Education today has moved so far left that, in many cases, it has even left liberals — in shock. A good example are the parents who’ve made news protesting the racial policies at their children’s ritzy, high-end New York City private schools. What’s more, as education watchers know painfully well, even math and other basic subjects have too often been reduced to a woke joke. In fact, a recent “letter” from a liberal mother attests to this very fact — and it’s eye-opening.
The testimonial was posted in a regional Mensa forum in response to an article by writer Bruce Deitrick Price, who specializes in analyzing our K-12 educational woes. Here it is, as presented Sunday by Price (who edited it slightly for clarity) at American Thinker:
I read your article and couldn’t agree more. I have lived it with my twins for the last 13 years. I nearly cried when we moved from a NYC public school to a school district in an affluent part of NJ only to find out they had the same mind-numbing constructivist Math program (TERC, Everyday Math, etc.).
As someone who loved Math in school, I couldn’t believe how much I hated and was confused by their math homework. There were many tears and much throwing of pencils across the room. At one point, I think around 6th grade, every single one of my son’s friends was being privately tutored. Which made me think the school system shouldn’t really have any bragging rights if their math scores are presentable since they are more a reflection of parents who can afford tutors, not an excellent program.
This issue was apparently raised shortly before we moved here and shot down by the school board. Every time I have raised the issue, I have been told, “Everyone loves it.” Why they are so married to this abysmal program is a mystery to me. I personally think it is an abomination.
I do believe it’s a follow-the-money situation. All that expensive “retraining” of experienced math teachers so they can teach the Egyptian lattice method? And don’t get me started on whole word reading. So ridiculous. I recall being stupefied when we were told not to correct misspellings because that would damage their confidence and that somehow they would magically learn the correct spelling on their own. Seriously?
My twins are now seniors in high school and doing well in spite of, in my opinion, not because of, their horrific foundation. I ended up doing flash cards and phonics at home. I pulled my kids out for one year to homeschool them when I realized my son still couldn’t add after 3rd grade. The idea of kids learning from other kids who are equally clueless is just so insane. And I want my kids to be well educated world citizens. But I did think it was a bit odd when they were studying Africa in 2nd and 3rd grade at their NYC school before they had even learned anything about their own country.
I don’t think this should have anything to do with political leanings. On most issues, I am usually progressive/liberal but would happily align myself with anyone who thinks our educational system needs some common sense injected into it. People need to stop worrying about offending “their side” and speak the truth as they see it. It is the kids who are suffering needlessly and our entire country that will pay the price for a poorly educated populace.
The letter mostly speaks for itself, but a couple of things should be noted. First, having to privately tutor children is a bit like having to hire private security: In many cases it means the government isn’t doing the job it’s paid to do (via taxes), so the people must essentially pay for the same service twice.
Of course, poor Americans can’t afford to do this, which is why dysfunctional “education” models hurt them most.
Second, the letter-writing mother is correct about money’s corruptive influence. School systems give pedagogical hucksters millions of dollars for the latest shiny baubles — Critical Race Theory, some perversion of math or English instruction, etc. — partially because chronological chauvinists, relativists all, tend to treasure the latest tastes more than Truth.
As for this “nowism,” this fetish for new ideas no matter how fanciful, G.K. Chesterton wrote about its educational impact in 1910 in What’s Wrong With the World. To wit:
The trouble in too many of our modern schools is that the State, being controlled so specially by the few, allows cranks and experiments to go straight to the schoolroom when they have never passed through the Parliament, the public house, the private house, the church, or the marketplace. Obviously, it ought to be the oldest things that are taught to the youngest people; the assured and experienced truths that are put first to the baby. But in a school to-day the baby has to submit to a system that is younger than himself. The flopping infant of four actually has more experience, and has weathered the world longer, than the dogma to which he is made to submit. Many a school boasts of having the last ideas in education, when it has not even the first idea; for the first idea is that even innocence, divine as it is, may learn something from experience.
Does the above at all seem dated?
Speaking of cranks, the letter-writing mother mentioned the Egyptian multiplication method. Watch the four-minute video on it below for a glimpse into your tax money at work.
As a commenter under the video wrote, “Needlessly complex in my view. What higher purpose does this method serve, other than to intimidate the children?”
Well, it’s making someone a lot of money — and making intellectually bankrupt people feel as if they’re on the cutting edge.
