Why we are still at Risk

We've mentioned a couple times the 1983 Federal Goverment report A Nation at Risk warned that education had deteriorated over the previous decades.

The report is the source of this famous quote:

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves."

The report also has another famous quote:

"Each generation of Americans has outstripped its parents in education, in literacy, and in economic attainment. For the first time in the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents."

Ronald A. Wolk explains: Why We’re Still ‘At Risk’: The Legacy of Five Faulty Assumptions:

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Our new president has looked into the abyss of our current economic, energy, environmental, and health-care policies and promises to challenge the fundamental assumptions on which they are based. He admonishes us to join him in thinking and acting boldly.
We can only hope he feels the same way about education policy.
After nearly 25 years of intensive effort, we have failed to fix our ailing public schools and stem the “rising tide of mediocrity” chronicled in 1983 in A Nation at Risk. This is mainly because the report misdiagnosed the problem, and because the major assumptions on which current education policy—and most reform efforts—have been based are either wrong or unrealistic.
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Ronald makes some good points.

I'm afraid that at least for the short term government schools will only get worse.

I'm glad that we have the option to homeschool.

(Hat tip: Reddit)


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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, government schools, public school, public education, education

A few thoughts on "Your Child's Strengths" by Jenifer Fox

I was flattered when asked to review an advance copy of Your Child's Strengths by Jenifer Fox. I have started reading it. I wanted to get up my first impressions so if any of our readers wanted to meet Jenifer, they could before her book tour is over.

Jenifer argues that public schools do a poor job of educating children, because they don't go with the children's strengths. In some ways this sounds like unschooling.

Jenifer says that if teachers would find out what children are interested in and encourage them to chase their bliss, the children was be more engaged. Jenifer says one of the problems with public schools is they focus on children's weaknesses. Children are stressed because both teachers and parents are constantly evaluating and pointing out where each child doesn't "measure" up.

Jenifer says that if children don't understand why a particular subject is important, then they will tune out. "When children are not engaged in learning, they stop paying attention." (p. 13) She says that public schools do not want students to be active learners. "The majority of high school classrooms require that student absorb rather than interact with the information provided by the teacher." (p. 18)

Jenifer wants the students to be in the driver's seat, or at least be able to help with the navigation. "Parents and teachers are often clear about what they expect from children's schooling, whereas children are rarely given the opportunity to state what they hope to get out of it." (p. 25)


There are many points in the book which I agree with. Jenifer writes about several problems with standardization versus the power of individual instruction. Ever since I read The Lioness' post about The Golden Quote it has been very clear to me one of the reasons why homeschooling is so powerful, one-on-one tutoring rockets children through learning while public school's factory approach is a slow boat to China.

There are a few areas in which I disagree with Jenifer. Jenifer does not like tests. I think tests have a place. It is important to have a rough idea if a child is mastering a subject. Tests provide a fairly quick way to get a handle on the progress of a child. I'll acknowledge that NCLB may have gone overboard in testing children to death, but we test our children. We want to have some objective measurements to verify our own evaluation of our daughter's progress.

Jenifer does not like A Nation at Risk. She believes it was harmful to the education process. She writes about the report: "Despite the lack of data or evidence proving that America was actually falling behind in the world economy, the commission nevertheless zeroed in on the following areas as ones demanding national public attention, ..." (p. 30)

I have a copy of the book. It is thin, 116 pages. There is little "data" in the book, but it does reference dozens of other reports. The main focus of A Nation at Risk is that there has been a significant decline in public education in the decades before 1983. It seems wrong to claim that because there was no data in the book, that there wasn't a problem.

I think it is reasonable to enter into a dialog with teenagers and give them some freedom to find there bliss. I see little benefit trying to explain to a seven year old why learning math is worth while and hoping she accepts my explanation.

I'm not sure about the overall claim of the book, that public school are capable of working with a child's strengths. I am concerned that the bureaucratic organization we call public school is not capable of treating each child as an individual, all sixty million of them.

I'll continue to read the book and see if her approach has possibilities.


If you are interested in meeting Jenifer Fox go check out her Book Tour schedule. I think it would be interesting to hear her speak. (I did enjoy listen to Joanne Jacobs' when she did the kick off for her book Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School that Beat the Odds, here is my report on Joanne's kick off meeting.)


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Technorati tags: children, public school, public education, education

How Dads Participate in Homeschooling - Part 2

See Part 1 if you missed the first installment.


More of the ways Henry participates in Homeschooling:


2) Dad educates himself on educational and parenting issues.

Henry has built a personal library of books related to homeschooling, parenting, politics, and education. He gets recommendations from the Internet, friends or finds the books at the library. He continually has a stack of new books waiting to be read.

Because he is so well informed, Henry is not easily discouraged in our homeschooling pursuits. He is very clear on our objectives. Many parents are intimidated by other parents or school staff because of their ignorance of child development and educational issues. If every parent read even a few of these books, they could not be so easily manipulated.

Here are just a few of the books in our personal library:

The ABC of Homeschooling, Between Parent and Child, Deschooling Society, Education and the State, Education, Free and Compulsory, Family Matters, Grandchildren of Alcoholics, The Homeschool Revolution, Inside American Education, It Takes a Parent, Let My Children Go, Home Educated and Now Adult, A Nation at Risk, NEA, Trojan Horse in American Education, The Power of Positive Parenting, Public School Public Menace, School Figures, Teach Your Own, Three Steps to Stronger Families, The Well Trained Mind, and so forth.

These books represent only a portion of our library. (I got tired of typing and inserting links.) Henry takes notes on what he is reading and writes them on index cards or in the front cover of the book. Sometimes we buy more than one copy of a book because Henry is reluctant to lend his annotated copy.

Henry also reads books and discusses them with the kids. For example, he read the Richest Man in Babylon with the girls and they discussed money management.


A well-read father is a wonderful asset to homeschooling.


Check out Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5


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Related Tags: home education, homeschool, fathers, The ABC of Homeschooling, Between Parent and Child, Deschooling Society, Education and the State, Education, Free and Compulsory,, Family Matters, Grandchildren of Alcoholics, The Homeschool Revolution, Inside American Education, It Takes a Parent, Let My Children Go, Home Educated and Now Adult, A Nation at Risk, NEA, Trojan Horse in American Education, The Power of Positive Parenting, Public School Public Menace, School Figures, Teach Your Own, Three Steps to Stronger Families, The Well Trained Mind

USA Today reports that Teens losing touch with historical references

An alert reader sent me the URL to a recent USA Today article. Teens losing touch with historical references reports on a recent survey of public education in America. The survey of 1200 students found:

43% knew the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900.
52% could identify the theme of 1984.
51% knew that the controversy surrounding Sen. Joseph McCarthy focused on communism.

Half of those surveyed knew that Job from the Bible was known for his patience during suffering.

In 1983 the Federal Government released a report on the state of Education in America. A Nation at Risk warned that education had deteriorated over the previous decades. It had this famous quote:

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves."

This is another powerful quote:

"Each generation of Americans has outstripped its parents in education, in literacy, and in economic attainment. For the first time in the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents."

The survey mentioned in the USA Today article comes from a report released this week by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research investigates to see if there has been any progress in the last 25 years since the 1983 call to action. Still At Risk: What Students Don't Know, Even Now by Frederick M. Hess is a 24 page summary of the state of public education today and is also a call to action.

I don't have faith that the public schools, as they currently are structured, can be saved. Too many people have tried over the last five decades, and public schools have continued to decline.

Our alert reader said at the end of her email:

"I am SO glad I homeschool (my 7 year old knows who Job is)"

Janine and I echo this sentiment. We are very grateful we are able to homeschool our children.


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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, public school, public education, education

A heretical thought: Was Sputnik the beginning of the end?

October 4th was the 50th anniversary of Sputnik. In 1957 the Soviet Union was the first nation to put a satellite into orbit. This exciting event caught the rest of the world by surprise.

At the time many in the United States claimed there was a need to respond, that the United States needed to prove they could do better and thus sprang the beginning of the effort to put a man on the moon. Another response was greater state and federal government interference in education. Like chicken littles, they said the sky was falling and justified dramatic and increasing changes in education.

Through the late 1800s and in the early 1900s the United States had one of the best education populations in the world. After Sputnik with a couple decades of intense Federal Government programs a study in 1983 reported the dismal state of education in A Nation At Risk. The report had this quote:"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves."

I believe that all the government intervention in education over the last 50 years has only made things worse. We didn’t allow the change in education; the government implemented the programs which led to a horrible decline.

Homeschooling allows parents to raise the bar and give their children a quality education. They can avoid a mediocre education. Studies have borne out the results. As a group, children who have been homeschooled have a much better education. We can avoid the many problems with public schools.

Homeschooling has many advantages. Parents are able to move at a pace the child can handle. Children are much more engaged in the learning process. Families spend more time together. The list goes on.

Maybe instead of celebrating the launching of Sputnik, we should be mourning the decline of education in America. Just a thought.


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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education

Interview: Beverly K. Eakman - author

Below is an interview with Beverly K. Eakman done via email. I think the first time I read anything by Beverly was when I came across her columns at NewsWithViews.com. I've noticed a number of people mention her in the same breath as John Taylor Gatto or John Holt. After doing this interview I can see why, she is an articulate critic of public schools.

I hope you enjoy the interview.

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Brief bio:

Beverly Eakman taught in public schools for nine years, starting in 1968. She was a Science Editor and Writer at NASA. At NASA she wrote a technical piece, "David, the Bubble Baby," which was picked up by popular press and turned into a movie starring John Travolta. Beverly has worked as a chief speech writer at a number of national and governmental organizations, including the National Council for Better Education. She has written several books, including Cloning of the American Mind: Eradicating Morality Through Education . For more information about Beverly, check out her web site: BEV EAKMAN.

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Q & A’s for Homeschool Interview Responses
© 2006 Beverly K. Eakman


PERSONAL QUESTIONS

Tell us about yourself. Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like?

I grew up in Washington, D.C.—one of the few natives of the Nation’s Capital. I had a lot to live up to as the daughter of two exceptionally gifted parents. My mother was a renowned musician, drop-dead gorgeous, with an IQ off-the-scale. My father was a child prodigy who toured the world at the tender age of 5, classically skilled with the violin—which is how I wound up born in Washington, D.C. By 1945, he was concert master of the National Symphony Orchestra. My maternal grandfather was so brilliant in engineering and language that he was sent behind enemy lines for both the U.S. and Britain to do intelligence-gathering during World War II under the cover of civil engineering. He wasn’t aware of his gift for languages until the government discovered that he could master practically any language, nuances and all—German, French, Farsi—it didn’t matter.

By contrast, if the term “hyperactive” had been in vogue during my youth in the 1950s, I’d have found my niche. But … I was born too soon. Too soon to be labeled with a code out of the nice little bible of psychiatric “diseases”—the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM), too soon for my misbehavior to earn a free pass as “a chemical imbalance in the brain.”

Happily, I had the luxury of maturing, altering my conduct, and even changing my opinions—the old-fashioned way. I didn’t have to worry about somebody accessing a computer file 20 years or so down the road and trudging up some label like Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder or Oppositional Defiant Disorder. I didn’t have to consider the possibility that I might be rejected by a coveted university, or worse, lose out on a career choice, based on a coded label I’d acquired for one of these “disorders” in the 4th grade.

Like the irrepressible cartoon character, Calvin, I fantasized glorious deeds and made myself the hero. The worst of the lot, I suppose, was “The Medical School.” The polio scare was all over the news in those days and a vaccine, hopefully, was on the way. And I had one of those Playskool doctor’s kits. Remember those?

Well, I replaced the make-believe plastic syringe needles—which looked rather puny, I thought—with Mother’s hatpins and threatened to inoculate the 3rd-graders with a mixture of Vicks Vaporub and salt water, until some spoilsport called my mother.

Then there was the classmate who handed me a pair of scissors and dared me to cut a slit in her dress. Well, you can imagine who got in trouble for that one! Stupid me, I fell for it. Now, if we’d just had school psychiatrists, they would have told Mother that I “failed to pick up on social cues”—a marker associated with mild autistic behavior—and I’d have been “home free.”

Unfortunately, I inherited none of my parents’ talents, not even an ear for music, much less the prerequisite coordination. When knee-socks were in style, mine could be found down around my ankles. I was the kid who spent hours dressing up to go somewhere, only to discover a strand of spinach lodged between my front teeth half-way through the evening.

Today, I would be a sure bet for Special Education. But my mother, fortunately, got into a conversation with a neighbor who was the principal of a public high school in 1949. He asked her where she was going to send me to school, and she replied that she hadn’t thought much about it, as I was only 3 at the time. He advised her to send me to a private school if she could, because the public schools, he said, were “becoming chaotic, uncontrollable and substandard.” He proved to be more correct than he knew.

Because my father was of foreign extraction (a naturalized US citizen from Argentina), she selected an international K-12 academy, Maret School, in downtown D.C. It was modeled on the old Swiss and French systems back when an international baccalaureate (IB) meant something. Today, an IB is wholly different. But back then, diplomats’ kids who went to Maret knew they were returning to somewhere in Europe and had to pass the thing. They only got three shots at it. The ones who didn’t make the grade would discover their options were limited to vocational school.

The foreign kids at Maret had no pictures at all in their textbooks, although we American students did have a few. Even so, we never knew whether our class would be in English or French (the international languages at the time). Our teachers were strict disciplinarians whom we called “mademoiselles” and “monsieurs.” Many of them had escaped to this country one step ahead of the Nazis, the Stasi, or worse. They valued the American heritage and way of life, while still retaining elements of their (and our) Western cultural heritage, which they passed along to us kids.

Unfortunately, the early 1960s brought a flood of former public school pupils into the private schools. That changed the values and character of private schools like Maret into a more liberal and lax (Americanized?) direction. The academics were still there, but the New Ethics and pop culture slowly made their way in.

What interests did you have?

I loved to write, especially poetry, from early on. I appreciated music and ballet, even though I wasn’t particularly good at either. Sports like ice skating and basketball were of interest, but I wasn’t good at these, either. I was more a spectator than a participant. I loved animals, especially dogs. I was interested in reading about medical breakthroughs, cryptography in World War II, archeology and geology and astronomy. An interest in politics, social issues, education and philosophy came much later.

CAREER QUESTIONS

You have had a wide and varied career. Why did you make the jump from a teacher to being a writer at NASA?

I was really a “natural” for the teaching profession. As a child, I was one of those quirky, pain-in-the-derrière kids who drive their elders nuts. But in 1974 I found myself disenchanted with the California classrooms and changed professions to technical writer. When we moved to Houston, I found an opening with a contractor for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. My husband was with the space program, and I had always been interested in subjects associated with that.

It was, in many ways, a dream job. I got to transcribe air-to-ground tapes for the Apollo and Apollo-Soyuz missions. I got to study courses I was really interested in and could talk to my husband about—crash courses in lunar geology, space medicine, chemistry, astronomy, astrophysics…. Later, as editor-in-chief of NASA’s newspaper, I got to do such things as cover Lunar Science conferences, write a research-policy tome on the potential of geosynchronous orbiting satellites as one solution to the world’s energy problems. I penned some of the first stories on Landsat—the now-well-known satellite-based earth-imagery satellite program. And then there was the proverbial human interest feature—“David, the Bubble Baby”—which changed my life.

In 1979, I was surprised with an offer of a teaching position in Houston’s Clear Lake district—home to many astronauts’ kids. This occurred shortly after the publication of my human interest piece, “David, the Bubble Boy”—the article that was turned into a film starring John Travolta. I was offered the debate team, creative writing and honors classes—all of which sounded a lot friendlier toward academics than what I’d endured in California. But I was wrong, and again left the profession in disgust.

In 1984, my husband’s company opened a branch in my old stomping ground, Washington, D.C. Suddenly more interested in public policy and social issues than I used to be, I decided to pursue an opportunity as a speechwriter. I was surprised again when I was tapped for speechwriter to the Chief Justice of the United States, the late Warren E. Burger, when he stepped down from the Court to head the Bicentennial Commission on the U.S. Constitution, and then again when I was hired away from the Commission to become speechwriter for the head of Voice of America.

But for some reason, the lure of education’s woes continued to beckon—this time from a public policy and political perspective. Clearly, all the things I predicted when I actually taught were now were being delivered in spades to the American people. Academics were in big trouble, as were the kids themselves.

How could something as straightforward as teaching a child to read go so wrong? When did schooling turn chaotic? Why were teachers spending so much time on surveys and social adjustment? Why was it that the more we made schools colorful and entertaining, the more the kids hated them? When did class discussions morph into political correctness? And how did juvenile misbehavior turn violent and criminal on such a massive scale?

Such questions eventually would overtake my real vocation. Like a dog with a bone, I couldn’t let it go. I penned three books, followed by countless articles, speaking engagements, talk shows, and interviews. All this forced me to return, mentally, to my college years, when I was first preparing for a career as a schoolteacher. Reconsidering some four years of teacher training and nine years actually teaching, I realized that our role hadn’t been the transmission of "basics," or literacy, or proficiency at anything, but rather the promotion of "mental health." Accountability, I learned, meant satisfying government mandates and bureaucrats, not answering to parents.

This, in turn, made me take a second look at my own grammar school years in Maret School. Suddenly, I understood that something massive was transpiring globally, that the schools were being used to institutionalize a political agenda.

How did your technical piece, "David, the Bubble Baby," gain national notice? Were you consulted on The Boy in the Plastic Bubble ? Did you meet John Travolta?

The “David, the Bubble Baby” feature was a fluke that proves the old adage about “life is what happens while you’re making other plans.” It was just one of many human interest features I had to do for NASA’s newspaper, which came out every two weeks. I decided one issue I’d do a piece on the NASA engineers who constructed a prototype space suit for an immune-deficient-born child—a sterile environment in which the boy could play and be more or less in contact with his family and other children.

I should mention here that Immune-Deficiency Syndrome (IDS) is not the same as Auto-Immune-Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) that is caused by the HIV virus. IDS is a very rare, but not unknown, condition, like being born without the capacity to feel pain. Most such children never survive infancy. But someone got a brainstorm that if the boy could just be kept alive long enough to reach adolescence, maybe a bone-marrow transplant would enable him them to recover on his own. Unfortunately, the bone-marrow transplant (at age 12, from his sister) failed, and the boy died.

Since that time, I have since become friends with Kelly Preston, John Travolta’s wife—a really lovely person, totally unassuming and genuine—as she speaks out with me, and others, against the psychologizing and drugging of America’s youth. Kelly and her husband didn’t want such methods applied to their own kids, and they recognized that the youngsters of actors and actresses are disproportionately targeted for psychobabble and prescription psychiatric drugs in the schools. They were outraged.

“David, the Bubble Baby,” however, had nothing to do with psychology, only with IDS and with the youngsters of NASA employees who tested out the suit. I did not have input into the actual film version of my story that starred John Travolta, nor have I actually met him. The story, of course, became the property of NASA, even though my name was on the byline. But it did earn me journalistic credentials and no doubt led to other offers of employment.

What did you do as writer-editor at the United States Department of Justice?

I wrote speeches for one of the program directors, then training manuals for the civil rights investigators. I answered and catalogued letters from the public, wrote up legal findings from attorneys’ notes—a hodge-podge of things. More importantly, I learned how to craft legal language, about how the criminal justice system works, and about how the government-grant and -solicitation processes. I learned how lawyers determine whether a prospective case was worth pursuing—i.e., has legal merit, or “standing.” I parsed this knowledge into complaints from parents about their schools.

The first time I remember hearing of you was when I came across some of your columns at NewsWithViews. I noticed you haven't written for several months. Have you stopped? Or are you just distracted?

All those years I spent researching my books and penning hard-cover pieces and columns—working weekends, evenings and holidays, and looking longingly out the window at my husband lounging on the chaise—I thought: “There will be other years for me to do that.” Well, I got to the point where I was overwhelmed, and I didn’t see any progress being made by conservatives on social, cultural or educational fronts. I got burned out. In re-organizing the various piles of research materials that had accrued—I try to do this every January—I experienced an epiphany, of sorts. It started, I think, with the passage of the New Freedom Initiative, a euphemistic phrase to describe a plan to do computerized, psychological profiles on every person in the nation, beginning with schoolchildren, a process which I exposed in my 1991 book, Educating for the New World Order. I looked around at all the clippings and research materials on the floor and realized that year after year, we were saying the same things, making the same complaints about the media, the schools, and so on. Worse, every new graduating class (both high school and college) was less able and less motivated than the last to read, to do comparative research, or to insist on the constitutional ideals that made us a great nation. Every new generation of parents is less able to transmit values to their youngsters and have adopted the feminist outlook of shoring up their own careers, egos, and so forth. Children have become virtual “trophies.” The population has bought into an entitlement mentality.
So, I basically stopped writing last February. I summed up my angst in a January 2006 column, Lost.

What are your plans for the future?

I am taking a long break from most things political and considering doing a novel based on my mother’s life—which was colorful, to say the least. It will be a research nightmare if I go through with it, requiring all my time, so I need to stop and smell the roses while I can.

PUBLIC EDUCATION QUESTIONS

Public education has greatly declined over the last fifty years, on many different levels, for example academics, safety, and the efforts to influence what children think. Do you see any bright lights in public education?

Between 1968-1975, standardized tests started looking more like opinion surveys than cognitive measures. Teachers like me were told essentially not to teach — not to put red marks on pupils' papers, not to say anything that could even be construed as a negative comment about a youngster's work, clothing, or speech.

Fewer and fewer prospective teachers pursue an academic major. They major in education, which translates to psychology—or, more specifically, social work. Even those few who do specialize in an academic subject, typically wind up "facilitating" some other area once they hit the classroom. A history teacher might teach science; a music teacher might cover math.

No, I see no “bright lights.” In comparative scores between nations, the U.S. continues its downward trend. As I am writing this, it is predicted that we will not have a skilled or educated enough work force in 20 years to remain competitive.

Over the years you have raised a number of concerns about public schools. When did you first start becoming concerned about public schools? And what were your initial issues?

The seeds of concerns about public schools were planted during my years as an education major in college. I realized my role was not to transmit basics, or literacy, or proficiency at anything, but to promote "mental health." Texas Tech University, where I decided to go, was out in the sticks: Hicksville USA—the last place in the world one would expect to find an essentially Marxist approach to teacher education. Most of my classmates were from tiny, backwoods towns, and yet they were eating up what their education professors were pitching. Of course, the professors were appealing in part to students’ budding urge to flee the nest and become their “own person,” just like professors did on other campuses around the nation that were actually rioting and demonstrating. At least there was none of that at Tech.

The majority of our course work consisted of what we called “ed psych”: education psychology, child psychology, adolescent psychology, and so on. I thought it strange that nobody really cared whether we had a grasp of any particular subject area.

My introduction to the new thinking first came in 1966 when this “psych” professor walked in, drew several concentric circles on the chalkboard, and announced: “The first thing you kids need to know is that there’s no such thing as common sense.” He tapped the Bull’s Eye. “That’s Ego,” he said. “That’s what’s important. These other circles represent things like religion, and family, home, and so on. All of that is peripheral. Ego is the center of the universe.”

Once in the classroom, I realized courses like logic, philosophy, rhetoric and chronological history, which once helped students get a handle on modern issues, had disappeared—both in high schools and at the college-graduate level. Nothing incorporated concepts about self-reliance, property rights, limited government (especially in the context of regulatory power), or the role of religion in society. In high schools, courses like physics, chemistry, calculus, and physiology started being reserved for those with very high IQ scores, who were then skimmed off the top for better things, or else they were rounded up to "mentor" slower students.

Then as a young teacher in California, I attended workshops by behavioral experts like William Glasser, who explained how children needed to be told their every accomplishment was wonderful, even when it wasn't. Other psychologists claimed the traditional approach to teaching and raising children was "creating a thousand neurotics for every one that psychiatrists can hope to help with psychotherapy."

Childrearing advice mirrored what was going on in the schools. Parents’ magazines of the mid-1960s suddenly were filled with articles by child “experts” advising moms and pops to lay off the discipline and give children their “space.” Remember that? Don’t snoop around in your youngster’s bedroom and closet. A child has a right to privacy, and so on.

This sort of thing had a predictable effect—youngsters totally out of control. Parents soon tired of being around their children, too, and by 1978, day care was big business. But when the fire hit the fan in the 1990s at Littleton, CO; then Springfield, OR; Paducah, KY; and Santee, CA, it was the parents who got blamed for not doing all those things the “experts” had lobbied against for some 35 years. By obliterating the lines between right and wrong and advising kids to “discover their own value system,” schools suddenly were awash in disciplinary problems never previously experienced, not even in the bad old days when pupils had to stoke the fire to heat up the classroom.

Yet, child “experts” today stick tenaciously to their misguided vision, calling the resulting atrocities “mental health issues” instead of moral issues.

Do you see any bright lights in public education?

What surprises me, I guess, is that public schools haven’t already imploded. I mean, what does it take? Of course, a huge number of caring parents have fled public schools and there are some great resources for them now that often are better, or at least as good, as options that expensive private schools offer.

Private schools have become more expensive because the demand for them has increased along with the bureaucracy and red tape required to launch one. Then there is the issue of vouchers, which again introduces federal dollars (and strings) into the equation. But now something remarkable is happening: Homeschooling parents, along with a few exclusive private schools and learning (tutorial) centers, are taking advantage of real scientific breakthroughs in learning. They’ve ditched the trendy, faddish stuff. For example the Bridgeway Academy Project—an online curriculum provider launched by Robert Salzman—offers a full K-12 curriculum, both CD- and paper-based. It’s accredited in all 50 states. The key is that Mr. Salzman took the trouble to determine exactly how a particular student processes information in the brain and then comes up with a method to teach the child.

I’ve been preaching for years that education problems could be solved in 15 years by thoroughly revamping teacher education in colleges and universities based on what we really know about learning. If we scuttle the psychobabble and the mush, and craft real diagnostic tests for entering schoolchildren, then rework the way we pair students with teachers, we could change the whole dynamic of schooling.

Excepting actual brain injuries and real diseases that cause retardation, only nine things can “go wrong,” as it were, in learning: spatial and abstract reasoning, visual identification, visual and auditory memory, perceptual speed, mental stamina, hand-eye coordination and thought-expression synchronization. Most people are weak in at least one of these areas.

These elements are not learning “styles”; they are make-or-break fundamentals. We’re approaching diagnostic testing as a mental illness, and that is completely wrong. Young pupils need to be paired with the teacher trained to handle a child’s weakest element, not his strongest. For example, if a student already excels at auditory memory, it’s a mistake to put him in an environment where the lessons hinge on oral presentation. He’s already good at that.

Education majors are not specializing in spatial reasoning or auditory memory or perceptual speed, etc., except in training programs aimed at tutors working in high-priced learning centers, places where wealthier parents send their floundering offspring. These folks know all about the make-or-break fundamentals because the first priority at a learning center is to establish a substructure of learning. Otherwise, the tutoring will fail and parents will not continue to pay for these centers.

So, yes, there is a way out. But the public school surely will not take it. The question is why our nation’s leaders are not taking advantage of what we already know about learning. I think part of it is political—the teachers’ unions, which are basically Marxist and have no interest in an educated populace. Another part is greed—politicians know that ignorant pupils become sitting-duck adults—easy marks for demagoguery, and perhaps votes. A third reason is that schooling has become intertwined with pop culture. “Everyone” sends a child to school—don’t they? And all of the hullabaloo like popularity, cliques, football and fluff that goes along with public schooling. Meanwhile we have school shootings, rapes, gangs and politically inspired curriculum—all part and parcel of today’s institutions.

In Cloning of the American Mind you focus on how the federal government is using public education to manipulate attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. The book was written in 1998. Has the federal government backed off since then, or is there more involvement in manipulating beliefs?

Since 1991, I have been chronicling how schools spend an inordinate amount of time pretending to “socialize” young people. In reality, they are trying to ensure a mass mentality toward socialism, not self-reliance—all of it covered in euphemisms about “mental health.” Here is a list of the New Ethics (a.k.a. “New Morality”) being transmitted in most schools today—via curriculum, questionnaires/surveys and even so-called academic tests:

· There is no right or wrong, only conditioned responses.
· The collective good is more important than the individual.
· Consensus is more important than principle.
· Flexibility is more important than accomplishment.
· Nothing is permanent except change.
· All ethics are situational.
· There are no perpetrators, only victims.

Parents today are not as shocked by the kinds of surveys and questions their kids are getting because they grew up in the world of Oprah and Geraldo and Rikki Lake and are accustomed to it. What none of the nation’s leaders who buy into this malarkey have stopped to consider is that what is politically correct today can change tomorrow. A national emergency like a massive earthquake, or traumatic event like 9/11 could send years of carefully advanced strategies for political correctness sprawling.

So now that youngsters are blowing away their classmates and teachers, the federal government comes along with this “New Freedom Initiative” (a.k.a. Universal Mental Health Screening Program), with incentives in every state to create state laws duplicating the federal initiative. Federal entities are able to “sell” such draconian programs because children are committing crimes unheard of in the 1940s and 50s, and parents increasingly are worried.

Today’s undereducated population hasn’t stopped to think that an allegation of mental illness is a conversation-stopper, a slippery slope filled with unintended consequences. Today the Gay Lobby, tomorrow the Skinheads. What kind of administration, in 20 years, will be determining who is “at risk” and who needs psychiatric “medication”? Don’t like it? Tough. A profiling mechanism is now in place, and the government is bragging about what it is doing instead of trying to hide it, as was the case pre-1998.

Meanwhile, schools continue to demonstrate more concern with psychological probing and “behavior modification” (“re-education”) efforts than anything else. Thus course “work” like conflict resolution, anti-bullying curricula, anxiety-and anger-management. Kids have class discussions with virtually no encouragement to find facts to support their views. They certainly are not advised to investigate all sides of an issue, especially any the teachers’ union might disagree with.

Statistics show that parents today mostly give up trying to transmit any values by the time their children reach the fourth grade because they see it is a losing proposition. Public schools don’t support traditional values; teachers have an anti-parent mentality; kids often leave school traumatized, drugged, ignorant, or all of the above.

What should parents do to fix public schools? What can parents do to protect their children from being brainwashed?

I think the public school is a lost cause at this point because it is so institutionalized and politicized. The only way parents can vote now is with their feet. Given the response to causes like immigration, I don’t see hundreds of thousands of parents descending upon Capitol Hill to protest the public school environment.

As for how to protect children from being brainwashed by the schools, that is a tall order, too. First and foremost, parents have to teach their children what kinds of topics are private. Kids pick up magazines like Seventeen and find all kinds of intimate survey questions, which they view as fun. They fill them out and mail them in. They have no idea what constitutes a “private” subject.

Topics like sexual positions and homosexuality are in a students’ face 24/7 from every conceivable entity, including the school. Special Education is billed as “remediation,” but in reality it is a peer-pressure-cooker with no remedial help in anything. So that leaves parents with the prospect of examining their children’s textbooks with a fine-tooth comb, doing lots of family things together (which schools discourage by heaping on the extracurricular activities), and generally undoing every single day the damage inflicted by 8 hours of public schooling. They might as well homeschool if they are going to do that.

HOMESCHOOLING QUESTIONS

You are very supportive of homeschooling. Do you have any concerns about homeschooling? What do you see as some of its strengths?

I am hopeful about homeschooling, providing parents are committed. But these same parents need to understand that the Powers That Be have ensured that if kids expect to get into the kinds of college that will lead to roles of leadership and influence they will have to at least appear to accept the New Ethics. These homeschooled youngsters will be faced with test questions and even oral, face-to-face interviews geared to sniff out any leanings toward traditional ethics or morality. They may find themselves with a nice letter that states, in effect, “Gee, your SAT scores and activities are very impressive and you seem so well-spoken and sociable. But the consensus of our staff is that you will be happier at another university or college.”

There is no way a student or a parent can argue with a letter like that.

This should not be surprising. A lady by the name of J.D. Hoye, a Clinton Administration appointee to the National School-to-Work office (Nov. 1994, and mentioned in my book, Cloning of the American Mind) gave an interview to Northwest Policy newsletter, in which she was asked how government would get certain values (under the rubric of “thinking skills”) out of kids who did NOT go to “state schools”—i.e., public schools. Hoye responded: “Most of these kids we’ve got through other agencies: …adult and family services, teen parent programs, corrections programs, and alternative learning [and recreational] programs…”

The primary strength of homeschooling is that no one is in a better position than the parent to know their children’s academic strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and to capitalize on those strengths while remediating the weaknesses. No one is in a better position that the parent to address the child’s character. Parents are in the best position to monitor their children’s friendships and recreation. Moreover, no one will care more than a parent, and no one, save the child himself, has a greater stake in the outcome.

Yes, homeschooling may mean that one or both parents have to give up some career goals for themselves, as well as TV time and vacations. But the alternative is a child with all kinds of emotional and social problems, expensive medications that don’t work and, in short, greater outlays than the whole homeschooling effort would have cost in the first place.

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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, education, Beverly K. Eakman, Beverly Eakman, public school, public education, David, the Bubble Baby, Bubble Boy, John Travolta, NewsWithViews

Links to interesting postings - 4 Feb 06

I enjoyed David Friedman's discussion about reasons for unschooling. David effectively challenges the assumption that there is a large core of knowledge that everyone has to learn, and that it takes 12 years to learn. David says that everyone does need to learn to read, write or type, and do simple arithmetic. But after learning those basic skills, it is reasonable for children to learn different things, in different sequences, at different rates. He makes the point that public schools dictate what children are taught, and when. The result is: "...children spend most of their time being told things they have no interest in knowing. "
(Hat tip: Chris O'Donnell of O'DonnellWeb.)


Izzy at The Homeschooling Revolution (Update 71) found an article in the Sunday Times which reports that 11-year-old children in the UK are two to three years behind children of the same age back twenty years ago. When I heard things like this I often think of:

"Each generation of Americans has outstripped its parents in education, in literacy, and in economic attainment. For the first time in the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents."

from A Nation at Risk, page 13, published 1984. It is sad to realize that there have been serious problems with public education for a long time, and things are not getting better.

My reponse to "Do Schools Quash Student's Enthusiasm for Learning?

One of the posts in this week’s Carnival of Education is by Scott McLeod who asks Do Schools Quash Students' Enthusiasm for Learning? I started to add a comment, but it became so long that I turned it into this post.

The way public schools are structured is after a factory model. The factory model means that teachers teach to the average student. Sometimes the students who already got it will be bored out of their skulls. And the students who didn’t get it will soon be lost. This means that the classroom setting is only fueling the fire some of the time. Some of the time a student’s love for learning is being starved or worse being doused.


Scott asks "What is it about our educational system that (dare I say it?) beats the academic enthusiasm out of our children?"

My answer is it is the very nature of public schools.

I graduated from high school with little love for learning. I knew it was something I had to do, but it wasn’t something I enjoyed doing. I headed off to a university and got a degree. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I was able to rekindle a love for learning, learning for the fun of it, not just because I was suppose to learn something for a teacher, or for a job.


There have been huge efforts over the last several decades to improve or reform education. Fifty years ago lots of intelligent people responded to “Why can’t Johnny Read?” Unfortunately things got worse.

A couple decades back the 1983 report, "A Nation At Risk" had this famous quote:

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves."

Again thousands of smart, dedicated people tried to fix the problems with public schools. But again, things got worse.

People keep trying to tweak public education so it will be better. It isn’t working. I don’t think it will really improve as it is currently structured. After millions, or maybe billions, of man hours invested in trying to fix public schools, maybe it is time to think out of the box and acknowledge that we need something fundamentally different. Maybe it is vouchers, maybe it is charter schools, maybe something else. But public schools haven’t changed their basic nature in a long time. Every year hundreds of thousands of children graduate from high school who are functionally illiterate.


Young children are naturally curious. At three to five one of their favorite questions is “Why?” They hit kindegarten and are told to be quiet. They have to wait. They are taught stuff they have little interest in, or even understanding of. As Scott painfully points out most children graduate from high school with little love for learning.

I don’t believe that public schools can nourish a love for learning. By the very nature of forcing children to learn with everyone else, each child’s fire is often being smothered.


This is one of the reasons my wife and I choose to home school. We wanted to feed the love of learning so our daughters would become life long learners.

I just now asked my three daughters about their attitude towards learning. My twelve year old said that she finds most subjects interesting, but she doesn’t enjoy grammar. My ten year old said she likes to learn. My six year old had to add that she recently cried because my wife wasn’t giving her another math worksheet. (The youngest likes to copy her older sisters.)

To keep things in perspective there are times when all three daughters will fuss if we ask them to practice their piano, or write a report. But in general homeschooling has fewer times that we are dousing the fire. Our daughters are very rarely bored being forced to study something they already know, or confused because the lesson has moved on to the next topic before they mastered the current topic.

In the afternoon when the lessons are done, they will often play games together, or read. But they will also learn on their own. For example they love to read about cats, dogs, and especially horses. They frequently check out The Ultimate Horse Book from the library. They studied it and talked about it. They have learned a ton about horses. But they have also learned some about biology and history.


One of our goals as parents is to keep our daughter’s love for learning alive to their adult years. So far I think we have been successful.


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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education

Time to get the Federal government out of Education?

The US Department of Education was founded in 1979. Four years later the Federal Government released a report on the state of Education in America. A Nation at Risk warned that education had deteriorated over the previous decades. It had this famous quote:

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves."

This is another powerful quote:

"Each generation of Americans has outstripped its parents in education, in literacy, and in economic attainment. For the first time in the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents."

Things have only gotten worse since 1983.

I acknowledge that correlation is not causation. But I do believe that overall the Department of Education has been bad for education in the United States. The central bureaucracy passes many rules with little accountability. By returning to local and state control education in American would improve.

In Keep Fed Ed? What, Do You Hate Kids? Neal McCluskey recognizes that politically it would be a huge challenge to dismantle the Department of Education, but encourages politicians to take up the good fight. His column starts with:

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Yesterday, Tad DeHaven wrote about an interview with Rep. John Kline (R-MN), likely chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee should the GOP take the House majority. Tad lamented that Kline seemed to declare any potential effort to kill the U.S. Department of Education (ED) already dead in the water. Unfortunately, Kline is certainly right: Any effort to kill ED in the next couple of years would not only have to get through a (presumably) GOP-held House, but (also presumably) a Dem-controlled Senate and Obama-occupied White House. There just aint no way ED will be dismantled — and more importantly, it’s profligate programs eliminated — in that environment.
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I agree that it will be very hard to get rid of the Department of Education. And I am so glad that homeschooling gives us an option to provide a quality education.

The failings of public school push people into homeschooling

I happened across a post about how the bad schools in Nevada had prompted a family to explore the option of homeschooling. Recently I was rereading part of the 1983 report, "A Nation At Risk" which has this famous quote:

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves."

I wonder how many people have felt pushed into homeschooling. For most people it isn't easy to step out of their comfort zone and try something new, which goes against the norm. For decades pretty much everyone sent their children to public schools. The early pioneers of homeschooling in the 1970s and 1980s were doing something very unconventional. It took a lot of courage even to consider homeschooling back then. I am thankful for their courage and efforts.

Unfortunately since the 1983 report, public education has gotten worse, but this has lead more and more families to the joys and benefits of homeschooling.

Declining SAT scores

I'm not sure what this means, or if it means anything at all.


Drop in SAT scores biggest in 31 years

By JUSTIN POPE, AP Education Writer
Tue Aug 29, 11:28 AM ET


The high school class of 2006 recorded the sharpest drop in SAT scores in 31 years, a decline that the exam's owner, the College Board, said was partly due to some students taking the newly lengthened test only once instead of twice.

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The results come two weeks after it was announced the class of 2006 had posted the biggest score increase in 20 years on the rival ACT exam. The ACT, which is also accepted by almost all colleges that require standardized tests, is generally more focused on material covered in high school classes than the SAT, which is more of a measure of general ability. But more students in traditional SAT states like Connecticut and New Jersey appear to be taking both exams to try to improve their applications to selective colleges.


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That is very curious. The ACT scores are going up and the SAT scores are going down.

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Experts say the changeover in exams probably affected how students approached the test, and thus the scores. Students in the class of 2006 had the chance to take both the old SAT exam, until midway through their junior year, and the new SAT after that. If they did well the first time out, some may have opted to stand pat with those scores. Some colleges continued to accept scores from the old test during the bridge period.

"When a new test is introduced, students usually vary their test-taking behavior in a variety of ways and this affects scores," College Board President Gaston Caperton said in a news release.


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I checked out the link to the SAT website.

Under the section entitled "Prepare for the SAT" is the following headline:

Nation Still "At Risk": Call for a New Compact Between America and Its Teachers, Starting with Immediate Salary Increases.

Paying an inadequate teacher more money is not going to improve her performance. However, paying high quality teachers a better salary might keep more of them around longer. As long as teacher contracts are not linked to individual performance, little will change.

Either way, this does not address the question of what part the student plays in this equation. Could it be that student performance is falling because students put in less effort than their predecessors?

We know that television viewing is at an all time highand reading is at an all time low. Maybe this is the problem. It is just a thought.


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Related Tags: preparation for college, SAT scores, testing, education, school

Article and comments related to homeschooling

While "googling" for something else, I came across this article. While I was not very interested in the original news story on The Obscure Store and Reading Room, many of the comments turned to homeschooling. So here's the article and the "homeschooling" comments. (I must say the site is a bit odd, made up of odd, gory, and sad news stories).



School bans second-grader's service dog


School officials say the dog has growled and barked at students and teachers. "We don't want kids getting bitten," says the school's lawyer. The 8-year-old girl, who has a congenital disease that causes brittle bones, and has suffered 60 broken bones, says: "I'm very upset about this. I want my service animal." (Boston Globe)

.....................................

So homeschool the kid, problem solved.

Posted by: SwarthyTroll Aug 16, 2006 7:36:21 AM

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I understand the desire for parents to give their kids a "regular" childhood, but also know the implications.

When my teenager was in 2nd grade, she was diagnosed
with a treatable learning disorder, eg a malfunctioning brain. I had two options: medicate, or take her home. I chose medicaiton, and I also persued therapies that has kept her need for bigger doses down and she takes less than half the dose than other kids her weight. Her problem is not health-threatening.

On the other hand, my friend's boy has cerebral palsy, leaving him with weak muscle tone in his legs and arms. He has an unsteady walk, and since he's nearly 6 feet tall at age 15, getting hit on the back would paralyze him. So, no matter how much he pleads to "be like everyone else" and take gym class, she won't let him. It's for his own safety.

With brittle bone disease, homeschool is the best option. I would worry over every stair, every bumped knuckle, every clumsy Claude. Consider how crappy a kid would feel if they accidently knocked the girl down and broke something?

There are homeschool clubs in a lot of communities these days, which allow children to socialize. Sure, it's not a regular childhood, but I feel it's one that puts everyone's best interests into the frame.

Posted by: Soo Aug 16, 2006 9:07:54 AM

..........................................

To say the child could be homeschooled is not a fair solution. What if your child had ADHD and constantly interrupted the class? Would he be sent home permanently to be homeschooled?

I say get the dog additional socialization training. Barking is VERY easy to fix. It's not like the dog had bitten people or anything.

The poor child has *no* friends. Her dog is her only companion. Plus, he helps her navigate the school and stay safe. I don't get why I am the only one sympathisizing with this girl.

Posted by: Kristin Aug 16, 2006 10:40:42 AM

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Kristin:

If you read my earlier post, it was about my child who was diagnosed with ADHD. I just didn't think I needed to broadcast it so plainly. We were told to medicate or homeschool permanently.

We chose medication and "deschooling therapy," which isn't anything like it sounds, but it worked for us. Either way, certain situations just call for parents to back off the regular kid routine.

Posted by: Soo Aug 16, 2006 10:46:36

.................................................

As the mother of a special needs child (autism) and parent advocate, who also happens to live in Massachusetts, I am appalled, though certainly not surprised, by the acts of the Scituate school district. It is not just a matter of a the parents wanting their daughter to have a "normal childhood," it is their right. If it were up to school districts, almost every child with any kind of disability would be banned from school. Fortunately, their is a law that protects their (the children) and our (the parents) rights; IDEA - the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Then there are the Massachusetts Dept of Education regulations, the oldest in the nation, that support the inclusion of disabled children.

These pieces of legislation state that only the most severly disabled children (not this girl) should be kept from a "mainstream" education. Furthermore, the law mandates that school districts provide for a child's socialization - a large part of the reason for her having her dog - as well as her education. I think this is just another example of a school district attempting to circumvent the law.

By the way for all those who suggested it was in "everyone's best interest" for this girl to be homeschooled, I would simply like to point out that the law - IDEA - does not provide for what's in the best interest for "everyone," only what's in the best interest of the child.

Posted by: Rena Aug 16, 2006 12:56:41 PM

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Rena and Eclecticcalico both make excellent points I had not considered. Certainly, the school environment plays a big role in how well a special-needs child is accommodated, and respected. As a teacher-in-training, I am very aware that teachers receive little or no education in special needs before they get licensed.

My point was long-winded but boiled down to this: the child in question is delicate, no one would argue that. Placing her in a classroom with so many rambunctious children, I feel, is placing her in harm's way. My youngest is a recent second-grader.

Homeschooling does, unfortunately, move her out of the greater realm of socialization. However, there are many outlets these days for homeschoolers for socializing, and could be done with minimal risk to the girl.

The service animal didn't even come into play in my post. Actually, I've known many service animals, and if I made a guess, there were too many kids "rushing" the dog and treating it like a pet, which is a no-no, and THAT is why it may have barked or growled. They're trained to warn of danger, and a bunch of kids running towards the girl and the dog definitely is danger. I'd growl, too.

My apologies for offending--Soo

Posted by: Soo Aug 16, 2006 1:25:18 PM

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I was home schooled for Jr. and Sr. High. I lived a completely 'normal' life, thank you, and had to turn down socialization options. I am not disabled in anyway, however, I do not feel this takes away from the validity of my point at all. Home school is a completely viable option, especially with schools today in the disarray they are in. No, it's not for everyone, but it is not, and should not be called, abnormal.

Posted by: Susen Aug 17, 2006 6:21:04 AM

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Also, educationally, home schooling is actually generally better. I know there are exceptions, yes, there are to every 'rule'; but home schoolers are generally under more scrutiny than school children and must take annual tests, etc, to make sure they are on the right level. Many times, home schoolers are above and beyond that. School is fun. But academically, for a student like me, it was not a good place. Home schooling helped to improve my concentration skills (I suspect that I have mild ADD that is now Adult ADD) enough to succeed (when I chose to) in college. School for me was purely social when I was enrolled there.

But the topic here is this little girl and her service dog. It is, I believe, against ADA laws to ban her service dog in the first place. Secondly, I agree with (can't find the name now) whoever said that the dog was probably only doing it's job when it was barking, warning the little girl of any percieved danger.

And, thirdly, having recieved training in Special Education, I also understand how often the teachers do -not- get the proper teaching, as well. Unfortunately, if one does not go for 'special ed', one does not recieve any training on how to 'deal with' or accommodate appropriately in a way that benefits not only the special needs student, but also the entire classroom. It can be done, but too few teachers know how.

Posted by: Susen Aug 17, 2006 6:33:13 AM

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I thought it was interesting the when a parent was giving the option to homeschool or drug their child, that they choose to drug the child. So much for a "regular" childhood. If the girl has "no friends," of what benefit is socialization at school?

What do you think?

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Related Tags: service dogs, homeschooling, special education, special needs children, school, ADHD