THIS PAGE
TO A FRIEND
Education Books
Education Links
EducationOuotes
E
D
U
C
A
T
I
O
N
Q
U
O
T
E
S
A general State education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mold in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body. "
- John Stuart Mill, 1859
"When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."
-- Albert Shanker, Longtime Teacher's Union President
GOVERNMENT INDOCTRINATION CENTERS
"How can parents not understand that turning over their children to the state to be educated will have consequences? Can anyone truly expect that their child will survive such an experience with even the most shallow understanding of the dangers of too much government?
"If your child is educated in a Catholic private school you would reasonably expect that your child will come away believing that the Catholic way of looking at things is pretty much on mark. Ditto for a Baptist or a Hebrew school. And you somehow think that government schools don't work the same magic? Doesn't it stand to reason that if you send your child to a government school that your child will 'learn,' if that's the word, that government is the answer to most of the problems they will face in their lives?"
"[State controlled] education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”
YER GUMMINT SKOOLS INACTION
"We have long known teenagers in Japan scored much higher on international math tests than American teenagers. But did you know teenagers in Poland, the Slovak Republic, Iceland, Canada and Korea - among other places - also score higher than our teenagers? Out of 29 countries whose teenagers took a recent international math test, American teenagers ranked 24th."
Unfortunately, in cases such as these, something done cannot be undone. Even though the school district and sheriff’s department issued apologies, the damage was done.
LEAVING NCLB BEHIND
Connecticut filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging President Bush's No Child Left Behind school reform law because, it says, no money is provided to cover expensive testing and required programs.
The state is the first to go to court over the law.
"The goals of the No Child Left Behind Act are laudable," said the state's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal. "Indeed, Connecticut has pursued these goals for decades, but the federal government has failed in implementing them."
Blumenthal announced plans for the lawsuit this spring, after the federal government repeatedly refused to waive some of the requirements of No Child Left Behind. The law aims to have every student in public schools proficient in reading and math by 2014.
Mandatory annual testing has been Connecticut's chief complaint. The state, which has been administering its own mastery test for 20 years, wants to continue testing every other year.
"This mindless rigidity harms our taxpayers, but most of all our children," Blumenthal said.
Standardized testing in grades three, five and seven is scheduled to begin this school year.
A recent report projects that the state will fall $41.6 million short in paying for the law's requirements through 2008, but federal officials question that estimate. A state law prohibits state money from being used to pay for the federal law's requirements.
In Utah, the state legislature passed a measure defying the federal law, and it was signed by Gov. Jon Huntsman on May 2. The law gives state educational standards priority over the requirements of No Child Left Behind.
The nation's largest teacher's union, the National Education Association, joined with school districts and union chapters across the country to file a lawsuit this year challenging the law. Connecticut's union chapter is part of that lawsuit.
Private Education
"Between 1989-90 and 2001-02 private school enrollment in kindergarten through grade 12 increased from 4.8 million to 5.3 million students.... Catholic schools have the largest enrollment of private school students, but the distribution of students across types of private schools changed over this 12-year period. For example, the percentage of private school students who attended Catholic schools decreased from 55 to 47 percent, with parochial schools (i.e., run by a parish, not by a diocese or independently) experiencing the largest decrease. On the other hand, during this period, the percentage of students enrolled in other religious private schools increased from 32 to 36 percent, with conservative Christian schools experiencing the largest increase. Also, there was an increase in the percentage of students enrolled in nonsectarian private schools, from 13 to 17 percent. This change in distribution from Catholic to other religious and nonsectarian private schools occurred at both the elementary and secondary levels."
(Source: John Wirt, Patrick Rooney, Bill Hussar; Susan Choy, Stephen Provasnik, and Gillian Hampden-Thompson, "The Condition of Education 2005" [NCES 2005094], National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, June 1, 2005; http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2005/section1/indicator02.asp .)
Left Behind
"First the bad news: Only about two-thirds of American teenagers (and just half of all black, Latino and Native American teens) graduate with a regular diploma four years after they enter high school.
Now the worse news: Of those who graduate, only about half read well enough to succeed in college.
Don't even bother to ask how many are proficient enough in math and science to handle college-level work. It's not pretty.
Of all the factors combining to shape the future of the U.S., this is one of the most important. Millions of American kids are not even making it through high school in an era in which a four-year college degree is becoming a prerequisite for achieving (or maintaining) a middle-class lifestyle.
...Cartoonish characters like Snoop Dogg and Paris Hilton may be good for a laugh, but they're useless as role models. It's the kids who are logging long hours in the college labs, libraries and lecture halls who will most easily remain afloat in the tremendous waves of competition that have already engulfed large segments of the American work force. "
(Source: Bob Herbert, "Left Behind, Way Behind," The New York Times, August 29, 2005; http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/29/opinion/29herbert.html?th&emc=th .)
Catholic Schools Make the Grade
While Catholic high school students tend to do better academically than their public school peers, many sociologists dismiss these outcomes as selection bias, claiming that background factors that influence parents' decision to enroll their children in a Catholic school are responsible for these positive effects. Yet in a study that quantifies the extent of selection bias, economists with the National Bureau of Economic Research conclude that the independent effect of a Catholic education is indeed real.
The researchers crunch data from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey of 1988 that show, among nearly 25,000 students, huge Catholic high school advantages on graduation and college attendance rates and smaller ones on twelfth-grade test scores. Conceding that a wide range of "observables" suggest a fairly strong positive selection into Catholic high schools, the economists found the selection link to be much weaker, however, among high schoolers who also attended Catholic schools for eighth grade. By focusing on this eighth-grade subsample, a methodological improvement that improves the comparability with the public school control group, they tracked student progress through 1994.
Among those who attended Catholic eighth grade, the researchers found that family background and geographic controls explained only a fairly small amount of the difference in the higher Catholic high school graduation rate (OLS and probit estimates of the average marginal effect of 0.105 without controls; 0.084 with controls). Given that additional controls for eighth-grade educational measures yielded only slight modifications in the effect (from 0.081 to 0.088), the economists observe that the "stability of the effect is remarkable" and that the effect "is still very large" considering the graduation rate of 0.947 among students in the subsample. As they conclude: "Attending a Catholic high school substantially raises high school graduation rates."
A similarly substantial but more tentative effect was found in terms of the probability of these students being enrolled in a college two years after high school graduation. Among urban minorities in the subsample, the effects of attending a Catholic high school on the probabilities of completing high school as well as attending college were even stronger, yet the researchers cautioned that selection factors might fully explain the effect on college attendance of urban minorities.
Although the economists make no policy recommendations, their findings suggest that any reform of American education ought to place the proven "faith-based" approach on the table and look less at tinkering with public schools to improve educational achievement.
(Source: Joseph G. Altonji, Todd E. Elder, and Christopher R. Taber, "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy 113 [2005]: 151-185.)SECRET OF THEIR SUCCESS
"Home-school success is not a new phenomenon. The vast majority of the Founding Fathers were home-schooled or received private one-on-one tutoring. The advantages of one-on-one tutoring are clear: no distractions and an environment where a child can learn at his or her own pace. So much more learning can take place in the home, which is the main reason home-schoolers score an average of 20 to 30 percentile points higher on standardized tests than public school students."
Michael Smith of the Home School Legal Defense Association
NEA AND THE LABOR DEPARTMENT
When President Bush appointed Elaine Chao as the head of the Department of Labor, some thought she was an affirmative action hire. Unfortunately for the nation's largest labor unions, that was not the case. One of her first actions as Secretary of Labor was to order the unions to disclose how they spend the dues of their members. Big unions like the National Education Association (NEA) fought the rules hard at the congressional level and then in the courts and now we know why. Under the new rules the NEA was forced to report it gave $65 million of the hard earned dollars of America's teachers to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Push Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance and a litany of other socially liberal advocacy groups in 2005. The NEA even gave funds to People for the American Way. There were also big contributions to organizations seeking to move voters toward "progressive" candidates. It was thought that the NEA took its marching orders from the Democrat Party, but looking at the way the money flows it may be the Democrat Party that takes its marching orders from the NEA. (Click here for news report)
Keep 'America' in Michigan schools State bureaucrats want to do what Stalin, Osama could only dream about
Michael Warren
C ensoring the word "America" from our own schools is something Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden would never have thought possible. Michigan has done it without a whimper.
In perhaps a well-intentioned, but pernicious example of political correctness, the Michigan Department of Education is attempting to ban the "America" and "American" from our public schools. Even though the word "America" appears in the department's own civics and government benchmarks, the department's style protocol for the Michigan Education Assessment Program requires that "America" and "Americans" be expunged from our testing and grade level expectations. Last week, the department ordered that our hard-working teachers not utter the words.
We're all 'North Americans'
The Department of Education asserts that "Americans" includes Mexicans, Canadians and others in the Western Hemisphere, so referring to U.S. residents as Americans is inappropriate. In the department's view, "America" happens to include South, Central and North America. Accordingly, when referring to the colonial period, the state bureaucracy requires teachers to refer to "the colonies of North America" or "North Americans." After the American Revolution, the nation is called the United States (not of America).
The state's edict would be laughable if it were not so disgraceful. Instead of focusing on better teaching methods and educational resources to help our hard-working teachers and parents, the Department of Education spends its energy on confusing, misleading, historically inaccurate and counterproductive wordplay.
One can only imagine how teachers struggle to meet the semantic dictates of an educational bureaucracy gone awry. According to the department, before the American Revolution, George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were North Americans. But so were the French colonists in the Louisiana Territory, the Spanish settlers in Mexico and the British colonists in Canada -- not to mention the Native Americans.
No 'American' Revolution?
After the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers no longer qualified as North Americans, but apparently the British, Spanish, French and Native Americans did. What people in the United States are to be called after the Revolution is not clear, so long as they are not referred to as Americans.
Although the style protocol does not require educators to change formal titles such as "America the Beautiful," the students will apparently now believe the song is about a hemisphere and not a nation. The American Revolution is now the North American Revolution. Little did the writers of the Contract with America in 1994 realize that they were making an agreement with Mexico and Canada. The Voice of America obviously is broadcasting the inspirational messages of Brazil and Belize across the globe.
'Internationally friendly'
The Michigan Department of Education considers the dictate "internationally friendly." Why being friendly to an international audience or perspective is important in teaching and learning American history is incomprehensible.
That we would sacrifice our language to the altar of internationalism is a betrayal to the American spirit. Indeed, the whole idea of America is to be a beacon of light, a shining city on the hill, which inspires the rest of the world.
The word "America" is the most important word of all in learning about the history of the United States and our civics. America is an inspiration and an aspiration for generations of souls who strove, and continue to strive, for freedom and liberty.
Ideals matter
"Americans hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," and that governments are supposed to protect those rights. Not all people or governments in the Western Hemisphere agree with those propositions -- as communist Cuba, Haiti and other nations show.
The time has come for our Michigan Department of Education to recognize the error of its ways and proclaim that it is teaching about America and Americans in American history and civics. In fact, the department should repent by creating an "American Freedom Curriculum" in which K-12 students learn the principles and history of the greatest nation on earth. Then the department will be worthy of the treasure for which they are responsible.
Michael Warren is an Oakland County Circuit Court judge, a former member of the State Board of Education and a board member of the Michigan Center for Civic Education. E-mail letters to letters@detnews.com.
NEA Leader Says Home School Parents ‘Well-Meaning Amateurs’ November 30, 2006
By Dave Arnold
– Dave Arnold, a member of the Illinois Education Association, says home schooling parents are “well-meaning amateurs” who should leave the education of their children to the professionals.
In “Home Schools Run By Well-Meaning Amateurs,” Arnold says: “… why would some parents assume they know enough about every academic subject to home-school their children? You would think that they might leave this – the shaping of their children’s minds, careers, and futures – to trained professionals. That is, to those who have worked steadily at their profession for 10, 20, 30 years! Teachers!”
Arnold concludes his attack on home school parents by stating: “Don’t most parents have a tough enough job teaching their children social, disciplinary and behavioral skills? They would be wise to help their children and themselves by leaving the responsibility of teaching math, science, art, writing, history, geography and other subjects to those who are knowledgeable, trained and motivated to do the best job possible.”
“Dave Arnold’s elitist view of parents as untrained buffoons who should leave the education of their children to his liberal minions, is clear evidence that home school parents are wise to protect their children from leftist and pro-homosexual propaganda in schools,” said TVC’s Executive Director Andrea Lafferty. “The NEA has been the enemy of parents and a supporter of abortion, obscene sex education and homosexual indoctrination of innocent public school children. Why should parents trust their children to teachers who are anti-Christian, pro-baby killing and pro-homosexuality?
The Home School Legal Defense Association released a report in 2004 that shows the academic excellence achieved by home-schooled children. A study released in 1997, for example, showed that home-schooled children outperformed their public school counterparts by 30-37 percentile points in all subjects.
“It would appear that the ‘well-meaning amateur’ parents criticized by Dave Arnold, are doing a better job of educating their own children than the so-called ‘professionals’ in the NEA,” said Lafferty. “Perhaps if NEA teachers spent more time on academics and less time on training children to experiment with homosexual sodomy, children might actually get an education in public schools.”
Access TVC’s GLSEN web site to see what kids are being taught in public schools:
Parents: Learn the Truth About The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN)!
Valley of Decision Articles