Fully agree as far as Science is concerned, near and dear to my heart as well. I am an Engineer Developer and amateur physicist, rock climber and youngest Eagle Scout in the Country who taught Nature merit badge at camp in the South each summer for years. Lack of basic Science understanding now is appalling. Charlatans can get away with murder. Still cannot accept that some State agency without open review and supported by taxpayers can dictate the details of a curriculum. Broad guidelines might make sense, but parents and family really must have the final word - else you pull your kid out of school and quit paying school taxes! Home schooling in painful but sometimes necessary. Accountability is essential in any system, especially now, when we have our enemies funding politicians and forcing regulators to weaken the fabric of the Country at all levels.
John: The K-12 education system is operating as I described, despite your non-acceptance. If you'd like to fix it, then I suggest reading my Report, and taking my suggestions: <https://c19science.info/Education/Fixing_Education.pdf>.
John - Your work is exemplary. This is a well-researched, documented, and compelling description of the problem(s) with American education. It is also scary as hell. I am in full agreement with your thinking, now armed with a better understanding of the K-12 system now in practice. Nothing near what I grew up with. Our kids are ultimately the future of our Country, and our Country is not doing well. Having risked my life in 3 combat tours to protect it, I am not happy with its present misuse at the leadership level. Though originally and still an Engineer, after Harvard, I spent a number of years as a Prof of Economics at the College level, full time earlier and part time later, but never dealt with the grade schools. My wife, a very bright former NY Asst Sec of State and local elected Official, tried to help teach locally part time for free, and was badly treated by the Teacher's Union. Being trapped in a highly "progressive" State (you left out a full discussion of the manipulation of our language to use formerly positive terms for destructive ideas and programs, confusing students and disguising propaganda) our political options are limited, but I will now offer a more vigorous and better-informed opposition to the current education system dogma. I shall retain your Report as an excellent weapon in this critical crusade.
Thank you for your commendable efforts. - John Dodson, PE
Pragmatic analysis, but perhaps not ambitious enough for the dire straits our present system has devolved into. Believe curriculum reform is essential for immediate relief, but school choice should be pursued simultaneously and robustly, as it solves the largest problem - by allowing choice it lets the market mechanism reward the remaining bright stars and force out the inferior and corrupted school systems over time by the most powerful source available - the choices of caring parents.
John: TY for your comments. The flaw in your argument is that the curriculum is NOT determined by the market, but rather by the State Board of Education (SBOE). No amount of free choice will have any measurable impact on the SBOE curriculum, as there is no parental option to chose a proper curriculum.
John - ? There is a choice of curriculum. If you can move your kids to a curriculum of the school of your choice, private , parochial, or public, the parental choices will reward the favorable curriculums and punish the bad. Funding must go with the parents - they get their share to apply where they deem appropriate. This would solve the problem, period.
John: What you say is a commonly held illusion. There is no "choice" of curriculums between instate public and private schools — as all are determined by the State Board of Education (SBOE). The SBOE also approves textbooks and state tests — both in accordance with the SBOE state curriculum. The solution to an inadequate curriculum is to get the SBOE to fix it. Switching schools will change teachers, facilities, etc., but NOT the core curriculum.
If what you are saying is that no school can teach what they choose to people who are paying them to teach, that makes no sense. I attended a number of different schools growing up, all of which had different course offerings. I also taught at two Universities, which were entirely different, of course. The way any subject is taught also has a great deal of difference in its impact and even substance, but you are saying every State dictates their own course offerings to all their schools, private as well? You are right, if that is the case it is not understood and should not be allowed. Anyone must be able to send their kids to a school they are paying for that teaches what they find acceptable. If vouchers are given to parents, they could pay the difference for more expensive offerings. Parents should always be aware and involved with their kid's teachers, regardless.
John: I am simply explaining how the current K-12 system works in almost every state. Each SBOE determines the curriculum, textbooks and tests — for ALL schools, public and private, in that state. Yes, the teachers can be different, but what good is that if the curriculum is corrupted? In my field, Science, it unequivocally is (as explained in my Repoert <https://c19science.info/Education/Fixing_Education.pdf>).
A primary tentpole of this takeover is to dumb us down to the lowest common denominator. Experienced and educated critical thinkers make for poor slaves. Old ways of thinking have to be eradicated. Division, demoralization, and the destruction of education are three key tools in achieving total domination.
Bread (UBI/SNAP), circuses (media), overbearing propaganda (news), fabricating and dramatically magnifying our differences (5th generation warfare), and radicalizing the populace (politics) are all being brought to bear against us:
By weaponizing woke ideology, a powerful group is destroying the modern world by poisoning the wells we all share of comradery, fellowship, and family – they are doing everything they can to decimate the ties that bind us together and to destroy every trace of common ground and brotherhood between us.
Values we all once shared that were intended to do the most good for the most people are being maliciously torched in the name of discord and disunity by utilizing a reality denying, mentally ill, family destroying, child warping, depraved ideology.
The globablists’ have successfully utilized the Red vs Blue, East vs West, Vaxxed vs Unvaxxed, Boy vs Girl dichotomies to exploit our innate tribal nature, and in doing so are dividing and conquering us. This ‘us-vs-them’ separation makes us easy to control and direct with simple angry thoughts about “the enemy” who isn’t really our enemy – while blinding us to the actual enemy behind the curtain pulling the puppet strings. If we could collectively recognize this for what it is the NWO wouldn’t stand a chance.
Most people will not act to secure their future, so long as they feel they have an advocate fighting for them in the public or political arenas. This is why Republican vs Democrat equals divide and conquer. The human mind is binary. Our thought process can often be boiled down into terms (often ultimatums) of – this or that – and our adversaries understand - very well - the art of this war.
They know that politicization is so effective at manipulating us because most emotionally connect their personal belief system to the belief system of their political party, and so then any attack on their party – legitimate or otherwise – is interpreted by their brain as an attack on themselves. Reason and logic then jump out the nearest window as raw emotion takes the helm, thus making them even more susceptible to the predatory controlling influences.
United we will stand, divided we will fall, our adversaries know this which is why we are being mercilessly divided.
Powerful commentary on the deep reasons the danger we now face is so dire. With access to the Intel community in my work, I tragically find little to disagree with in this shocking analysis.
David: I sympathize with your conclusion "Thousands of parents have fought this fight before you, each spending hundreds or thousands of hours of personal time trying to fix the system. All have failed."
That could mean: 1) that their time was focused on the wrong part of the problem, or 2) that their methodology for fixing things was not effective. IMO both of those have been true — just like the enormous amount of time, effort and money being misdirected to School Choice. Note that neither of those shortcomings apply to my message: fix the Science curriculum by focusing on your SBOE.
Last, my objective is NOT "to fix public schools," but rather to fix one profoundly significant part: the Science curriculumm.
The idea of trying to fix just one part of the public schools is like trying to fix one part of a black hole; it simply doesn't make any sense. As you may have intoned from my site, my friends nationwide and I were also trying to fix just one part, namely the reading curriculum. We had national attention and prestigious, influential people both inside and outside the system. We had significant coverage by national press. We had all the research on our side. We failed anyway. Fixing a black hole is a dangerous and pointless business. You can't just fix one part of it - it's a single, unified nightmare.
There is a third option that you don't seem to be considering, which is that the system is irredemably corrupt and therefore unreformable. As I wrote recently to another friend who is trying to reform the schools: "Like it or not, you and all the school reformers put together are a tiny faction. You are up against a behemoth that has $100 billion per year to spend. In this battle you are not even analogous to an ant fighting an elephant. The public schools don't even need to bother spend their pocket change to crush you; their adherents and associations can do it in their free time. In fact, all of us put together are so small that they don't even have to bother noticing us. Your strategy, I presume, is to stoke outrage so that the public schools will have to respond to you. But the public schools' most effective strategy will be to pretend you don't even exist, no matter how loud you get. That strategy has worked for the public schools for the past 80 years, and there's no reason to believe that it's going to stop working now."
It is not preposterous to consider that one particular direction is hopeless and to cease investing effort there. With regards to literacy, my entire effort is in helping parents circumvent the system by teaching their own kids to read. Separately I work with others help parents get their kids out of the system entirely. My objective is always to save as many kids as we can, not to dream the impossible dream and fight the unbeatable foe. I understand your sentiments - I used to think the way you do. Perhaps after a few more years of futile effort, you will agree with me.
It is preposterous to concede the entire educatin system to the Left. Doing that means conceding that we have lost our country.
I hope that you don't find that acceptable, so that you build on your prior disappointing experiences, by changing focus, changing tactics, changing allies, etc.
One could also say that refusing to try to move Mount Everest is conceding it to Mother Nature. Facing reality is not preposterous. If others want to try moving Mount Everest with a teaspoon, I am powerless to stop them. I find that most people must learn things the hard way, just as I did. If you would, for example, read "Why Johnny Can't Read", you will realize that the public schools were already lost long before you were born, and that greater, better-funded efforts than yours have all failed. I could spend hours talking about this, but instead I refer you to a book called "Marketing Warfare". It's about using proper strategies to win in business. The first step is to properly assess the relative strengths of yourself vs. your enemy. Only after this evaluation can you properly assess what your true options are, rather than wasting your time pursuing the impossible. The strategies discussed in that book apply equally well to actual war, corporate "war", and political "war". It's a sobering read. If you are instead too emotionally invested in what I consider the impossible dream, then there's not much I can do to stop you. But one day, like me, you will eventually realize that all the time you spent was wasted: https://www.goodreads.com/id/book/show/2595.Marketing_Warfare
Fully agree as far as Science is concerned, near and dear to my heart as well. I am an Engineer Developer and amateur physicist, rock climber and youngest Eagle Scout in the Country who taught Nature merit badge at camp in the South each summer for years. Lack of basic Science understanding now is appalling. Charlatans can get away with murder. Still cannot accept that some State agency without open review and supported by taxpayers can dictate the details of a curriculum. Broad guidelines might make sense, but parents and family really must have the final word - else you pull your kid out of school and quit paying school taxes! Home schooling in painful but sometimes necessary. Accountability is essential in any system, especially now, when we have our enemies funding politicians and forcing regulators to weaken the fabric of the Country at all levels.
John: The K-12 education system is operating as I described, despite your non-acceptance. If you'd like to fix it, then I suggest reading my Report, and taking my suggestions: <https://c19science.info/Education/Fixing_Education.pdf>.
John - Your work is exemplary. This is a well-researched, documented, and compelling description of the problem(s) with American education. It is also scary as hell. I am in full agreement with your thinking, now armed with a better understanding of the K-12 system now in practice. Nothing near what I grew up with. Our kids are ultimately the future of our Country, and our Country is not doing well. Having risked my life in 3 combat tours to protect it, I am not happy with its present misuse at the leadership level. Though originally and still an Engineer, after Harvard, I spent a number of years as a Prof of Economics at the College level, full time earlier and part time later, but never dealt with the grade schools. My wife, a very bright former NY Asst Sec of State and local elected Official, tried to help teach locally part time for free, and was badly treated by the Teacher's Union. Being trapped in a highly "progressive" State (you left out a full discussion of the manipulation of our language to use formerly positive terms for destructive ideas and programs, confusing students and disguising propaganda) our political options are limited, but I will now offer a more vigorous and better-informed opposition to the current education system dogma. I shall retain your Report as an excellent weapon in this critical crusade.
Thank you for your commendable efforts. - John Dodson, PE
Pragmatic analysis, but perhaps not ambitious enough for the dire straits our present system has devolved into. Believe curriculum reform is essential for immediate relief, but school choice should be pursued simultaneously and robustly, as it solves the largest problem - by allowing choice it lets the market mechanism reward the remaining bright stars and force out the inferior and corrupted school systems over time by the most powerful source available - the choices of caring parents.
John: TY for your comments. The flaw in your argument is that the curriculum is NOT determined by the market, but rather by the State Board of Education (SBOE). No amount of free choice will have any measurable impact on the SBOE curriculum, as there is no parental option to chose a proper curriculum.
John - ? There is a choice of curriculum. If you can move your kids to a curriculum of the school of your choice, private , parochial, or public, the parental choices will reward the favorable curriculums and punish the bad. Funding must go with the parents - they get their share to apply where they deem appropriate. This would solve the problem, period.
John: What you say is a commonly held illusion. There is no "choice" of curriculums between instate public and private schools — as all are determined by the State Board of Education (SBOE). The SBOE also approves textbooks and state tests — both in accordance with the SBOE state curriculum. The solution to an inadequate curriculum is to get the SBOE to fix it. Switching schools will change teachers, facilities, etc., but NOT the core curriculum.
If what you are saying is that no school can teach what they choose to people who are paying them to teach, that makes no sense. I attended a number of different schools growing up, all of which had different course offerings. I also taught at two Universities, which were entirely different, of course. The way any subject is taught also has a great deal of difference in its impact and even substance, but you are saying every State dictates their own course offerings to all their schools, private as well? You are right, if that is the case it is not understood and should not be allowed. Anyone must be able to send their kids to a school they are paying for that teaches what they find acceptable. If vouchers are given to parents, they could pay the difference for more expensive offerings. Parents should always be aware and involved with their kid's teachers, regardless.
John: I am simply explaining how the current K-12 system works in almost every state. Each SBOE determines the curriculum, textbooks and tests — for ALL schools, public and private, in that state. Yes, the teachers can be different, but what good is that if the curriculum is corrupted? In my field, Science, it unequivocally is (as explained in my Repoert <https://c19science.info/Education/Fixing_Education.pdf>).
Excellent as always Mr. Droz.
A primary tentpole of this takeover is to dumb us down to the lowest common denominator. Experienced and educated critical thinkers make for poor slaves. Old ways of thinking have to be eradicated. Division, demoralization, and the destruction of education are three key tools in achieving total domination.
Bread (UBI/SNAP), circuses (media), overbearing propaganda (news), fabricating and dramatically magnifying our differences (5th generation warfare), and radicalizing the populace (politics) are all being brought to bear against us:
By weaponizing woke ideology, a powerful group is destroying the modern world by poisoning the wells we all share of comradery, fellowship, and family – they are doing everything they can to decimate the ties that bind us together and to destroy every trace of common ground and brotherhood between us.
Values we all once shared that were intended to do the most good for the most people are being maliciously torched in the name of discord and disunity by utilizing a reality denying, mentally ill, family destroying, child warping, depraved ideology.
The globablists’ have successfully utilized the Red vs Blue, East vs West, Vaxxed vs Unvaxxed, Boy vs Girl dichotomies to exploit our innate tribal nature, and in doing so are dividing and conquering us. This ‘us-vs-them’ separation makes us easy to control and direct with simple angry thoughts about “the enemy” who isn’t really our enemy – while blinding us to the actual enemy behind the curtain pulling the puppet strings. If we could collectively recognize this for what it is the NWO wouldn’t stand a chance.
Most people will not act to secure their future, so long as they feel they have an advocate fighting for them in the public or political arenas. This is why Republican vs Democrat equals divide and conquer. The human mind is binary. Our thought process can often be boiled down into terms (often ultimatums) of – this or that – and our adversaries understand - very well - the art of this war.
They know that politicization is so effective at manipulating us because most emotionally connect their personal belief system to the belief system of their political party, and so then any attack on their party – legitimate or otherwise – is interpreted by their brain as an attack on themselves. Reason and logic then jump out the nearest window as raw emotion takes the helm, thus making them even more susceptible to the predatory controlling influences.
United we will stand, divided we will fall, our adversaries know this which is why we are being mercilessly divided.
https://tritorch.com/united
Powerful commentary on the deep reasons the danger we now face is so dire. With access to the Intel community in my work, I tragically find little to disagree with in this shocking analysis.
Yes, yes and damn yes.
Why you are not going to fix the public schools: http://mychildwillread.org/the-problem.shtml
David: I sympathize with your conclusion "Thousands of parents have fought this fight before you, each spending hundreds or thousands of hours of personal time trying to fix the system. All have failed."
That could mean: 1) that their time was focused on the wrong part of the problem, or 2) that their methodology for fixing things was not effective. IMO both of those have been true — just like the enormous amount of time, effort and money being misdirected to School Choice. Note that neither of those shortcomings apply to my message: fix the Science curriculum by focusing on your SBOE.
Last, my objective is NOT "to fix public schools," but rather to fix one profoundly significant part: the Science curriculumm.
The idea of trying to fix just one part of the public schools is like trying to fix one part of a black hole; it simply doesn't make any sense. As you may have intoned from my site, my friends nationwide and I were also trying to fix just one part, namely the reading curriculum. We had national attention and prestigious, influential people both inside and outside the system. We had significant coverage by national press. We had all the research on our side. We failed anyway. Fixing a black hole is a dangerous and pointless business. You can't just fix one part of it - it's a single, unified nightmare.
There is a third option that you don't seem to be considering, which is that the system is irredemably corrupt and therefore unreformable. As I wrote recently to another friend who is trying to reform the schools: "Like it or not, you and all the school reformers put together are a tiny faction. You are up against a behemoth that has $100 billion per year to spend. In this battle you are not even analogous to an ant fighting an elephant. The public schools don't even need to bother spend their pocket change to crush you; their adherents and associations can do it in their free time. In fact, all of us put together are so small that they don't even have to bother noticing us. Your strategy, I presume, is to stoke outrage so that the public schools will have to respond to you. But the public schools' most effective strategy will be to pretend you don't even exist, no matter how loud you get. That strategy has worked for the public schools for the past 80 years, and there's no reason to believe that it's going to stop working now."
David: Not sure what you mean by "not considering" that option. I specifically addressed it in #4.
My answer to your example, is the sames two things I said before. Additionally, reading pedagogy is of value, but it is not the biggest problem.
If we simply decide that the system is irreformable, we have conceded the Education issue to the Left. That is preposterous.
It is not preposterous to consider that one particular direction is hopeless and to cease investing effort there. With regards to literacy, my entire effort is in helping parents circumvent the system by teaching their own kids to read. Separately I work with others help parents get their kids out of the system entirely. My objective is always to save as many kids as we can, not to dream the impossible dream and fight the unbeatable foe. I understand your sentiments - I used to think the way you do. Perhaps after a few more years of futile effort, you will agree with me.
It is preposterous to concede the entire educatin system to the Left. Doing that means conceding that we have lost our country.
I hope that you don't find that acceptable, so that you build on your prior disappointing experiences, by changing focus, changing tactics, changing allies, etc.
One could also say that refusing to try to move Mount Everest is conceding it to Mother Nature. Facing reality is not preposterous. If others want to try moving Mount Everest with a teaspoon, I am powerless to stop them. I find that most people must learn things the hard way, just as I did. If you would, for example, read "Why Johnny Can't Read", you will realize that the public schools were already lost long before you were born, and that greater, better-funded efforts than yours have all failed. I could spend hours talking about this, but instead I refer you to a book called "Marketing Warfare". It's about using proper strategies to win in business. The first step is to properly assess the relative strengths of yourself vs. your enemy. Only after this evaluation can you properly assess what your true options are, rather than wasting your time pursuing the impossible. The strategies discussed in that book apply equally well to actual war, corporate "war", and political "war". It's a sobering read. If you are instead too emotionally invested in what I consider the impossible dream, then there's not much I can do to stop you. But one day, like me, you will eventually realize that all the time you spent was wasted: https://www.goodreads.com/id/book/show/2595.Marketing_Warfare
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. -Henry David Thoreau