THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume V, Issue # 110, April 14, 2003
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
PROBLEMS AFFLICTING AMERICA'S SCHOOLS & FAILED EDUCATION REFORMS
By Tom DeWeese
Sometimes, a single incident can reveal the widespread rot that has affected the nation's school systems, as they strive to indoctrinate the children and youth entrusted to their care and as they simultaneously neglect to teach pupils the Three Rs.
In Inverness, Florida, a 12-year-old boy was handcuffed, arrested, and taken in a patrol car to jail, where he was held for two hours. His crime? You aren't going to believe it! Kyle Fredrikson was walking back to class from lunch when Deputy Tim Langer saw the boy "purposely stomping in the water" after being told numerous times by school per- sonnel to stay with the group and out of the rain. Little boys like to stomp on puddles. They always have and always will.
He didn't comply, and Officer Langer took the sixth-grader to a school office where he was handcuffed and taken to jail. Kyle was charged with disruption of an educational in- stitution, a misdemeanor. After sitting for two hours by himself in a police holding room, the police released the boy to his mother and grandmother.
His parents were understandably outraged. His father said: "The inmates had access to him. Can you imagine that for stomping in a mud puddle?" Lt. James Martone, who oversees the school resource officer program, said Langer made a proper arrest. "He did his job," Martone said. "It's a fine line any officer in the schools walks."
Why was it a good arrest? Why do these things happen to children today, when earlier generations of children never faced such lunacy? The answer is that the school "curric- ulum" today is 100 percent behavior modification, not academics. Kyle was being a little boy, expressing his individuality and his indifference to overzealous authority. In today's educational environment, both are affronts to the "system" and must be dealt with quickly and severely. To the system, students are intended to be properly trained human resources. In the world of education today, there are no children anymore.
An item from the Education Reporter reveals how, under the Socialist concept of Sus- tainable Development, schools are being restructured to enforce "cradle-to-grave, life-long learning." Preschool, formally known as kindergarten, is becoming mandatory. Parents are told it gives children a head start, but it only gives schools a head start in their mission to indoctrinate them. It gives the school the priority of determining the children's values.
Retired educator and former Fulbright scholar Margaret Brogley, who spent nearly 40 years in the classroom, says public education is failing because of the methods and ma- terials used, not because there aren't enough toddlers enrolled in preschool.
Mrs. Brogley noted that, over the past 40 years, education has been dumbed down, from fuzzy math to the dearth of phonics reading instruction to the inability of many students to use cursive handwriting. "For 50 years, we have heard of the necessity to improve education," she wrote to Arkansas state education leaders, "How long will it take? Every time the 'experts' fix the situation, it becomes worse. Now the child is to learn to read by the 4th grade. Why so long? I am no genius, but I learned to read before the first year was over."
Brogley asked rhetorically: "Will education be improved (by enrolling young children in pre-school)?" Then she answered her own question: "No, but it will cost billions of dol- lars. Adding more school years to a child's life will accomplish nothing."
With preschool showing poor results, it should come as no surprise that the more than one billion dollars a year of federal aid for after-school programs in 7,500 public schools nationwide has not helped most children academically, according to a federally funded study.
The report, "When Schools Stay Open Late," conducted by Mathematica Policy Re- search, Inc., said children who attend after-school activities at public elementary and middle schools are more likely to encounter bullies, vandals, thieves, and drug users than those who do not. The after-school centers, says the report, have limited influence on academic performance, no influence on feelings of safety or on the number of "latch-key children; and some negative influence on behavior. Middle school partici- pants are "more likely to report that they had sold drugs and were somewhat more likely to report that they smoked marijuana."
From being arrested for stomping on a rain puddle to the ineffectiveness of both pre- school and after-school programs, and everything in between, the failure of America's public schools continues to demonstrate how thoroughly trashed our educational systems have been in the past half century of "reform." The reform that is necessary now is the return of control to local school boards, the reduction of the control that teachers' unions exercise, and an end to the disastrous federal involvement in our educational systems.
It has been several decades since a government study revealed the failure of the public schools and nothing has changed, except for the worse. A new American Revolution is needed to take our schools back from those who have been deliberately dumbing down our students. We need real teachers in our classrooms, not "facilitators." We need a re- newed emphasis on the basics, not the judgement-neutral curriculum that is more con- cerned with "self-esteem" than teaching children anything.
More on Education & America's Schools
A Practical Guide to Homeschooling
Tom DeWeese is Publisher and Editor of THE DEWEESE REPORT and President of the American Policy Center, a
grassroots, activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, Virginia. The Center maintains an Internet site at
www.americanpolicy.org. USPS Mailing Address: American Policy Center, 98 Alexandria Pike (Suite 43), Warrenton, VA,
20186. Telephone: (540) 341-8911.
Copyright 2003 Tom DeWeese
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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