The Mayflower left Plymouth England on September 6 1620. Sixty-six days later it arrived five hundred miles off course. Half the passengers were dead by spring. The fifty-three who survived built Plymouth Colony — and four hundred years of descendants later their surnames are hiding in more American family trees than anyone realizes.
This video covers fifteen of those surnames and the stories behind them most Americans have never heard. Continue reading
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
Public education in the United States began taking shape in the 19th century, especially during the Common School Movement led by Horace Mann. His goal wasn’t to avoid education – it was to expand it. At the time, schooling was inconsistent, often private, and inaccessible to many families. Public schools were created to provide free, basic education to all children, regardless of social class. Continue reading
Across the country, teachers are sounding the alarm about a new kind of gap in the classroom: kids who can code on a tablet but cannot tie their shoes, write a legible sentence, or remember their own phone number. The viral stories are piling up, and so is the parental anxiety, as families realize these “basic” skills are not guaranteed anymore. Underneath the panic is a harder question, though, about what schools and homes are actually prioritizing in 2026. Continue reading
Students attending American public schools are struggling. Test scores from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), released this year, indicate that 33% of 8th graders – a greater percentage than ever before – are reading at the “below basic” level.
Additionally, only 22% of high school seniors are proficient or above in math, down from 24% in 2019, and only 35% are proficient in reading – the lowest score since NAEP began in 1969 – down from 37% in 2019. Also, a record-high percentage scored at “below basic” levels in both math and reading compared to all previous assessments.
Parents across the country, especially in big cities, have become aware of the problem and are removing their children. Continue reading
Everything we learned was relevant. I learned how to type on an old school typewriter – by touch – and trained for speed. Carryover… I can type 100 words/minute on my iPad and laptop. This has served me well as technology has evolved. ~ Kelley Havens
Seeing how bad students perform today as a conglomerate, as a boomer, I am dismayed at how studies like math are taught today. Thank goodness My fifth grade teacher taught us mental math, and it’s sad to see a young cashier today manually try to give change when you give $3.27 for a $3.22 charge. Over reliance on technology is not a valid substitute for knowing how to do something and understand what is being done. Computers lead many today with a nose ring. ~ Rick Camacho
A Connecticut student who can’t read or write earned a diploma and attends university, while Oregon suspends literacy graduation requirements through 2028.A few weeks before high school graduation, Aleysha Ortiz had some stern words for Hartford Board of Education members at their meeting in Hartford, Connecticut on May 7, 2024.
“I felt like they didn’t care about my future,” she said, referring to her school. “I truly believe that you do not value me as a student and as a human being and that you do not care about my education.”
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The cover of the 1992 print of “Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus” by Francis Pharcellus Church.
One of the most beloved Christmas stories traces its origins to a picturesque street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side neighborhood. The brownstone and brick rowhouse at 115 W. 95th St. was the childhood home of Virginia O’Hanlon, the eponymous girl in the “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” 1897 editorial published by The Sun.
This editorial has become legendary; it’s the most republished editorial in American journalism. The text has entered the Christmas canon with families and communities rereading it as part of their annual celebratory tradition. Continue reading
Eighty-two percent of teachers say that the general state of public K-12 education has gotten worse over the past five years. This is according to a new Pew Research Center survey conducted in October and November of 2023. That’s not the only shocking statistic from the survey, either, which overall offers a grim statistical map of the fault lines fracturing our education system. However, these trends may offer some insight into how to fix our schools.
First, the teachers. Most teachers (77 percent) find their job frequently stressful, and a large majority (70 percent) say their school is understaffed, which may contribute to the fact that over 80 percent of teachers say they do not have enough time in the work day to complete all necessary tasks. Continue reading
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
Red words Warning Gaslighting detected. Metaphor of emotional abuse. 3d illustration.
I’m talking about America’s Education, Propaganda, Indoctrination, and Gaslighting System. It’s what’s become of the public school system in America.
I’m using the slang for America – ‘Merka – to accentuate how we trivialize the importance of what we “used to was,” as my Cajun girlfriend often said. We’ve lost our appreciation for our once great republic. I keep writing to embolden and admonish you to find it again before we lose it forever.
The day we lose it is not too far in our future. ~ Boz…
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Of all the ailments afflicting our public schools, few are worse than the dumbing down of students. This casts a pall on the country’s future, and this ominous cloud is cast by design.
That’s why you can look at pretty much any state in the country, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress results are similar — and too often dismal.
The NAEP is a national test, taken by 4th, 8th, and 11th graders in all 50 states.
For those keen to improve our public schools, the general drift is unmistakable and not a little worrisome: About half the nation’s children are not at “grade level” in language and math. Continue reading
The scene in classrooms around the country is similar: Kids are on their phones, even when school rules forbid it
The School Boards and the individual schools continue to allow this. Too many parents “demand” that their children be allowed to keep the phones or else, “I can’t get hold of my child if I need them!” All the more reason to take charge and get your children OUT of the SYSTEM. ~ Editor
In California , a high school teacher complains that students watch Netflix on their phones during class. In Maryland, a chemistry teacher says students use gambling apps to place bets during the school day.
Around the country, educators say students routinely send Snapchat messages in class, listen to music and shop online, among countless other examples of how smartphones distract from teaching and learning. Continue reading
Republican lawmakers in Indiana are taking steps to ensure that kids who can’t read well don’t advance prematurely to the next grade.
The state’s literacy rates have been on the decline since the 2014-15 school year, with a six-point fall between the 2018-19 and 2020-21 school years. Micah Clark, director of the American Family Association in Indiana, says the COVID crisis “really highlighted how kids have fallen behind.” Continue reading
How well do you remember your school maths? (Getty Images)
For some people, school brings back blissful memories while for others it conjures up painful visions of obscure homework questions night after night. The good news is that those days are over – unless you now have children yourself who want help with their latest homework assignment, of course. Continue reading
Teenagers’ mathematics and reading skills are in an unprecedented decline across dozens of countries and COVID school closures are only partly to be blamed, the OECD said on Tuesday in its latest survey of global learning standards. Continue reading
One of the founders of Moms for Liberty is blaming the infiltration of critical theory into America’s classrooms for the existence of what she considers discriminatory and divisive disciplinary policies.
Public schools in Portland, Oregon, must take certain things into account when they discipline students. Portland Public Schools will now require staff to consider the race, gender identity, and sexual orientation when disciplining a student who gets in trouble.
Fox reports this policy is the result of a collective bargaining agreement between Portland Public Schools and its teachers. The policy says the superintendent or designee will review disciplinary disparities apparent by the race, gender, special education status, etc. Now, repeated disruptive behavior from a student will get addressed with a “support plan.” Continue reading
We moved to a good school district. The area was growing. Built for families like ours, all of the public schools in the area received “A” or “8/10” ratings. There were two very expensive and very fancy private schools in the area. It was an idyllic place to raise children.
In retrospect, we had a few frustrations with the public schools. Some of the curriculum seemed ridiculous, the math in particular. The apps used to communicate with the teachers were barely functional. It was somewhat difficult to track what the kids were learning, but the teachers had no complaints, so we didn’t make any either.
As the founder and CEO of As the founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools, I’ve spent decades working with parents and educating students from underserved communities. I am also a mom to three kids.
Many parents put a lot of focus into teaching their kids about cleaning their rooms, acting responsibly and doing homework. These things are important, but there’s one thing that many of us are completely forgetting about: HOW TO ENJOY LIFE!
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The American Federation of Teachers union boss shared an article on ‘What’s behind the increase in homeschooling’
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten got more than she asked for after she posted an article about the rise in homeschooling in America on social media Sunday.
“What’s behind the increase in homeschooling,” Weingarten posted on X along with an article with the same title from Axios, which included experts attributing the rise to kids needing specialized services and the pandemic.
Some X users, however, blamed Weingarten and the agenda the AFT has pushed for in education. Continue reading