elementary schools. The Medical Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, prepared the recommendations together with the Russian Ministry of Health. Continue reading

Hand-In-Hand: Bad Programs, Wasted Money, and Our Government

Ronald Reagan once famously said, “I think you all know that I’ve always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

That baseball team of words should continue to terrify us.

When we look at government failures in the last 50 years, the list goes on and on. Remember the war on drugs? How’d we do on that one? Or consider child support for unwed mothers. Has that policy enhanced family life or damaged it across the board? The U.S. Department of Education is surely helpful. Yet are our children better educated today than they were in 1980? Continue reading