Are we raising the stupidest generation in American history? The statistics that you are about to read below are incredibly shocking. They indicate that U.S. high school students are basically as dumb as a rock. As you read the rest of this article, you will be absolutely amazed at the things that U.S. high school students do not know. At this point, it is really hard to argue that the U.S. education system is a success. Our children are spoiled and lazy, our schools do not challenge them and students in Europe and in Asia routinely outperform our students very badly on standardized tests. In particular, schools in America do an incredibly poor job of teaching our students subjects such as history, economics and geography that are necessary for understanding the things that are taking place in our world today. For example, according to a survey conducted by the National Geographic Society, only 37 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 can find Iraq on a map of the world. According to that same survey, 50 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 can't even find the state of New York on a map. If our students cannot even find Iraq and New York on a map, what hope is there that they will be able to think critically about the important world events of our day?
Sadly, almost every survey or study about high school students that gets done shows that most of our students are not even receiving a basic education.
For example, the following comes from an article posted on MSNBC....
Just 13 percent of high school seniors who took the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress — called the Nation's Report Card — showed solid academic performance in American history.
So only 13 percent of our high school seniors are proficient in history?
That doesn't sound good.
So what does that mean exactly?
Well, there have been some other surveys and studies that have quizzed U.S. high school students about specific historical facts.
The following are some of the absolutely amazing results of a study conducted a few years ago by Common Core....
*Only 43 percent of all U.S. high school students knew that the Civil War was fought some time between 1850 and 1900.
*More than a quarter of all U.S. high school students thought that Christopher Columbus made his famous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean after the year 1750.
*Approximately a third of all U.S. high school students did not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of religion. (This is a topic that I touched on yesterday).
*Only 60 percent of all U.S. students knew that World War I was fought some time between 1900 and 1950.
Even more shocking were the results of a survey of Oklahoma high school students conducted back in 2009. The following is a list of the questions that were asked and the percentage of students that answered correctly....
What is the supreme law of the land? 28 percent
What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution? 26 percent
What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress? 27 percent
How many justices are there on the Supreme Court? 10 percent
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? 14 percent
What ocean is on the east coast of the United States? 61 percent
What are the two major political parties in the United States? 43 percent
We elect a U.S. senator for how many years? 11 percent
Who was the first President of the United States? 23 percent
Who is in charge of the executive branch? 29 percent
Some have criticized the survey results above because they came from a telephone survey, but the truth is that they are not some sort of an anomaly. Many other surveys have produced similar results. It doesn't take a genius to realize that a large percentage of our high school students are as dumb as a rock.
The following is from an article written by reporter Mark Morford in which he described his conversations with a longtime Oakland high school teacher that was nearing retirement....
It's gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking — and nearly hopeless — dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.
Now, you may think he's merely a curmudgeon, a tired old teacher who stopped caring long ago. Not true. Teaching is his life. He says he loves his students, loves education and learning and watching young minds awaken. Problem is, he is seeing much less of it.
Later on in that same article, Morford tells us that the high school teacher even admitted that very few of his students even know how to put a sentence together....
It gets worse. My friend cites the fact that, of the 6,000 high school students he estimates he's taught over the span of his career, only a small fraction now make it to his grade with a functioning understanding of written English. They do not know how to form a sentence. They cannot write an intelligible paragraph. Recently, after giving an assignment that required drawing lines, he realized that not a single student actually knew how to use a ruler.
It is not that our students do not have the capacity to be great.
It is just that they have learned to be incredibly lazy and our schools do not challenge them at all.
One study found that 55 percent of all U.S. high school students spend 3 hours or less per week preparing for class.
Other nations require their students to work far longer and far harder.
And they get much better results.
Today, American 15-year-olds do not even rank in the top half of all advanced nations when it comes to math or science literacy.
So how do we expect to compete if this continues?
If we would just challenge our students and require more out of them we could do so much better. What most public schools are doing right now simply does not work. The following is from a report that John Stossel did a few years ago entitled "Stupid In America"....
I talked with 18-year-old Dorian Cain in South Carolina, who was still struggling to read a single sentence in a first-grade level book when I met him. Although his public schools had spent nearly $100,000 on him over 12 years, he still couldn't read.
So "20/20" sent Dorian to a private learning center, Sylvan, to see if teachers there could teach Dorian to read when the South Carolina public schools failed to.
Using computers and workbooks, Dorian's reading went up two grade levels -- after just 72 hours of instruction.
His mother, Gena Cain, is thrilled with Dorian's progress but disappointed with his public schools. "With Sylvan, it's a huge improvement. And they're doing what they're supposed to do. They're on point. But I can't say the same for the public schools," she said.
It absolutely amazes me how millions upon millions of our students can get all the way through high school without ever learning how to read, write or speak at a functional level.
Instead of producing the leaders of tomorrow, our education system is producing a bunch of sheep that are trained to take orders and that are pretty good at taking multiple choice tests.
If you want to get really depressed about the future of America, just watch some of the Jaywalking segments that Jay Leno does. Yes, it is funny to watch as he demonstrates how little Americans actually know about world events. But it is also a sign of how far our education system has fallen.
If Americans cannot even answer basic factual questions about our own government, then how in the world will anyone ever be able to persuade them to think critically about the Federal Reserve, the economic crisis or about our corrupt political system?
Our children are the future of this nation, and right now that future is looking quite bleak.
So what do all of you think about the U.S. education system? Do any of you have any education horror stories to share? Do you believe that our schools have rapidly gone downhill? Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below....
Thank you so very much for your articles on both The Economic Collapse and The American Dream websites. I look forward on a daily basis to see if you have new articles to read. GOD bless and keep fighting the “good” fight!!
John
John:
Thank you for saying that. I have written so many hundreds of articles on both sites that it is a real challenge to come up with something new and interesting to write about.
Michael
I have learn’t alot of evrythng frm da T.V. but I just can’t rember any of it at da moment
Bigup!
We rest our case.
I wouldn’t blame the education system. The majority of the staff in public schools present the opportunity for maximum knowledge, but how can you expect them to teach and reach disrespectful weak minded students who have no desire to learn? (no offense I’m probably no better myself.) They are also human and may feel discouraged and unappreciated. Even so, they continue to make efforts. As an indivual you should not be dependant solely on school, especially in this era where you have the advantage of technology and choice.
I do believe it is the duty of the indiviual to educate himself, no excuses!
at least I think so! I could be wrong.
ahh america america america , I still believe in her
The poor quality of the American public educational system is not an accident. It was deliberately planned. Read the “Deliberate Dumbing Down of America” by Charlotte Iserbyt.
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/
The author was a senior policy advisor in the Department of Education; and her father and grandfather were members of the Skull and Bones secret society:
Spot on essay. 30 yrs in the classroom.
Worse, kids don’t even wash their hands after using the restroom. Worse, still, administration does not care. And to think, they play wid your burger at McD’s.
Hi-ho…Hip..Hop…getchya a tattoo and demand respect.
Deborah lives in her unionized dream world. I attended Parochial School (K thru 7) back in the 60′s thru 70′s. By 8th grade we had moved, and I had to attend public schools. By the 10th grade I had dropped out. Why? Public High School 9th + 10th grade was teaching me the same things I had already been taught in 5th + 6th grade in Parochial School. 10th grade History, I never went to a class once, except to take the mid-term test. Teacher asked why I showed up. I told her to prove what she was teaching I already had been taught years ago. She had me take the test at her desk while she watched. I got a 99%. I left school that year, took my GED, and never looked back. And it has only gotten worse since then! Public education in this country is a joke; a sick, twisted joke!
I actually kind of knew this.
It also partly explains the fact that our real unemployment rate is about 20% in this country (government lies say it is under 10%), but that a lot of employers are having a tough time finding people capable of doing relatively simple jobs with anything resembling competence. The education levels for people in what used to be 3rd world countries is now leaving the USA and probably also the UK, in the dust.
Little wonder my day-job employer is now wanting college degreed people only – even with the extremely dumbed-down higher educational system, they’re at least equivalent to a High School education when I graduated from school in 1975!
But this dumbing-down as it’s called, has been going on a long time. Mrs. and I were at an old book store (now closed as most of them are) and I found a book which had an 8th grade test from the 1890′s (that’d be age 13, when the majority of people finished school back then).
I was shocked to realize that even with a college degree obtained in the 1980′s, I probably would not have gotten more than a passing “average” grade on that 8th grade final ! ! ! I strongly suspect that virtually all of the current youngsters would fail it even age age 18.
I will add this. I know of a little church in my local area which started teaching their own children in a 1-room school house in 1976. They are Biblical Christians; Mennonites.
These children have no tv in their homes and no computer “games”. They don’t tend to associate with the young savages who now make up much of our “youth culture” in this country, but among themselves not because they are forbidden, but because they have virtually nothing in common with them.
When I visit their church, it is like a fresh breeze on a clear sky summer day at a mountaintop. These kids are the most well adjusted people of their age that I know, as are their parents. Yep; they’re still kids, but they can hold an age appropriate intelligent conversation with adult visitors and parents alike. It’s amazing.
I’m also taking a course to continue my education to become a better Pastor in my own church and I’m reading a book entitled “Under the Influence” (How Christianity Transformed Civilization).
The fact that in western sillivization, we are losing Christianity has much more to do with this overall decline than most people realize.
Pastor Glenn
Thanks for that great comment. I think that the Mennonites have a lot that they could teach all of us.
Michael
The scariest thing to me is that these people will vote someday.
I know-conservatives should not be allowed to even drive, much less vote!
[...] attention spans can be.) Things have gotten so bad that most of our high school students cannot even answer the most basic questions about our history. If people are not talking about it on Facebook or Twitter it is almost as if [...]
I am glad that commenters touch on causes other than bad schools. Parents and our social system are at least equally to blame. I saw a cartoon recently depicting what happened when Johnny got a bad grade in:
a.1950 where the parents are yelling at the kid
b.2011 where the parents AND the kid are yelling at the teacher
John Dewey, socialist, was responsible for the discontinued use of phonics in our schools and literacy has plummeted ever since.
“In 1750 nearly 90 percent of New England women (and virtually all men) could read and write, giving this region a higher literacy rate than any other area in Europe or America.”
Source: MSN Encarta
John Dewey wrote: “We violate the child’s nature and render difficult the best ethical results by introducing the child too abruptly to a number of special studies, of reading, writing, geography, etc.” (1897) “The plea for the predominance of learning to read in early school life because of the great importance attaching to literature seems to me a perversion.” (1898)
Edmund Burke Huey in his 1908 textbook wrote: “It is not indeed necessary that the child should be able to pronounce correctly or pronounce at all, at first, the new words that appear in his reading, any more than that he should spell or write all the new words that he hears spoken….And even if the child substitutes words of his own for some that are on the page, provided that these express the meaning, it is an encouraging sign that the reading has been real, and recognition of details will come as it is needed. The shock that such a statement will give to many a practical teacher of reading is but an accurate measure of the hold that a false ideal has taken of us, viz., that to read is to say just what is upon the page, instead of to think, each in his own way, the meaning that the page suggests.”
G. Stanley Hall (Huey’s mentor) spelled it out in 1911: “The knowledge which illiterates acquire is probably a much larger proportion of it practical….It is possible, despite the stigma our bepedagogued age puts upon this disability, for those who are under it not only to lead a useful, happy, virtuous life, but to be really well educated in many other ways.”
“Approximately a third of all U.S. high school students did not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of religion. (This is a topic that I touched on yesterday).”
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It doesn’t where did you get your education? It is merely a prohibition on the Federal Government.
Who was the first President of the United States? 23 percent
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It was not George Washington he was the first President under the Constitution there were are few before him under the articles of Confederation.
John Hanson is the answer.
Without looking it up, I’m pretty sure you mean John Hancock. That is technically correct if you include the Articles of Confederation, but whenever we ask who the first president was, we’re always asking who it was under the U.S. Constitution. Almost no one knows that the first president under the Articles was Hancock.
No, Samuel Huntington was first president under the Articles. John Hancock was president of the Second Continental Congress when independence was declared, making him first president of the United States instead of the United Colonies. The president before him was Peyton Randolph.
Those who don’t learn and understand their history are doomed to repeat it– or worse.
This attitude is the reason young people don’t value education.
Having taught students from the “free market West” as well as from former Soviet Bloc countries (right after the end of communism, so they had gotten their primary and secondary education under the Soviet system), I can say that those educated under communism were, almost without exception, better educated, had better basic (3Rs) skills as well as better critical thinking skills.
I don’t mean to argue causality, only correlation; but it’s got nothing to do with being “free” or “capitalist” or “democratic”.
It’s no coincidence that, as Michael T. Snyder points out, “students in Europe and in Asia routinely outperform our students very badly on standardized tests.” This is by design. Knowledge is power, and the more that American youths are dumbed down and undereducated, the easier it is for the corporatist thugs to keep them under their boots. The more that American youths are dumbed down and undereducated, the more likely they will be to become cannon fodder in imperialist wars or work for slave wages in a sweatshop. The ruling class corporatist thugs don’t want American youths listening to Gerald Celente and Alex Jones or reading Paul Craig Roberts and Justin Raimondo or learning how to be entrepreneurs or campaigning for Ron Paul—no, they want them passive, docile, ignorant and happy to serve their slavemasters.
Ah, but here’s the thing: the fact that youths are uneducated doesn’t necessarily mean that they lack street smarts. And many of them will decide that there is more future in drug trafficking or kidnapping than there is in fighting an imperialist war or working in a sweatshop. This is the violent, unstable Third World society that Gerald Celente and Alex Jones have been warning us about. We ignore them at our peril.
This is exactly what I referred to in an earlier post, as it is exactly what happened during the immigration period of the Civil War era. That time, it was uneducated Irish, and other immigrants from Europe who had no political power or representation save that of the uber corrupt Tammany Hall bent on converting them to cannon fodder in said war. Now, the same thing is going on both with immigrants, illegals, and citizens. The slave base is merely expanding by disregarding and legislating out laws that were put in place to shield those under Constitutional protection from that expansion. And it is being done with full consent of same after selling a bill of goods about “security” and “spreading Democracy” to them.
The long and the short of it is that with the Constitution destroyed, everyone, regardless of color and citizenship status, is in the process of having their status in this country converted to that of a pre-Emancipation slave. As a Black man, fully sick of the talk of race cards and the oft regurgitated statistics trotted out to show me what a blight I am on the planet despite the efforts of such a benevolent majority and government to “rehabilitate” and “facilitate” me, I actually consider my refusal to say “suck it White majority” and my choice to instead feel compassion for it as a testament to my humanity.
And why the need for such extreme compassion? Because everybody else in this country knew exactly what car in the crazy train they were riding in – the cattle car. Only White middle America believed it was taking the trip in the first class dining car with the company execs.
There was a great quote in the movie “Gangs of New York” attributed to Boss Tweed by rich guy “Mr. Shermerhorn” during the Draft Riots where he says “you can always hire one half of the poor to kill the other half”. How true. Especially when one or both of the sides has no idea that the “other half” is not the enemy and never was.
Years ago I removed my kids from public/Catholic school due to the dumbing down. 30 parents got together and we formed a home school atmosphere in a old mansion ( rehabilitated). We had 60 students/ 2 teachers, 6 aids, every parent had to contribute some skill. I taught art and cooking. Some taught music – others gardening, carpentry, mechanics, theater, etc. My sons could read at 12th grade level by 3rd grade. My little one ( 1st grade) could name every state and capital. I blame parents today for their indifference. Also I am against (had autistic brother) having handicapped, mentally challenged, emotionally challenged all in one classroom. All the children suffer/ testing is geared to all students despite grave disabilities. You DO NOT see this in Sidwell other $$$ private schools where the elite/ politically connected send their children (learning Chinese – literature – travel abroad – algebra – physics – science buildings – computer labs etc). They are planning a CLASS for war and the local Wigget Factory (your kids) and the leaders (private schools). Social engineering has replaced teaching/ passivity and conformity.
I am a firm believer that older generations even as far back to ancient Egypt were SIGNIFICANTLY more intelligent than our current one. Honestly, what great minds do we have? We have no real philosophers, radical scientists, artists or great thinkers. Our generation is a “me” generation, meaning nothing will be done without proper benefits, and I’m not just talking about the kids.
Generations ago guys like Giordano Bruno and Galileo laid down their lives and personal freedoms for radical and controversial beliefs. Today we have a society chock full of sycophants who pledge fealty to corrupt institutions for scraps, so long as they elevate their status, get the car, the mate, the house…THE PRIZE.
IIRC I remember a quote that went something like this, “Americans place greater emphases on major corporations and businesses, than rugged on individuals who personify the American spirit of individualism, determination, courage and honor like Clint Eastwood.” I paraphrased that badly, but you get the point, the age of the true individual is dead and buried.
To Quote:”Instead of producing the leaders of tomorrow, our education system is producing a bunch of sheep that are trained to take orders and that are pretty good at taking multiple choice tests.”
It is really much worse! Trained to take order without thinking or questioning. For example: I recently flew and was told I had to pay extra for my second piece of luggage (new policy for most airlines, not wanting to give two for free). I told them, “You can clearly see that on your screen that I did not have even one coming into NYC. I think you should give me the second one for free to make up for the one I didn’t use.” They refused…”sorry, it is against our policy.” I demanded to see the supervisor. Told him the same thing and that this policy to begin with is outright theft. He also refused. I saw that I was getting no where, but at least I tried. These idiots really tick me off because a lot of their “policies” end up being theft.
As for the multiple choice tests, don’t you mean multiple guess? Since they don’t know the answer, let alone an an “educated guess,” the really are blindly selecting the correct answer. I remember taking multiple choice tests that you into h or i or even j, where such letter are “a and b” or “c and d” or “a and c but could have been b too under condition x.” Even these were a super simple. I found fill in really challenging, because you had to know. Essay questions were my favorite because this really challenged you and even if you didn’t quite know the answer, at least the teacher gave partial credit for trying!
Where are such teachers? Not in my former state-run high school. Heck, not even in a state-run college. You talk about high school student? What about college graduates that can’t answers those questions? That teacher that wants to escape the U.S. has a point. Give it two more generations and the U.S. will be full of 5-year olds controlled by the super elite who are not even intelligent compared to 13-year olds of 1850. “G-d Save the Queen?” It should be “G-d Save the U.S.!”
The Public Fool System is a roaring success, outdoing even the wildest dreams of those who designed and sponsored it, and keeping pace, at least, with the desires of those who control and struggle to expand it today. From the outset, it was intended to make those whom it processed, into useful tools for their “betters,” yet dependent, incapable of suscessfully challenging the powers that be.
Those few who doubt this (and actually give a damn) may read an egaging proof — The Underground History of American Education, by John Taylor Gatto — for free at: http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm … provided they actually can read. Ethical readers may even purchase a printed copy.
Excellent book recommendation! Gatto is the former NY State Teacher of the Year who not only left the public school system but became very vocal about its failings. He is now a homeschool advocate. His other books are also very good; his essay “The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher” will open your eyes, too: http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
Here is another reference that is an absolute necessity for those that wish to acquire an handle on why our government schools have been purposefully programmed to fail. It is a huge book by Charlotte Iserbyt and is available on a free download at this link…..http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/
I’ve always been good at math, and as I was attending college in Alaska many years ago, I was a math tutor. When you are learning about math in general, you have to remember what you are learning, so you can keep going. The thing about math is that it’s endless. You can’t just learn the part you’re studying and then forget about it, because there is always more, even if you happen to be a PhD. All of math depends upon what you’ve already learned, otherwise you can’t go any further.
Well, one time a young Native kid came in, who was having trouble with his integral calculus. In order to perform integration, however, one must first be familiar with differential calculus, which is covered in the first semester. He was deep into the second semester, just six weeks from finals.
In order to solve the problem he was trying to work on, first he had to perform some pretty straightforward differential calculus, which he should have learned long before then. He didn’t know how to do it. Obviously I could not teach him nearly a year of calculus in one session, so I was unable to help him at all. He just picked up and left, suddenly aware that he was going to fail the class.
So, kids: If you’re studying math and want to keep going, you have to remember all of what you’ve studied about it.
What we are witnessing today,in American education,is the final result of the Cultural Marxist assault on American culture. 100 years ago the Left knew that in order to gain power they had to change their tactics. The Left knew that it couldn’t compete with the Free Enterprise System in creating a large Middle Class. That the Middle Class of 100 years ago would not accept Socialism by voting it in. So instead they came up with the idea of taking over and influencing the Culture of the West. By controlling and influencing the Media,Academia,Public Education,the Arts etc. They could,to a large extent,control the thinking and actions of the masses as far as accepting a Socialist,top down power structure. Unfortunately, the collectivists of both Right and Left have succeeded in their efforts beyond their wildest dreams. The only answer is a counter-revolution of trying,step by step,to recapture the world of ideas. This crusade of liberty may take a generation or two of hard work to implement,but judging by the Ron Paul Revolution and the proliferation of the Internet I think that the believers in individual liberty and self reliance are off tho a good start. In the end,its a race against time. This counter-revolution must succeed before the forces of tyranny are in place to stifle any resistance. Its a matter of constructing a rebirth of liberty in America before the construction of the gulags and the police state can grow to the point of no return.
Excellent comment. The internet may help if enough people actually read, and discern what’s available, but I do believe we may be past the point of mounting any type of peaceful counter-revolution. I unlike yourself believe the forces of tyranny are mostly in place now and becoming stronger every day. The traditional road towards peaceful resolution is our Congress. Unfortunately they no longer listen as representatives of the people so that leaves resolution by civil resistance or armed force.
By 6th grade in 1965 I knew all of the information that was in John Stossel’s “Stupid In America”. What the hell happened? But perhaps I’m making too much of this. Maybe it’s not so important when all you have to know are one of two phrases: “paper or plastic?”, or “do you want fries with that?”
I’ll take the fries, thank you very much. No ice or stamps today, though.
All they need to know is reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. Everything else they can look up.
That’s true Charlie, but they don’t teach the basics anymore. In some indoctrination centers (PS schools) they shove computers in front of 1st graders before they know the how to add in their head. Haven’t you noticed the kids working at McDonald’s are lost in making change without their little counter mounted devices??
John Hanson was President of the Continental Congress, never President of the United States. I do however understand the point the writer was trying to get across. Many people do not consider the years the United States did not have a president. The country being born on July 4, 1776, but our first president, George Washington, first assumed office in 1789. That is a period of some 13 years without a president. The President of the Continental Congress was one of many equals. Someone had to lead that group, and the first was of course John Hanson. But the writer has a very valid point, in that few people even know of the name John Hanson, or the significance of his place in our nation’s history. I mention this not to technically correct the writer, but merely to inform other readers.
It is a shame when a high school graduate can’t name the first president, can’t identify Iraq on a map, can’t read a ruler, don’t know when or why the Civil War was fought, or know the ocean that touches the eastern border of the mainland United States. We’ve got to know history to be able to foresee a solid future. We’ve got to know geography to know our neighbors. We’ve got to know math to make ends meet. We’ve got to know our government, so we can know who we are. And we’ve got to know English to clearly communicate.
This entire thread reinforces the need for improving the educational system in our country. The tone of some of the responses here is questionably civil. Much like our Congress, there will never be any significant improvements until we can all work together without personal attacks. There must be a respect for all opinions of those who genuinely care.
I’d like to think that most school teachers genuinely care about teaching. I’m sure some do not. We need to keep the best teachers, and retire those who can’t cut the mustard. If I am about to have surgery, I don’t want a surgeon who is not up to par. I want someone who is good, qualified, and cares. I think the same should hold true to teachers, and to any profession for that matter.
Poverty does adversely affect many students. But poverty does not adversely affect the student’s ability to learn. Parents must participate in their children’s education. Those who claim poverty as a reason a child does not get a good education must also look for additional reasons, not excuses. A child in this country can get a good education, if they have the desire. That desire should be instilled by parents, or guardians as is the case with many students.
One of the problems in the schools today is that teachers have no control in their classrooms. There can be little to no discipline in the classroom. One of my cousins is a second grade teacher in a public school. She cannot even have a student stand in a corner for acting up as back in my day. There is too much fear of a lawsuit. When teachers have no control, all students on the classroom suffer. When teachers have to spend time with one problem student, the remaining 20 or so students suffer as a result of the lack of teaching. Yes, the problems of society negatively affect our educational system.
I could go on with many other reasons our educational system is flawed. Many of you on this thread could add many as well. This isn’t a Liberal problem; this isn’t a Conservative problem; this isn’t a race problem; this isn’t a gender problem; and this isn’t a status problem – it’s our problem. It is the problem of our children and grand children. And it will start to get better only when we stop blaming the Democrats, stop blaming the Republicans, stop blaming the wealthy, stop blaming the poor, stop blaming the blacks, stop blaming the whites, and stop blaming our neighbors.
Let’s do something to make it better.
We educate everyone up to 16. The other countries give a middle school to high school option. Complain all you want, take your kids and leave the U.S. I will see you coming back. As for these survey clowns, the inner cities of the U.S. are the most populated and poverty stricken. If you remove that group from your SURVEY we have the best educational system in the world by far. Most kids just choose to do other things. We have to just deal with it and hope that we raise our kids the right way in the home so when they go to school they know how to take advantage of the free education that is being provided to them.
Unfortunately you have not the slightest clue what you are talking about. Do some more reading and and pay attention to those that refer to people like Charlotte Iserbyte, and John Taylor Gatto in their comments.
I LOVE IT! I love it when people who bewail the failings of others have exactly the same problems themselves.
They do not know how to form a sentence.
R-i-i-i-ght. You mean, like this:
> If we would just challenge our students and require more out of them we could do so much better.
(1) When a sentence begins with a subordinate clause, you need a comma before the main clause.
(2) What kind of verb form is this ‘If we would just challenge … and require…’ ? It’s not English! When you have a conditional in the main clause ( ‘we could do …’ ), the verb in the subordinate clause needs to be past simple.
So, your sentence — properly formed — should read
> If we just challenged our students and required more out of them, we could do so much better.
best regards,
Robert Carlsen
retired professor of linguistics
Nice going, Bob. I agree about the comma. A bit stodgy concerning the ‘would’, however. I might take out the ‘just’ too. It implies ‘only’ and then proceeds to refer to a compound verb.
I was only a student of linguistics, though, not a professor.
…train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it….
Proverbs 22:6…
The Communist planners long ago knew the use and importance of education of the young in their well stated philosophy for world conquest. What people must learn is ‘communism’ is really only one side of a coin called totalitarianism…the other side of the same coin is called ‘corporatism.’ ‘They’ have most of the West now confused and believing that the ‘corporatism’ side of the coin is ‘Capitalism. In otherwords…by making it look and having enough of the public believing that what is destroying the Western economic system is ‘Capitalism’ it makes it possible to begin replacing ‘capitalism’ by using ‘corporatism’ with ‘Socialism’….which is the last phase of the transformation before pure ‘communism.’
Confusing isn’t it!
The Russian revolution of 1917 and takeover by Lenin was actually planned, financed and arranged by powerful ‘Western’ bankers. Not enough space here to get into the whole story, but hopefully you get the gist.
John Dewey, an agent of the early wealthy ‘elite’ socialists said that the schools: “Take an active part in determining the social order of the future as the teachers align themselves with the forces making for social control of ‘economic forces.” John D. Rockefeller started the General Education Board…the fore-runner to todays Rockefeller Foundation(tax free)…as a means of introducing the world of education to the wealthy. The Board’s Chairman, Frederick T. Gates wrote: “In our dreams, we have limitless resources now(taxpayer money) and the people yield their children with perfect agreement to our molding hands. The present educational conventions fade from our minds and , unhampered by tradition, we work our good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk.”
Of course you are now seeing the progression of their success. The pattern of using the schools to mold the character to the Soviet totalitarian system of society and economy will be furthered by a national Union of school teachers(NEA). Schools will become clinics whose purpose is to provide individualized, psycho-social treatment for the student, and teachers will become ‘societal change agents’ and psycho-social therapists.
Some people have begun noticing at least the symptoms and results from what I read here.
Great and accurate comment. You have done your homework.
The hard, harsh reality of the 21st and 22nd centuries is that technology is infinitely more important than any war or politician.
I expect that, once we understand how our brains work (which is not very well), we shall finally be able to control our emotions and behaviors, thus eliminating war essentially as a medical problem requiring psychotropics.
One retort to me blames Jews. Frankly, I’m not all that concerned with them, since all religions are nonsense anyway.
You’re much better off reading a physics textbook.
The nurse at my doctors office couldnt operate a scale or a blood pressure monitor. I had to teach her how to use the scale. This country is seriously going to hell.
I am finally commenting on big-city American students who are for the most part slow-turtle brained brats. They are spoiled and lazy and refuse to follow the simplest of instructions, OK, maybe a third listen, but the remainder have come to the conclusion that they’ll be fine if their school work looks like a drunk wrote it. No pride, no goals. If we have another ten years I’ll be shocked. I am forgetting it was like this 40 years ago?
Come on, “First President of the United States” is a trick question. I assume it is safe to not answer Peyton Randolph because even though he was president of the first Continental Congress, at the time they were the “United Colonies.”
That leaves the first contender for the title to be John Hancock as he was president when independence was declared, transitioning from United Colonies to United States.
The second contender for the title would be Samuel Huntington, the first president after the Articles of Confederation were passed and therefore the first to preside over an official federal body.
The third contender is, of course, George Washington.
I thought the first President of the U.S. was Christopher Columbus. He sailed with a bunch of Spanish and Italian guys on the Queen Mary, which sank after hitting an iceberg on April 15th, 1912. Several decades later, he built the Queen Mary 2.
After that, they sailed westward in their lifeboats until they reached New York City. Everyone praised old Chris for being a valiant leader, and in 1916 he was elected President.
As you can see, I lerned a lat in hi skool.
I also remember my grandpa telling me stories about fighting in the Civil War way back in 1962. The Germans were bombing Pearl Harbor, and Granddad took up arms (and legs), and headed for the nearest Marine recruitment place.
Unfortunately, the Vietnamese launched an atomic bomb, which set the Allied forces back several years…
God Bless America! We’re Number One! Yaaayy!
Wow, that’s getting old.
There is no way I would send a child to public school today. No school at all would be a better education than can be gotten at most of them. Most of what they do could better be characterized as torture than teaching.
I am an employer. One day while driving in a truck with an employee I asked this 20 something “what is the definition of the word ‘democracy’”? To make a long story short he had no idea whatsoever. I was so astonished that I asked my other employees (teens to 40 years) and not one of them could give any definition. I am still reeling from the experience. The solution?
Get the federal government out of education and leave carriculum up to the local school board and the parents. The “localer” the better.
If you don’t believe the author of this article, then look up John Taylor Gatto or Charlotte Iserbyt (pronounced Iser-bee).
Charlotte Iserbyt’s father and grandfather both went to Yale and became members of the infamous Skull & Bones secret society. As a result, Charlotte now has documents from Skull & Bones (including their membership lists, which have her listed in them as her father’s daughter) that prove beyond a doubt that Skull & Bones deliberately took over the U.S. school system and engineered it to fail. This isn’t conspiracy theory, it’s conspiracy fact.
You can read both Gatto and Iserbyt’s books about the “deliberate dumbing down of America” as they call it, for free online. You can also see the video interview that Infowars did with Iserbyt on YouTube, just do a search for “The Charlotte Iserbyt story”.
BTW, Charlotte Iserbyt was Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement at US Dept. of Education during the Reagan administration. She also worked for the State Department. It doesn’t get much more insider than that.
If you are still not convinced, then you’re simply immune to the truth.
You are one of the few who know the truth behind the failed PS system. Your references are accurate and appropriate. I’ve studied the dumbing down of America problem for many years in my retirement, and it’s heartening to see there are a few out there who know the truth even though I hate to admit that it’s too late now for any effective fix.
It is sad to have to admit it. But it IS too late to fix the system from within. One would need to sacrifice their own children’s futures to try tilting at these windmills. ( I could segue to the EPA and “sustainable energy policy” here, but I’ll restrain myself.)
Thank you for this post.
As an educator of some 40 years who now works with groups of homeschoolers, I have a keen interest in this topic.
Clearly, our public education system is failing. Can Americans not see this? Can they not understand the grave danger?
“If our students cannot even find Iraq and New York on a map, what hope is there that they will be able to think critically about the important world events of our day?”
Now, that would make them ideal employees for the TSA!
I am in the 7th grade and when i see all of these things about how little high school students know, it frightens me! I know much more than those “people”. It is really sad that they don’t know who the U.S. first president was! I mean come on!!! He is in our history books. The U.S. general who defeated the British. He crossed the Delaware River and that was one of our big marks in history! It’s George Washington!! I have stated all these facts and it is sad that high school students can’t even answer this question correctly on a multiple choice question test… All i have to say now is, Sad…
[...] #6 According to a survey conducted by the National Geographic Society, only 37 percent of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 can find Iraq on a map of the world. What does that say about our education system? [...]
” only 37 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 can find Iraq on a map of the world. ”
yet must in 1990, 2001 and likely, still today, are fine invading them, killing them and nuking them…otherwise, antiwar voices are silenced for the crime of “not supporting the troops”
I work on MEDICAID disability cases, this statement:
“I talked with 18-year-old Dorian Cain in South Carolina, who was still struggling to read a single sentence in a first-grade level book when I met him”
You would be surprised how often I see people with GED/12th grade ed or at least 8-9th grade ed that cannot fill out simple forms, nor read and understand simple forms. One person told me recently he could not read/write more then his name and told me, rather matter of fact “well, I only went to 9th grade”…..as if basic reading kicks in then or sometime later…….the plan, dumbind down the “mundanes” going rather wll, thank you Dewey/Rockafellar,et al…….
meant “dumbed down”, my education is fine, typing skills, not so much…….then again, my IQ in past was around 117 (when I was sick and having memory issues 2nd to hypoxia) and went to private school most of my time….
The time required to teach does not need to be expanded. The quality of time spent teaching is important. Smaller classroom sizes, quality teaching, and a good attitude make a difference.
Homeschooling is on the rise for many of the reasons that you state in your article. Homeschoolers may not spend 6-7 hours learning how to work to the sound of bells, and getting their attendance taken repetively, but they do get in quality education in a small classroom setting from teacher-parents who care deeply for their children’s well-being, success, and understanding of the world around them.
My kids have known the location of Iraq on a world map since they were in early elementary school and we were learning about Mesopotamia.
Here is a shocking thing to say: Lets ban the monopoly the government has on state sponsored education. Public unions and the government are the raison d’tre for MORE of this style of education? If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. BUT…the assertion is that the system is broke right? Don’t put the same people in charge that broke the system in the first place. They have to go. Imagine a world without PUBLIC UNIONS and GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY ON EDUCATION. Just IMAGINE!!!
The early mid 1970s in HS was no picnic for sure. Many did learn vital math skills like there are 28 grams in an ounce.
I had an interest in history and like most here learned it by reading on my own. I wish the internet was around back then. If you don’t know history with the availability of the internet no teaching will drill it in your head.
The majority of people just don’t care about anything except that which provides them with immediate pleasure and comfort.
I heartily agree with your argument about a phenomenological narcissism being a key source to our education problems. We do live in an era where “me” “me” and “feel good now” is marketed and imposed on a public that is not paying attention — and that’s the adults!
How does one “prepare” to be dumbed down in the classroom? This article says that kids need to prepare better for class.
I am a 30 year old researcher and writer who was luckily blessed with two things growing up. Number one, I am naturally intelligent. Concepts come easy to me and I am aware about the proper ways to discern true and false information. Secondly, I went to private school from kindergarten through third grade. In addition to learning how to read at a very early age using phonix, we also learned French from 1st grade on. When the tutiton became too high in 1st grade, I moved back to public school for the rest of that year, but I hated it in public school so I eventually went back to my old school. While I was in public school, I noticed that I was a far better reader than the rest of my class. I went back to private school till the beginning of 4th grade. Public school that year was a nightmare. I had a physically abusive teacher who routinely put her hands on me and shoved me around for misbehaving. One day she grabbed me by my cheeks pressing up against my gumms so hard that I had bruises. My principle and family didn’t believe me and never thought to ask my classmates what they saw. Then one day, one of my classmates was pushing in line and all I did was push back and tell him to stop. My teacher grabbed my arm, flung me around as hard as she could and rammed my lower back into the metal chalk tray. I sunk to the floor, writhing in agony. If I wasn’t so hurt my rage may have led me to do something completely out of character, but to this day my back is messed up because of her. Nobody believed me when I told them and nothing was ever done to dicscipline this teacher. Middle school and high-school weren’t much better, educationally. I luckily had a few teachers here and there who actually taught me a lot. My 8th grade English teacher knew I was a good writer and nurtured my talent, for example. It wasn’t until I graduated and went to community college that I found out how much I didn’t know. This was especially true with history. I had always been extremely facsinated by the past, but apparently during high-school I had been taught a bunch of useless crap because my college history professor enlightened me to a great many truths that I had no idea about. I also had a few English professors who molded my raw writing talent and who taught me that having the ability to write beautiful prose is only the first step towards becoming a good writer. I learned about a whole range of things about writing that I never knew beforehand. During the time it took me to get my associates degree and move on to a 4-year school, critical thinking and original ideas were encouraged. Some professors structured their entire class in line with that. Community college’s aren’t funded by the state, and therefore do not have to teach pre-sanctioned, politically correct nonsense in place of real education. I will always be grateful for my time there, because had I gone from highschool straight to a four year school without community college inbetween, I would not be the person I am today. I attend Rutgers University now, and original thinking seems like a pair of dirty words. By the time I got there, I’d already had four history courses with a professor who taught us the truth. Rutgers history professors are forced to teach from preapproved books and cannot tell the truth about certain subjects. Challenging some of these professors is akin to academic suicide, and in all my courses, to see how little my classmates actually know makes me sad and worried for this once great and free nation’s future. Kids are getting dumber and dumber, public education is coddling and encouraging their stupidity. Then Americans wonder why our country is going down the drain and why the rest of the world hates us. It isn’t freedom other countries hate. It’s America’s self-imposed role as world police, and the brutal, hypocritical and almost completely failed foriegn and domestic policies. Our government is screwing up so bad, that they are now coming after our right to call them on their crap! That is what SOPA and PIPA are about! The government never wants their own words and actions to be used against them. They want to act with impunity and the dumber the public is, the easier that will be…
Europeans are sucking more… they cant even use computer and internet… who needs education these days??
“Our children are spoiled and lazy, our schools do not challenge them and students in Europe and in Asia routinely outperform our students very badly on standardized tests.”
I should have figured that this should be where I stopped reading, however it all panned out as I thought it would and well done to you for having idiots complain about the system which they enabled – good job!
It’s the NAGGERS….the system has to cater to the lowest common denominator.
i’m been a hiskull grad and haz berry goodt comprehennzion, allso goodt in spieling, reeding and *phonix*.
[...] has completely and totally failed them. As I have written about previously, our education system is a joke and most high school graduates these days are simply not prepared to function at even a very basic [...]
I will agree that the school system has faid but completely dis-agree with you on young adult finding a job. I spents 33 years building Arkansas schools. I know what work is. Before you judge me and say its a manual labor job, I will let you know that if I work on a saturday,I was paid $43.75 an hour. If I worked on Sunday,then I made $55 an hour and I didn’t have to have 40 hours to get the wages.Hard work learnt on the job got me these wages. I listened,learned and led.School didn’t teach me this stuff,life did.We all can’t be a masons,but there will always be a job that,only requires common sense.maybe it’s detailing a car or stocking beans and corn on a store shelf.look we find products on the shelfs everyday reather you can read or not,just look for the pictures. In contruction work they will hire ditch diggers and toter most any day. I support education 100%, but when it si used for an excuses for no work,then you have failed your-self and the students. Let me give you some good advise now,put down your bucket of excuses and teach that all jobs don’t come from a book. The man I worked for built his five million dollar brick company from the back of an old station wagon car and hard work.
I had a very similar experience to the teacher mentioned in the article. That, and other such experiences led me to abandon teaching and go back to engineering. High schools in America are sexually saturated, politically correct, indoctrination centers, that have no intention of challenging students and imparting knowledge. I wrote about this scam we call public education in my book, Set Our Children Free. Only radical change can save us from this next generation.
When I started seventh grade, I was the only one who could identify the seven continents. It was all downhill from there. I have a 7yo who can identify all 50 states on a blank map and around 70 countries (to tell you the truth I can’t do the same). I homeschool,but even if he and his older brother were in school we would learn these things after schools. For all the shocked parents and grandparents reading this article, don’t rely on the schools to teach everything. They are forced to teach to the lowest common denominator. Just accept the fact that you need to step in and help with the deficiencies if you cannot afford private school, homeschooling, or an expensive school district. I’m sure enough of us are capable that we may just save society and have enough educated citizens to run the country.
You all need to watch IDIOCRACY, another predictive in your face programming piece of reality !
The real problem is not school. It is the modern parenthood. Children spend far more hours in home than school.
Growing up in China, my family had a TV since my 1st grade. My mom only allow me to watch 30 minutes of cartoon on Saturdays only. The show is also be approved by my mom. If I got bad grade at school, then I will not watch TV till the end of school year.
American parents believe that education is the job of school. There is no demand from parents to their children on their achivement. Only ask to try best and have fun. TV and computer game is used as babysitter. Why do we have so much problem with teenagers today? Just watch the Disney channel for teenagers for ten minutes. You will find all the teen attitude problems there.
Growing up from a different culture, I see more problems with parents than schoo.
This is really sad. I wish parents took more of an interest in their child’s education. Where are the parents in all this? To busy to care?
I guess so, they need to spend their 28 hours a week watching tv. Don’t want to miss out on Survivor.
20 years ago I returned my kids to public school from being home schooled (by me a with only a GED myself and the help of some really great home school material.)They had been in my school for 3.5 years… The priniple at the school (knowing fully well I couldn’t have done a descent job) put the kids through every test they had it took three days… They were trying to prove that I was remiss at their education. It turned out that they had advanced, not declined. They left public school at and below grade level and return at and above… Did the school embrace them? NO? Did they welcome us as supporting parents of the school system? NO? We were forced into home schooling by my husbands military career…. They knew that, but still we were ostersized. What were they thinking?
The problem is that this was the design in the first place. Our education system is intended to promote ignorance and blind faith in authority figures(police, media, government, etc.). Free thought, expression, and questioning of the so-called lessons being taught is discouraged and sometimes punished. I’ve also seen several people state that the problem is that they teach to the “lowest common denominator”. This is absurd and wreaks of covert classism and racism. In truth, they intentionally create and perpetuate this “denominator” through their practices. Unfortunately, this is just another infiltrated institution of society. It is wholly and completely intended as a means of indoctrination. Nothing more.
37% can’t find Iraq on a map, 50% can’t find New York, that’s y we need *********** maps! I’m intelligent, articulate, possess functioning common sense and clever logic, however if u hand me a blank map, say “point at New York”, sorry, but I won’t be able give you more than just the general area it’s located. If I could, why would I need the map? If they’re judging this from a labeled map, then we have bigger issues than we r admitting to, namely our illiteracy!
And who was the FIRST president of the UNITED STATES?….. It certainly was not George Washington.