Soon after the horrific bombing of the World Trade Center, I happened upon a television production of the history of Islam presented by PBS, an American public broadcaster and television program distributor, self-declared as “America’s largest classroom.” This trusted provider of television programming reaches 350 member-television stations, educational institutions, non-profit groups tied to public schools, college educational institutions, and state-government-owned or -related entities. The narrator of the History of Islam, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, was already recognized for his outrageous proposal to establish a triumphal rabat-style mosque on Ground Zero. He’d hoped to name it Córdoba to echo Islam’s conquest of Spain in 711 AD. Continue reading →

A federal judge has concluded that the Constitution doesn’t require schools to promote students’ literacy.

Students walk outside Detroit’s Pershing High, which isn’t one of the institutions named in the suit but was identified as one of the city’s lowest-performing schools (CARLOS OSORIO / AP)

What to do when a school is infested with vermin, when textbooks are outdated, when students can’t even read? Perhaps the answer is sue the government.

That’s what seven students in Detroit have done. Their class-action suit filed against the state of Michigan asserts that education is a basic right, and that they have been denied it. Continue reading →

America’s public schools are getting worse, and part of the reason why is that they have taken on too much responsibility

This point was made by the famous historian Jacques Barzun in his preface to his 1983 book Teacher in America:

“There [in public schools], instead of initiatives to develop native intelligence and give it good techniques in the basic arts of man, we professed to make ideal citizens, supertolerant neighbors, agents of world peace, and happy family folk, at once sexually adept and flawless drivers of cars. In the upshot, a working system has been brought to a state of impotence.”

To summarize, Barzun is saying that schools have historically existed to teach students the basic intellectual skills – reading, writing, and arithmetic – and to cultivate their intelligence. Continue reading →

Our heritage of foreign intervention is a new one, an innovation introduced by the progressives. To imagine a clean and humane progressivism is, simply – a fool’s errand. There is no such thing as a non-racist and non-imperialist progressivism… Continue reading →

When a federal court dismissed on June 29 the class-action lawsuit claiming the State of Michigan had deprived Detroit public schoolchildren of “their right to literacy,” the left was all set to react in faux shock. The court’s key finding hardly came as news to most of us, but the headlines in the New York Times sounded as if someone had denied climate change: “Access to Literacy’ Is Not a Constitutional Right, Judge in Detroit Rules.”

These days, when everything progressives want government to provide free is defined as a “right,” i.e., healthcare, housing, a guaranteed income, American citizenship for illegal aliens, etc., etc., it stands to reason that literacy may as well be thrown in there, too. Continue reading →

Improving outcomes in public education is a hot-button topic…

With schools failing, graduation rates falling, and ever-climbing incidences of teacher turnover, it is clear that something has gone wrong in education in America. What remains less clear is the solution. Continue reading →

These people are indicative of the infantilization of the American adult.

It seems like every week there’s a new Permit Patty (a grown woman who called the police on an eight-year-old selling water without a permit), BBQ Becky (another grown woman who called the police on a man BBQing without a permit), or someone who calls the police on a lemonade stand.

Beyond being an irritant and filling society with busybodies of the worst type  – who calls the police on kids?—these people are indicative of something deeper. These people are indicative of the infantilization of the American adult. Continue reading →

Freedom – Liberty – Really???

In the Beginning – The Declaration

The greatest threat to the freedom of the American people is lack of knowledge about their own land of states in union. The necessary knowledge is, in part, understanding how it is, but, more importantly, how it is supposed to be.

Although most have no idea whatsoever of what I am alluding to, ‘how it is’ verses ‘how it is supposed to be’, are worlds apart. I hope to make clear, such ignorance fits right in with the goals of those that are working diligently to destroy America and all it stands for. Or, maybe I should say, “once stood for.” Continue reading →

Several recent studies have revealed the increased number of public school and college students who are experiencing various forms of mental illness, such as depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, and others.

A Wall Street Journal report claims as many as 25 percent in elite colleges are thus classified, and require accommodations for exam taking, seating preference, quiet private rooms, and comfort animals. Steve Schlozman and Eliza Abdu-Glass, authors of The College Mental Health Crisis: Focus on Suicide, disclosed the thousands of suicides on college campuses each year, about two to three every day. Their emphasis is on students’ inadequate counseling, but we should ask why this generation, specifically, is so unstable and why the obvious signs have been ignored. Continue reading →

Let’s see if we all understand this one. The kids must pass EOG testing that allegedly demonstrates competence in order to move on to the next grade level. Teachers in Michigan have no such requirement to demonstrate competence. “It allows programs to admit people who are wholly unqualified, and who will never be able to pass the subject matter exams.” And yet, if you pay taxes in America, these people are on your payroll. Is it deliberate, or are these people just incompetent? To save America we must save one child at a time. You are going to have to get involved in the education of your children. ~ Rosemary Stein, MD

Principals in the Detroit Public Schools Community District interview candidates for art and music teaching jobs during a recruiting fair Wednesday, June 27, at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. (Photo Lori Higgins)

Prospective Michigan teachers won’t have to take the SAT anymore to be certified in Michigan, a move that might help attract more teachers to the profession and help districts struggling with classroom vacancies. Continue reading →

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name will be removed from a major literary award over how the author of “Little House on the Prairie” depicted minorities in her in books.

The decision to nix her name on the award, changing it from the “Laura Ingalls Wilder Award” to the “Children’s Literature Legacy Award” comes after a unanimous vote by the Association of Library Service to Children’s board. That decision was met with a “standing ovation by the audience in attendance,” the group reported.

“This decision was made in consideration of the fact that Wilder’s legacy, as represented by her body of work, includes expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with ALSC’s core values of inclusiveness, integrity and respect, and responsiveness,” the Association for Library Service to Children said in a statement after the vote. Continue reading →

A school teacher has recently been fired because he refused to call students by the name they prefer rather than their given names.

No, it wasn’t a case of Robert wanting to be called Bob, or Juliet wanting to be called Julie. That would have been simple. But it seems life in the public school system never is these days, even in a State like Indiana, which isn’t exactly considered as a hot-bed of leftism. Continue reading →

Approximately 1,000 D.C. Public Schools teachers do not have a D.C. teaching license, according to a yearlong investigation by the News4 I-Team.

An I-Team analysis of databases obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from D.C. Public Schools and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) show approximately one of every four D.C. Public Schools teachers worked without licensure during the 2017-18 school year. Continue reading →

Everything we taught as children is a lie. Well, maybe not everything, but at least these eight things.

If you hold your face like that, it’ll get stuck that way.

At least, that’s what your elementary school teacher probably told you. (Also, why were you pulling so many goofy faces when you were supposed to be focusing on the math lesson?)

As an adult, of course, you see how ridiculous that claim turned out to be—unless you’re one of the few people whose faces did stay that way, in which case we are sorry, and recommend medical attention…. Continue reading →

Parents, only YOU can set your children free from classroom indoctrination

When little school kids talk about what they are learning in class, it’s no longer about anything to do concerning the ‘Three Rs’, it’s about the Politics of Inclusion, which they learn through indoctrination.

Self-acclaimed Patron Saint of Tolerance and Diversity Jessi Cruickshank leads children in this CBC video in a “rah!” “rah!” for Happy Pride Month, which according to Cruickshank, viewers “loved”. Continue reading →

Institutional Racism: Children in the Edina School District in Edina, Minnesota are introduced to the concept of “white privilege” in their classes, the Weekly Standard reported.

In particular, Kindergartners must take part in something called the Melanin Project in order to be taught about social justice and white privilege.

During the course of instruction, students are asked to draw an outline of their hand and then color them to reflect their skin tone.

Cut-outs of the traced hands are then put on a poster with these words: “Stop thinking your skin color is better than everyone elses!-(sic) Everyone is special!” Continue reading →

“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.” ~ Jacques Barzun

Reflections from one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century.

Jacques Barzun (1907-2012) was one of the preeminent historians of the 20th century. Valedictorian of the 1920 class at Columbia, where he also received his Ph.D., Barzun wrote extensively on culture and education while serving in professorial and leadership roles at Cambridge and Columbia. His magnum opus, From Dawn to Decadence (2000), which traces the history of Western culture from 1500 to 2000, is required reading for anyone serious about understanding Western history. Continue reading →

A great discussion on Stefan Molyneux’s channel, when a teacher called in and discussed the remnants of the US education system. It is worse than any of us thought. And it is perfectly legal. From the kid that shows up with a gun or knife and isn’t kicked out of school or sent to a mental institution to the local school board counting bodies as a way to increase their revenue stream to the mothers that want their child to be declared autistic so the single mother can continue to get welfare (for life) to take care of her autistic child (as SSI disability for the kid also provides benefits to the mother as a caregiver, all part of the scam). It’s lunacy and it is not going to end well.

In his 1984 book about American education, Samuel Blumenfeld pointed out that “[n]othing has mystified Americans more than the massive decline of literacy in the United States. Children spend more time at school and the government spends more money on education than ever before. Yet, reading ability keeps declining. What has gone wrong?”

You have probably heard this lament. But here’s where it becomes really alarming. Blumenfeld looked back seven decades to the year 1915. That’s when the literacy figures for 1910 were published by the U.S. Bureau of Education and quoted in a weekly publication, School and Society, edited by James McCain Cattelll, one of the luminaries in the Progressive education movement. School and Society stated that: Continue reading →