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Reasons for Home Schooling
Index:
Much
has been written about the failure of our education system to impart a practical level
of education on our children. The performance of our system of education is dismal, not only in
Canada, but to a virtually identical extent in the USA as well. 25% of adults in our
population are now functionally illiterate. That means that one out of every four
adults can't read and write well enough to be able to answer and fill out a simple
questionnaire, that they can't fill out the simple basic Income Tax Return form without
assistance, that they can't figure out a bus schedule, and that they can't perform simple
arithmetic operations without the help of a calculator. The latter problem is often
made out to be a trivial one, because in today's society, so it is said, people always
have a calculator at arm's length.
However, what the inability to perform simple mental arithmetic
operations means is that one hasn't got the ability to assess the validity of many
things. It means that someone who is driving his car for a distance of 400 miles may
not be able to discern that half-way along the trip he has to stop for gas, because his
car will take him only 250 miles on a single tank of gasoline. It means that someone
involved with storing goods of some kind into a designated space won't have the ability to
determine how much space is required, because he won't have the ability to judge that when
10% of the goods to be stored have used up more than half of the storage space, there'll
be no possible way to get the remaining 90% of the goods into the remaining half of the
assigned storage space.
It means that people who are functionally illiterate haven't got the
ability to critically evaluate anything they are being told in the way of statistical
information and are thereby unable to tell when or that they are being lied to. It
should therefore not surprise us that someone like Hillary Clinton publicly said
to a journalist at a convention that under-educated people are easier to govern.
An ever-increasing number of parents have become sufficiently concerned about the sad
state of our education system that they enroll their children to an ever-increasing
extent in independent schools, schools not under the influence of an
education system
bureaucracy that is running amok.
One such parent is Malkin Dare. In a review
of her book "HOW TO GET THE RIGHT EDUCATION FOR YOUR CHILD"
the Alberta Report states that: "When her son (now 18) was in Grade 2, his
teacher told her he would probably fail because he couldn't read. So
she bought a phonics book and taught him to read after school. "If I
could do that in six weeks, why couldn't they do it in almost three years?"
she queries, " and Malkin Dare said also: " "Ultimately, you've got to ensure that your own child
is saved."
Malkin Dare asks how it is possible that she managed in the space of six weeks to do
what her son's teachers could not manage to do in three years. As the items shown below
indicate, there are many reasons for that. It seems that it isn't easy to finger one
particular reason as the primary cause. However, the major reason could easily be
that the schools seriously discriminate against boys. Judith Kleinfeld of the
University of Alaska examines the myth promoted by the American Association of University
Women (AAUW) which stated in a much-publicized report that schools short-change
girls. That myth is based on falsification and misrepresentation of research
data. Judith Kleinfeld's findings indicate the
opposite. It is boys who experience widespread discrimination by teachers. |
Additional Reading:
Homeschooling,
A Feminist Challenge
September 4,
2001
by Wendy McElroy, mac@ifeminists.com
A peaceful revolution is transforming North America at its roots, and women are in the
forefront.
In quiet mutiny against the quality and content of government education, a growing
number of women are choosing to stay at home to teach their children one-on-one. A recent
federal survey (Parent-NHES:1999)
estimates that 850,000 children were homeschooled in 1999: this constituted 1.7 percent of
students between the ages of 5 to 17. Other studies put the figure as high as 1.5 million
children.... [Full
story]
AMERICA'S FAILING PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM
By Ashley Anderson, 16 years
old, September 16, 2003
|
Links to sources of information on Home Schooling.
The following contains two links that'll give you access to information on Home
Schooling programs in Alberta and in the USA.
...How are your son's lessons shaping up? It is is criminal neglect of duty by
the teachers that they took more than two years to determine what causes his difficulties
in school. However, it greatly disturbs me that you had no clue about his dyslexia
until you were told. Your son is a normal boy with a good level of
intelligence. The fact that he didn't learn anything in school should have been a
clue to you. Ruth and I went to the funeral of one of our friends yesterday. We
spoke to a lady who experienced similar problems with her oldest daughter. All it
took was ten one-hour lessons and her daughter was on the right track. The lady is
now doing home schooling for four children.
I mentioned to her the concerns you have for the need of your boys for social contact
in school. She said that that is not an issue with her. Her children get all
of the social contact they need through their involvement with various youth groups, but
that the most important thing to her is that her children now receive an education and
that she is in control about what moral values will be taught to them.
You can find out more about home schooling at <http://homeschooling.about.com/education/homeschooling/cs/canabsg/>.
Specific information about the School of Hope program that the lady uses is at <https://www.schoolofhope.org/>.
All of our love,
Walter and Ruth |
Lowering Scholastic Test Standards
[National Center for Policy Analysis <http://www.reagan.com/HotTopics.main/document-8.28.1996.3.html>
A new policy involved in the College Board's Scholastic Assessment Test
(SAT) implies that the organization believes today's students can never match the scores
of their parents and grandparents. Last year, the Board announced that the average score
on both the mathematical and verbal tests would be "recentered" -- meaning that
the standards would be lowered. The latest SAT scores, announced last week, were the first
to be graded on the new curve. After many years of insisting that the test was an
"unchanging standard," the average score was recalculated to reflect the results
of students who took the test in 1990 -- rather than by the standards of those who took
the test in 1941.
Originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test when introduced in
1941, the average score was set at 500 on a scale of 200 to 800.
[What this means is that anyone who takes the tests without even answering
one single question will be rewarded with 200 points just for attending.
--WHS]
As a result of the recentering, a student receiving a 508 on the
mathematics test this year would have received only a 484 in prior years.
Someone receiving 505 on the verbal test this year would have
received just a 428 last year.
A score of 800 on the verbal test is no longer a mark of perfection
-- it can be the equivalent of a less-than-perfect 730.
Students' scores have varied over the years, causing some
specialists to speculate that the College Board abandoned its "unchanging
standard" too soon.
Scores reached an all-time average high of 478 on the verbal portion
of the test and 502 on the math portion in 1963 and 1964.
Then scores dropped steadily until 1980, when verbal scores leveled
off at 424 and math scores at 466.
But by 1995, math scores had risen to an average of 482 -- with 21
percent of students scoring more than 600.
Verbal scores, however have not risen above 428 for 20 years.
Experts say that students are increasing their academic course load
in every subject except English. If English teachers do not believe that grammar and
proper syntax are important, neither will their students. So the new average, they say,
validates mediocrity.
In 1977, a blue-ribbon panel commissioned by the College Board
concluded that the decline in academic achievement among American students was the result,
in part, of the increased ethnic diversity of the test takers, less homework, the
proliferation of nonacademic courses and grade inflation.
Source: Diane Ravitch (New York University), "Defining Literacy
Downward," New York Times , August 28, 1996. |
Opinions about the education system
Can Government
Save the Family? Policy Review: The Journal of American Citizenship
September-October 1996, Number 79
"What can government do, if anything, to make sure that the overwhelming majority
of American children grow up with a mother and father?" Policy Review asked a number
of family experts across the political spectrum to address this question, considering
state and local government as well as the federal government."
"Government needs to encourage and solicit -- not frustrate -- parental
involvement in the education of children. In the early 1930s, there were more than 130,000
school boards in the United States. Today, there are fewer than 15,000. We need to
encourage parental participation by restoring local school boards for each and every
school and empowering them -- together with faculty and administrators -- to determine
education policies and curricula. We must also enact school choice and voucher plans to
give parents more control over their children's education."
-- Rep. Steve Largent
Other contributors are: James Dobson, Gov. John Engler, D. James Kennedy, Sen.
John Ashcroft, William A. Galston, David Blankenhorn, Dan Quayle, Paul Weyrich, and Kay
James.
|
- passing marks
- The
New New Math, by MARTIN GARDNER. If you are worried about your children's
chances to learn in school what is needed in life, you better read the reviews and
comments made by Martin Gardner. It is an eye-opener for those who were away for a
while from the education system. Sorry, the article is no longer
available at the site of the NY Book Review (it
is accessible here), but for $3.00 they will give
you access to something that is either the same or something comparable, who
knows? You may wish to read instead the following commentaries.
Related article:
The New New
Math, Applied, by Nilanjan Banerjee
Explaining how the efforts to teach students how to cooperate in using
"fuzzy math" for problem solving result in confusion and wrong answers,
especially if the teacher doesn't know enough about the fundamentals of
mathematics to be able to determine that the answers arrived at by her
students are glaringly wrong. Nevertheless, that apparently should not
hold the officials back from citing such glaringly stupid teachers for
excellence in education.
Related article:
The Fuzziest of
Disciplines, by Alexander Nazaryan and Alexander Wilson,
In which it is explained that,
...the `New Math' of the 1960s, was, predictably, a resounding failure
which did little more than confuse students. Test scores plummeted,
students turned away from Math, and before long the New Math was dropped.
Thirty years later, enter the New New Math.
and that the new new math is nothing other than an all-out effort to
reject
...the objective abstract reality of numbers, and combines it with a
series of voguish concepts in Mathematical education `fuzzy math', `ethnomathematics',
and `constructivism'.
-
Feminist
Algebra, Extracts from Higher Superstition (Johns Hopkins, 1994) by Paul Gross and
Norman Levitt
The article is a critique of feminist views on biology and sexuality:
Haploid Hermeneutics, Cherishing the Ovum, The Spin on Sexuality, Tales of a
Sperm, The Hermaphrodite Paradox, The Aggressive Egg, Why Do We Know So
Little about Human Sex!, Evolution of the Orgasm.
Encouraging students to love themselves is not paying off in the classroom,
educators and researchers say. The time is better spent, they say, on teaching the basics.
Update 2008 05 11: It is strongly
recommended to take a look at another article on the subject: "SHOULD
SCHOOLS TRY TO BOOST SELF ESTEEM? Beware the dark side", by Roy F.
Baumeister
Excerpt:
The myth that the schools short-change girls is dangerously wrong because it has
diverted policy attention from the group at genuine educational risk---African-American
boys. This is the group that scores lowest on virtually every education measure. This is
the group where an enormous gap does exist between males and females. But the African
American gender gap favors females, who are pulling far ahead of males in college
graduation rates and in obtaining professional degrees.
Where did the notion that the schools short-change girls come from? And how do advocacy
groups manage to convince people that it is girls who are victimized in the schools? What
data do they use and what data do they ignore?
In this paper, I examine the charges made in a highly publicized report, How Schools
Shortchange Girls, published by the American Association of University Women (1992). I
show how the findings in this report are based on a selective review of the research and
how findings contrary to the report's message were suppressed. These contrary findings
indeed appear in studies the AAUW itself commissioned, but the AAUW not only did not
include these findings in their media kits but made the data difficult to obtain.
To find out what is actually going on, how boys and girls do fare in the schools, I
review the best available information on a wide variety of strong measures: school grades,
class rank, honors and prizes in academic competitions, scores on standardized achievement
tests, college entrance and graduation rates, and attainment of professional and doctoral
degrees. To locate this information, I often had to do new analyses of government reports,
which also emphasize the "women as victims" viewpoint---showcasing the problems
but not the progress. I examine as well charges that the schools short-change girls based
on weak measures, the view that girls are silenced in the classroom and suffer a dramatic
loss of self-confidence at adolescence. I show that the research on which these charges
are based have in some instances disappeared and in other instances have been distorted to
make a political point. Research on gender differences in class participation, school
climate, and self confidence provides a welter of conflicting findings, sometimes favoring
girls, sometimes favoring boys, and sometimes showing no gender
differences at all....
Teen Births a consequence of the sex-education
program in schools
National Center for Policy Analysis
POLICY DIGEST
Tuesday, July 21, 1998
SEXUAL DISEASES AND BIRTHS AMONG UNWED TEENS Out-of-wedlock births, particularly among
teen-agers [sic], are skyrocketing, says a Congressional Quarterly report. And
the federal government is spending $39 billion a year to support families begun by unwed
teen mothers, according to Advocates for Youth.
A million girls ages 15 to 19 get pregnant every year, and 76 percent of
them are unwed, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute.
In 1996, the percentage of these unwed teen-age mothers was nearly six
times the percentage in 1950 -- reflecting both sharply rising birthrates and a decline in
teen marriages since the mid-1970s, reports the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
Moreover, there are three million new cases of sexually transmitted
diseases among U.S. teens reported each year, a rate which is 50 to 100 times higher than
in other industrialized countries.
The trend reflects greater sexual activity at a younger age, say experts. For example,
17 percent of 15-year-old girls were sexually active in 1995, compared to 3 percent in the
1950s.
Advocates of sexual abstinence programs, such as obstetrician Joe S. McIlhaney Jr. of
Austin, Texas, say that teenagers are receiving mixed messages from sex education
programs. While sometimes encouraging abstinence, they also promote "safer sex"
through condom use. But there is an admittedly high rate of teen-agers failing to
consistently, properly use them. And even then, says McIlhaney, they don't stop
transmission of some sexually transmitted diseases, such as the rapidly spreading human
papilloma virus.
Source: "Encouraging Teen Abstinence," CQ Researcher, July 10, 1998,
Congressional Quarterly.
For more on Out of Wedlock Births http://www.ncpa.org/pd/social/social5.html
(See also: Sex Education (advice to
teenagers and to others who care) |
Can we expect our teachers to be able to teach?
Obviously not, as demonstrated in the forwarded
article. It should have been front page news, but it only made page 27, probably
didn't even make it into any of the daily papers.
Is it possible to teach those who can't comprehend or spell? With
great difficulty. What is frightening about it is that the problem is in a positive
feedback loop. Because those that expect to become teachers are obviously in no
position to pass on much knowledge to those whom they want to teach. It's like a
friend of ours often said, "Jeez, I taught him everything I know and he's still
stupid."
Political correctness demands some weird and wondrous contortions. Even
though the problem can't be hidden any longer, the bureaucracy is in active denial --
"Let's pretend that the problem doesn't exist. Maybe it'll go away, and if not, at
least we don't have to deal with it."
===<forwarded article>===
Thanks Timothy Bloedow <lydia@travel-net.com>
publik skoole teechrrs
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 09:33:59 -0400
From "The Economist", July 18th, p. 27:
In April...Massachusetts held its first statewide test for nearly 1,800
candidates aspiring to teach in the public schools. To its astonishment, almost 60%
of the candidates failed. Around 30% failed a basic reading and writing test, with
questions along the lines of "What is a preposition?" and 'Define the word
'abolish'." Some 63% failed the math paper. In one section of the reading
and writing test, a paragraph from "The Federalist Papers" was read aloud three
times as dictation. Among the interesting words thereby introduced to the lexicon
were "improbally", "integraty", "bodyes" and
"relif".
Confronted with such results, the state Board of Education did what any
other self-preserving body would do: it voted to lower the pass-mark.
Roughly 260 more of the candidates thereby
slid through. Then the board reeinstated the original, higher, passmark, prompting the
interim education commissioner to blame the switch on "political forces" and
immediately resign.
===<end>===
It surely makes for a good incentive to do home-schooling, doesn't
it? However, in the meantime, can we expect any rational decisions on anything to be
made with a reasonable degree of accuracy by the students that graduate from an
education system populated by such teachers? Can we expect our countries to be
able to solve the problems that plague us when even our teachers know neither math nor how
to spell? What are the chances that these teachers know anything else of any
importance?
--Walter |
The radical feminist education curriculum
From: Family Research
Council <frcpub@frc.org>
May 12, 2006
Throw Momma from the Train - And Dad, Too?
Just in time for Mother's Day, the California Senate has voted to approve
S.B. 1437, a measure that could eliminate mom and dad from school textbooks.
Under this measure the Education Code is modified to make it illegal for
textbooks or other instructional materials to "reflect adversely" upon
lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender individuals. It also states that
educational materials shall include "the contributions of people who are
lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender to the total development of
California and the United States."
Classroom discussion of the role of mothers and fathers in family life, for
example, will require that equal time is given to parenting by same-sex
couples. If enacted into law, this would also require an extreme rewrite of
the history books. Political correctness will not help American students
meet the challenge of competition in a global economy.
Some years back California students were surveyed, along with those from
other states. Only 23 percent could identify James Madison as Father of the
Constitution. But 98 percent then recognized Snoop Doggy Dog. This so-called
curriculum will only further dumb down education for California's kids.
Please don't write this off as some crazy idea that will only impact
families in California. As one of the largest purchasers of school
textbooks, California influences what textbooks publishers offer to other
states. We call upon the State Assembly to reject this absurd bill. And we
urge Governor Schwarzenegger to commit now that he will veto the outrageous
piece of propaganda if it is approved.
Congress Poised to Move on Values Issues
After a series of meetings on the Hill this week with Senate and House
Leadership, we anticipate movement on key values issues like Broadcast
Indecency, the Child Custody Protection Act, religious liberties issues and,
of course, the Marriage Protection Amendment in the next few months. While
the House has passed a number of measures, many of those pieces of
legislation have languished in the Senate.
It is clear from our meetings that there is widespread recognition that
"values voters" are very concerned by the lack of progress on core values
issues, issues that were prominently promoted by Republicans in the 2004
election cycle. Following through on these promises is going to have a
significant impact upon the enthusiasm of values voters leading up to this
fall's election.
We've already received word that there will be a mark-up next week of the
Broadcast Indecency bill that overwhelmingly passed the House last year and
has been waiting in the Senate ever since. With just about 5 months until
the mid-term elections, be prepared to act quickly on legislative alerts! On
a side note, I was able to visit with President Bush at the White House
yesterday. The President asked that we convey his appreciation for the
prayers that are offered on his behalf by our supporters. He remains
surprisingly upbeat and positive in what is arguably the most stressful job
in the world. Please continue to pray for him and pray that he will be
surrounded by wise counsel in the decisions that he makes.
Family Research Council: 801 G Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001
P: 202/393-2100 or 800/225-4008 W:
frc.org |
|
Christina Hoff-Sommers describes in her book "Who Stole
Feminism?" how the American Association of University Women proceeded to change the
education curriculum in "her" image (refer to details about her book in the bibliography). In a recent study report
"The Myth That Schools Shortchange Girls: Social Science in the Service of
Deception" Judith Kleinfeld from the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, describes the
detrimental effects of the discrimination against boys in the education system.
Amongst other things, she identifies that the result of that discrimination will be a
shortage of suitable mates for women graduating from college or university. The report
is available at: http://www.uaf.edu/northern/schools/myth.html.
It is an important report that you should try to bring to the attention of your
legislators. The report by Judith Kleinfeld provides additional incentives to
parents who feel that the public education system is shortchanging their children to
provide home schooling. If nothing else, it's a way to
cope with the detrimental effects of the impact of heterophobia
and misandry of radical feminism on your child's education. But, home schooling will
also give your child a better education. Obviously, the public education system has
become incapable of doing the required job. Unfortunately, that fact is all the more
regrettable as it is the result of deliberate changes in policies that changed the quality
of the education that our children receive to the worse. (If the term
"radical feminism" (a.k.a. Marxist- or socialist-feminism) is somewhat new
to you, you need to expand your knowledge. After all, radical
feminism, the currently controlling faction of feminism, governs just about
everything that is happening in your life.
See,
Carey Roberts column
Carey Roberts is an analyst and commentator on political correctness.
His best-known work was an exposé on Marxism and radical feminism.
Carey Roberts' best-known work, his exposé on Marxism and
radical feminism, is not necessarily easy to find, but
this link will help with that. (Some of the URLs for the article
series appear to keep changing. For that reason the identified link
leads to an Internet search for the series. The first or second link in
the return list will most likely lead you to the series.))
It can be anybody's guess as to the motivation for that. Perhaps it is simply
what Hillary Clinton expressed in the presence of a journalist in Texas some time ago. She said
that people who aren't well educated are much easier to govern. As the
following item shows, the conditions that bring those circumstances about
are being deliberately created, promoted, funded and implemented. |
|
The "Fix"
That's Destroying Education In America
Have no illusions that the problems with America's education system are national ones.
Once you read Tom DeWeese's article and know who's behind "The Fix", you'll come
to the conclusion that you know also why "The Fix" is destroying education
in all developed nations. Furthermore, you'll know why the current push for
sex-education is such a large part of it.
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The
Failing Teacher and the Teachers' Code of Silence'
By Glenn Sacks
Glenn Sacks' column, "The Failing Teacher and the Teachers' Code of
Silence" was the lead opinion piece in the 2001 12 02 edition of the Los
Angeles Daily News. It is available at www.GlennJSacks.com.
|
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Measuring up:
The performance of Canadas youth in reading, mathematics and scienceOECD PISA StudyFirst Results
for Canadians aged 15 (PDF, 525 kB)
Just in case you don't know about it which is quite possible in the US, since
that issue appears to be part of the teachers' code of silence
you may want to look up study results that were in the beginning of December 2001
announced by governments in many parts of the world. A short summary of it is accessible
at http://www.pisa.gc.ca/pisa/brochure_e.shtml
The summary presents information on how individual countries rank in the list of the 32
that participated in the evaluation of student performance in three subject areas:
Literacy, Mathematics and Science. The summary contains an error. The results of the math
tests have been shown twice and the results of the science tests not at all. However, it
will give you an idea on whether you should make the effort of downloading the full study
report.
The full report report is a PDF document and 525 kB in size.
Measuring up:
The performance of Canadas youth in reading, mathematics and science
OECD PISA StudyFirst
Results for Canadians aged 15
Although the test results reveal differences in rank between various countries in
relative terms, they do not identify changes over time in terms of absolute values.
Therefore it will not be possible to determine from the report whether there is a
world-wide average decline or improvement of the quality of education. I have my
suspicions. If the news were good in that regard, we would be sure to see them,
as the social engineers educating out children for the global gynarchia
would have something to crow about. |
Posted 2006 05 25 |
|
Back to
Education System in site-index
See also:
Neo Nazis and other overt hate groups are amateurs. THE HATE
MONGERS explains how some elements of the women's movement use
lies and hate, to make big money for themselves, and how they
harm our culture and our economy.
Read THE
HATE MONGERS
|
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Updates:
1999 10 21
2000 10 25 (to provide links to information on Home Schooling programs)
2001 02 02 (format changes)
2001 02 20 (added reference to The "Fix" That's
Destroying Education In America)
2001 11 12 (added link to Homeschooling, A Feminist
Challenge)
2001 12 09 (added link to The Failing Teacher and the Teachers'
'Code of Silence' and and entry for International Student
Tests Results)
2006 03 04 (added link to Feminism for Male College
Students) |
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