RIDDING OUR SCHOOLS OF TIME-HONORED TRADITIONS
Once upon a time in the land of the free and the home of the brave, lit- tle children could walk or run to their neighborhood schools with real reading books, times tables, and a sandwich and apple in their school-bags. When there, they would be greeted by teachers who might even hug them. And if a child needed help, he’d be helped by this loving teacher after school without charge. When inside the classroom, besides phonics in reading, systematic writing ‘n arithmetic, they migst talking about walking to school: ‘I’m scared for my life.’ ‘I could get shot.’ WHY THIS SENSELESSNESS? Two main things are responsible: the teachers’ labor unions which started their stranglehold over the schools in 1961 and the gradual creep of federal involvement (the Elementary & Secondary Education Act of 1965), bringing in a whole menagerie of groups feeding from the federal trough. Here is a partial list of them: Amer Assn of School Administrators;
Amer Federation of Teachers (AFT);
Assn of Supervision and Curriculum Development;
Business Roundtable;
Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, & Student Testing; Committee for Education Funding;
Council of Chief State School Officers;
Council of Great City Schools;
Education Commission of the States;
National Assn for the Education of Young Children;
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National Assn of Elementary School Principals;
National Assn of Secondary School Principals;
National Assn of State Boards of Education;
National Center on Education & the Economy;
National Education Assn (NEA);
The National Parent Teachers Assn;
New American Schools Development Corp;
New Standards Project University of Pittsburgh; (9 based in DC; 3 in Alexandria, VA; 3 in Arlington, VA; 1 each in Chicago, IL; Denver, CO; Los Angeles, CA; Pittsburgh, PA; and Reston, VA). (Source— FRC) From my research, I will also add many of the liberal foundations like Carnegie, Ford, Rockefeller, R. W. Johnson, and Pew to name a few. I’d also include groups like the National Council of Teachers of English (That’s why many high schools no longer teach English grammar) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (That’s why times tables, for the most part have been eliminated). None of these groups is up front with what they do so that it takes a lot of digging to discover what they’re up to. Just one example of fraud and deception needs to be included here:
Last week, the National Council of Teachers of Math came out with, ‘We now will place emphasis on times tables, not calculators.
We think we may have been wrong!’ (paraphrase) They have so much arrogant power that they can actually admit it and suffer no consequences. But their admission has a selfish reason; you see, they can now publish books on how to teach the times tables and reap financial profits from doing so. No book is needed to learn the times tables—just memorize them like our parents and grandparents before us. When the single largest federal aid to education ever enacted by Congress was passed, Pres. Johnson told National Education Assn educators: ‘We are going to get it started, but we are never going to get her stopped.’ LBJ was right but for all the wrong reasons. I like to compare this to a giant ball at the top of a mountain, representing wisdom and knowledge, and a tiny ball at the bottom of it representing federal spending. They have now reversed places—wisdom and knowledge losing as it comes down and at the same time Government spending gaining as it goes up.
On May 5, 2006, Mayor Bloomberg expressed great concern that 185,000 science prizes for outstanding projects were given out annually but now only 65,000. No wonder we’ve lost our place as No. 1 car manufacturer. India and China wouldn’t dream of turning their schools into institutions to learn how to get along with one another. And we’re failing there too—school shootings (14 since Columbine) and 32,000 school pupils being molested by teachers and/or staff annually).