In 1930, 3 million American adults could not read. Most of those 1 million white illiterates and 2 million black illiterates were people over age fifty who had never been to school. (Regna Lee Wood)

In 2003, 30 million American adults could not read. Most had been to school for many years. (70% of prison inmates could not read; 19% of high school graduates could not read) (Illiteracy Statistics)

In 2003, The U.S. Department of Education’s National Institute of Literacy completed a National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) and concluded: Continue reading →

Learning doesn’t have to stop when the school bell rings. Some of the best learning takes place outside of the classroom. So, if your child is struggling with a particular subject, or if you want to expand their knowledge beyond what they’re learning in class, you can do so without spending a lot of money or signing up for extracurricular activities. Continue reading →

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze

Tyranny will not topple America – not on my watch, and not on yours. We will stay together as George Washington and his worn-out soldiers did 246 years ago on Christmas Day in 1776 when they set out across the frozen Delaware River to fight for freedom. Victory or death were the options that lay ahead for them on that frigid winter day. Continue reading →

When Frances E. Anderson saw the latest math scores for America’s fourth- and eighth-graders, she was hardly surprised that they had dropped. Until recently – including the period of remote instruction during the pandemic – Anderson taught high school math to students at all levels.“ Now she is a researcher seeking to change how people understand children’s math ability. In the following Q&A, Anderson explains what makes some kids “good” at math and what it will take to catch up those who have fallen behind.
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A long long time ago, I can still remember…
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died…

Most fairy tales begin with the following words; ‘Once upon a time…’ or ‘A long, long time ago…’ Even Hollywood has followed in that tradition, with movies like Star Wars beginning with the screen crawl that reads, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far away…” Although this tale does not begin in the outer reaches of the galaxy, it does begin a long time ago; in 1776 to be exact. Continue reading →

“All the time – such is the tragi-comedy of our situationwe continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible… In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise.. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” ~ C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

There will come a time in the not-so-distant future when the very act of thinking for ourselves is not just outlawed but unthinkable. Continue reading →

Now a SEVENTH company warns it’s running out of ADHD drug after sales rocketed during COVID

WARNING: The purpose of this post – is NOT to promote Adderall or any drug at all – but there were reasons that these drugs were given to our students as far back as the 1960’s. Back in those days, students were beginning to be labelled for not showing enough interest in what and how edjoocachun was being conducted… many students were showing signs of boredom and hence were being labelled as ADHD – Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Back in the day – schools were being awarded funding of about $450.00 per month – PER student – to label students as such – and the public school system was then able to hire “Special” counselors to deal with those type children. Do you believe that things have changed in America?

In my case, I became so ‘bored’ that by the end of the third week of my Senior year of High School – I walked out and chose to join the military. WHY? Because – yes – I had become so bored with the early days of the baby-sitting mentality. It was becoming ‘mind-control‘ and there was no longer a challenge in the form that many of my mentor’s had spent so many years teaching us. Mrs. King, Mrs. Otis (she was HOT) – and my main mentor – the teacher whom this site has been dedicated to – Donald Adair.

If the system is trying to con your students into more drugs – get them OUT – NOW! ~ Jeffrey Bennett, Editor
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Why teachers give up on struggling students who don’t do their homework

Exhausted and tired female student studying outdoor.

Whenever “Gina,” a fifth grader at a suburban public school on the East Coast, did her math homework, she never had to worry about whether she could get help from her mom.

“I help her a lot with homework,” Gina’s mother, a married, mid-level manager for a health care company, explained to us during an interview for a study we did about how teachers view students who complete their homework versus those who do not. Continue reading →

Is a controversial curriculum, entrenched in New York City’s public schools for two decades, finally coming undone?

Illustration by Kiel Danger Mutschelknaus

In the first spring of the pandemic, as families across the country were acclimating to remote learning and countless other upheavals, I sat down on the living-room sofa with my daughter, who was in kindergarten, to go over a daily item on her academic schedule called Reading Workshop. She had selected a beginner-level book about the alliterative habitués of a back-yard garden: birds and butterflies, cats and caterpillars. Her decoding skills, at that stage, were limited to the starting letter of each word, and all else was hurried guesswork – pointing at “butterfly,” she might ask, “Bird?” and start to turn the page. I coaxed her to look at how the letters worked together, to sound them out, starting by taking apart the first few phonemes: bh-uh-tih, butt. She didn’t appear to be familiar with this approach. She seemed to find it frankly outrageous. Continue reading →