EDUCATING CHILDREN - Modern Educational Trends

With the likes of big government, and big labor unions molding and shaping the educational horizon, we couldn't possibly be going in the wrong direction. Could we? With all these billions and billions of dollars being spent on education today we should have the best educational system in the world. Shouldn't we? We spend more on education per student than almost any other country in the industrialized world,[1] so it must be going right. But is it? One might think so if all you did was look at who was backing all this education reform and how much they were spending as compared to the rest of the world. You might also think that, as long as you just listened to the education reformers and never look at any of the results. But the truth is, in spite of big government, and in spite of big labor, and in spite of all the billions and billions of dollars in spending per year, if you look at the results, you find American students filling in the last places in every academic area, and not just academics, moral values have also been on a decline for many years. It seems that the only thing American students excel in these days is self esteem. So while they can't perform as well on math or science tests, and while they know less about their own history as a nation, and while they continue to decline in reading and writing proficiency, and while they have little or no moral values, they still think they are doing well. So at least we're getting something for our money! But is it enough? Definitely not!

So is this a new problem. Well, not exactly. The problem itself is an old one, one that dates back, at least in this country to the mid 1800s. But although there has been discussion about the effectiveness of the American educational system for several decades, the official alarm wasn't sounded, at least not very loudly, until April of 1983; and oh what an alarm it was.

Eighteen months prior to this, on August 26, 1981, the then Secretary of Education, Honorable T. H. Bell, created the National Commission on Excellence in Education and then directed it to present a report on the quality of education in America, and that is exactly what they did. The report was titled "A NATION AT RISK: The Imperative For Educational Reform" and it took the country by surprise. While the majority of Americans believed we were doing well, the men and women who created this report had discovered the real truth, and they proclaimed it loud and clear. The report began with:

"Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world. This report is concerned with only one of the many causes and dimensions of the problem, but it is the one that undergirds American prosperity, security, and civility. We report to the American people that while we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have historically accomplished and contributed to the United States and the well-being of its people, the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur--others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments." [2]

It was a total shocker, it was completely unexpected. The American people had never dreamed that any other nation would be able to match us in education much less surpass us. But it had apparently happened right under our own noses. How? Why? Can it get any worse? Well, yes, because while the first paragraph of this report took us by surprise, the second paragraph made us angry. It said:

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament." [3]

So what the report was essentially telling us is that we have in effect done something to ourselves that would have been considered to be an act of war if it were imposed on us by another nation. We would have been ready to go to war to protect our rights to give our children the very best education they could possibly get. But instead of fighting to keep something we might lose, we squandered away those very things we might otherwise have been willing to fight and even die for. We did it to ourselves and never even knew that it had happened.

So what's been done about it? Have there been any major changes in how we do education since the release of "A Nation At Risk?" Well yes, but they have all been much more of the same old thing. Big business and big government have teamed up like never before to combat this invisible enemy. But the problem is, they're losing the war, and it is becoming an increasingly more expensive endeavor. They continue to pour more and more of our money into this broken system and we continue to get less and less in return; reform after reform is introduced and paid for and still nothing changes, nothing improves. So what exactly are we paying for? Is it really the very best education that money can buy or have we been sold a bill of goods? Let's look at some of the current educational trends in modern America.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS:

First a look at communication skills… The ability to communicate is a fundamental skill that is needed by all students. In one way or another, language, whether written, spoken or read, is how we communicate. Without it we couldn't possibly get along in life. We couldn't communicate with each other, we couldn't pass things on, and it would make learning anything new extremely difficult. We would in essence, be stuck in a rut with no way of escape. What would likely occur is that, other countries, countries with a much better grasp of their own language and communication abilities, would likely begin to surpass us. Surpass us in things like technology, manufacturing, and business in general, and that is exactly what has happened. We have literally lost billions in our gross national product,[4] all because we are falling short in education. Communication is one of the most basic educational skills needed, so how is it being taught in the American schools? Well, the most popular trend in the Language Arts arena is what is known as the "Whole Language" approach.

The Whole language approach to reading instruction is currently the most widely used method of teaching reading in the public school systems of the United States. Its development dates to the early 1930s when John Dewey, William S. Gray, and many other educational experts decided to do away with the phonics based approach to reading. Up until this point, from about 1836 till the 1920s, the most widely used text book in America was McGuffey's Eclectic Reader series by William Holmes McGuffey. It was reported that more than 120 million Readers were sold during this time period. McGuffey's reader stressed religion and its relationship to morality and the proper use of knowledge.[5] They also relied heavily on phonics based training for instruction in reading, beginning with the primer or introductory book. But to the education reformers, these books were too strict, too demanding, and the experts felt they might lead to a bad experience in reading, thus giving the child a poor start. So McGuffey's Eclectic Readers were replaced with books like those from the Dick & Jane series, books that contained carefully screened vocabulary lists and lots of colorful illustrations to help describe the action.[6] With these new books, children could be taught to read complete stories and they could grasp complete words and sentences, without having to learn all the boring rules associated with teaching phonics. This new approach was called "look-say" or the "whole word" approach. The primary reason behind the use of this approach is that researchers discovered that experienced readers could grasp the meaning of entire words all at once. In other words, when experienced readers, those who have been reading for some time, pick up a new book and begin to read, they don't normally spend time sounding out the words, they just read them, the whole word at a time. They also discovered that when children talk to each other, they normally do so with complete words, and as they do, they normally don't stop and give any noticeable attention to the individual sounds that make up those words; they just say the complete word. So because of these reasons, the educational experts felt it unnecessary to teach children to read by teaching them the component sounds of words, which is the phonics approach. Why spend all that extra time, when you could simply bypass that step entirely and move directly into teaching them the "whole language"? Besides, this new whole language approach is much more compassionate than the drill and repetition necessary for intensive phonics training. Drill and repetition are after all very boring and would likely inhibit the proper emotional growth of the child or possibly discourage the child that is being subjected to this type of training, and discouraged children couldn't possibly learn to read. Could they?

Well, this all sounds good, except it completely ignores the facts. A child that is taught to read with the whole language approach has done so before he learns the mechanics of reading. He can read and say words, but he doesn't know why.[7] Adults that already know how to read and already know the mechanics or rules of reading, have the ability to pick up new words without having to verbally recite the rules. Also, children whether they give any conscious attention to the individual sounds that make up those words or not, still go through the same process to create the sound. The key is, once they have the rules in memory, they have no need to recite them, they come out instinctively. That is how the phonics approach to reading works. Children are first taught that each letter has an associated sound and then they are taught that they can decode the words by sounding them out. Traditionally, a child that had been taught phonics for a couple of semesters and who has mastered the concepts could easily have a vocabulary of 24,000 words. But a child being taught using the whole language approach would have a much smaller vocabulary. For example, the 1930 Dick & Jane pre-primer only taught a total of 68 different words.[8] The concept is simple, give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he can feed his family for the rest of his life. The same is true with reading. Give a child some words and he can read that book, but teach the child phonics and he can read any book written in his language by using his phonics based rules.

So if children aren't being taught to read, then how are they learning to write? Well the answer is simple, they are not. Inventive spelling is another one of the most popular teaching techniques used in modern America. Today, teachers are instructed to not correct spelling errors. In fact, this type of creativity, the misspelling of words that is, is permitted and in many cases even encouraged.[9] But why, why would we encourage misspelled words or not correct spelling errors on children's papers? Well according to the professional educators who promote "inventive spelling"; they say that this type of creativity, this freedom to spell words however they want, encourages children to write more. Another problem with the restrictive approach, the only one right way approach is this; to tell a child that there is only one way to spell a word would be too limiting or constraining; it would not encourage enough creative thinking. Besides, once they find the real joy in writing, and start using their new found skills, they will eventually learn the right way to spell words. It's a lot like osmoses! By just doing it over and over, all the proper spelling and grammar rules will just pop into their head. It's really all part of the holistic approach to language.[10] At least that is what the educational professionals that promote this philosophy will tell you, and they should know, after all, they are the professionals. It is almost as silly as the new trend to grade all papers in purple, or some other warmer color, a color that's less offensive than red. I mean really, we wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by telling them they got something wrong would we? WELL OF COURSE WE WOULD! That's one of the primary purposes of education! Passing on a truth to someone who doesn't have it! But I guess for the education reformers, the truth is really just whatever they want it to be.

MATH:

So what about math? There's not really more than one way to teach math is there? Well, actually there is. The date was Friday, October 4, 1957, and the number one enemy of the United States was the Big Red Monster of Communism, AKA, the Soviet Union. But on this night, we learned via the evening news that our greatest adversary had put an object into earth orbit ahead of us. They had beaten us in the space race with the successful launch of the Sputnik I satellite. It was the world's first artificial satellite and was about the size of a basketball. It weighed only 183 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth. With the launch of the Sputnik I, new political, military, technological, and scientific developments were ushered in as our country marked the official start of the space age and the space race.[11] In light of this tragic defeat, our then president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, decided that he would correct the situation by calling for more funds for public education. He wanted to bolster support for math, science and foreign language programs. So in 1958 the U.S. Congress, who was determined to keep the U.S. on the forefront of technology and development, passed the $1-billion dollar National Defense Education Act.[12] This was the first act of it kind; it was the first time that the federal government stepped this deep into the public education arena, an area that was the normal territory of the individual states. But never the less, this was a welcome act for a country seeking to get back into first place. The National Defense Education Act paid for things like student loans, scholarships and even scientific equipment for schools. It also emphasized the study of math, science and foreign languages, and with this new emphasis, a "new math" was born. But although the "new math" of the 60s wasn't much more than a new emphasis on old mathematics, it did encourage many educators to start looking for new ways to teach the old subject. Big names such as the General Electric Corporation and the National Science Foundation, with the encouragement of the Department of Education, were devoting much time and money into developing and promoting "New Math". But schools still had the problem of teaching it. They needed a newer, new math if the students were ever going to make any real progress. This prompted many in the academic community to devote much of their time and resources toward the problem as well. One of the better known projects was one that was carried out at Yale and Stanford by Ed Begle and the School Mathematics Study Group.[13] Some say that this group can be credited for creating the grandfather of the new "New Math." But the problem with this new-new approach was that they applied many of the same "whole" principles to mathematics that had been applied to language just a few decades before. They were looking for a short cut to learning, and in their new-new math, they found it. This new-new integrated approach to teaching math emphasized group discussion, essays, and later calculators and even, you guessed it, guessing! It also de-emphasized basic skills and the direct instruction, the only things that were truly necessary to help children learn the math.

As part of a Congressional debate on education legislation, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) gave a speech on the Senate floor about the mathematics education reform movement. Based on a study of 8th graders published in 1996, it was discovered that United States ranked 28th in average mathematics performance in the world against other major industrialized nations. Also according to this same study, Japan ranked third. Senator Byrd blamed this situation on the current approach to teaching mathematics in our schools. Regarding this new-new math, Senator Byrd said:

"Apparently the concept behind this new-new approach to mathematics is to get kids to enjoy mathematics and hope that that "enjoyment" will lead to a better understanding of basic math concepts. Nice thought, but nice thoughts do not always get the job done." [14]

If you think you have heard this before, it is probably because this is the same nonsense that is said about whole language, and since it does not work for language, I don't think we should expect it to work any differently for math? Never the less, the educational reformers continue to promote it. But Senator Byrd was obviously not convinced. As the discussion continued, the focus turned toward a text book titled "Secondary Math: An Integrated Approach: Focus on Algebra." The book was produced by Addison-Wesley, a well known public school text book publisher. This book had 5 "algebra authors," 20 "other series authors" and 4 "multicultural reviewers." This in itself made the book suspect to Senator Byrd; the idea that an algebra book even needed multicultural reviewers or why were there 4 times as many "other series authors" than there were "algebra authors" in an algebra book? But the real icing on the cake was the opening section titled "Getting Started" with the subheading "What Do You Think?" it stated:

"In the twenty-first century, computers will do a lot of the work that people used to do. Even in today's workplace, there is little need for someone to add up daily invoices or compute sales tax. Engineers and scientists already use computer programs to do calculations and solve equations." [15]

So just exactly what message were they trying to get across with this statement? Senator Byrd seemed to think that it was "Don't worry about all of this math stuff too much. Computers will do all that work for us in a few years anyway."[16] So is this really what we want to teach our students? Well, apparently it is, because it is one of the most popular trends for math instruction in the modern American public school. So popular in fact that, in 1992, the state of California formally adopted this new integrated approach to math for their state wide K-12 math programs. But the results were not what they expected. Not only did it result in lower math scores, but it also resulted in a state wide increase in remedial college level math, and an increase in the failure rate for freshmen taking the state college level math entrance exams. David Klein, a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the California State University at Northridge, stated that, as a result of the overall lower math skills of students across his state, the percentage of entering freshmen failing the entry level math tests has "steadily increased from 23% in 1989 to 54% in each of 1997 and 1998."[17]

In his book "None Dare Call It Education" John A. Stormer gives many other glairing examples of the kind of math problems that are plaguing our children in the public school system today. One such example is that of the plight of a Pennsylvania parent who called a member of her local school board to discuss a question that was on a math paper that her child had brought home. The question was: "there were four birds in the nest and one flew away. How do you think the bird that flew away felt?"[18] Who cares how the bird felt! What in the world does this have to do with teaching math anyway? Absolutely nothing - and if this were not so tragic, and if it were not such a wide spread problem in our public school systems today, it would almost be funny. But the truth is, this new approach to teaching math, whether it goes by the name of "whole math", "new-new math", "fuzzy math", "integrated math", "multicultural math" or what ever other label it's given to disguise it, is a growing trend in our math classes today, and the potential results are devastating!

HISTORY:

OK, language instruction has problems, and math class is not doing so well either, but what about history? Isn't history just a set of facts written in stone that we teach to our children so that they can learn from the mistakes of the past? Well, yes. But the history class of today is quite different than the one sixty or seventy years ago. Prior to the 1930s, it would not be uncommon to find stories of historical figures such as Joseph, Moses, King David, Ulysses, Alexander, Horatius, Cincinnatus, Siegfried, Arthur, Roland, Alfred the Great, Richard the Lion Hearted, Robert Bruce, William Tell, Joan of Arc, Peter the Great, Florence Nightingale,[19] and many other great figures of our past. But history has gone through some of the same transformations as the many of the other subjects taught in the public school system. In fact, history was the subject that the educational reformers started with first. Since the 1930s, history has been making a slow transition from a study of historical facts and events into a new subject called "social studies." Harold Rugg, an associate of John Dewey at Columbia University stated, if "A new public mind is to be created. How? Only by creating tens of millions of individual minds and welding them into a new social mind. Old stereotypes must be broken up and new climates of opinion formed in the neighborhoods of America,"[20] and the place to start was the American history book. It was no longer enough to simply teach history as history. The content of history must be selected based on the pupils own immediate needs and the general social significance[21] of the topic or topics being taught. The goal of this new curriculum would not be to teach the events of the past, but to teach good citizenship. All the great historical figures were replaced with common every day people and their humble situations. It was no longer appropriate to give children examples of outstanding people that they could look up to, because they needed simple people that they could relate to. This, according to Mr. Rugg and many of the other educational reformers, is how the new history should be taught. To repeat a not-so-famous quote, "They keep finding new ways to celebrate mediocrity!"[22] But while many thought Mr. Rugg was justified in rewriting the history books for a new generation, and filling them with "mediocrity," there were many that stood in opposition. Groups like the American Legion, the Advertising Federation of America, and the New York State Economic Council all voiced their dissatisfaction with these new textbooks. While this did lead to many school boards dropping the new Rugg textbooks, there were already many more socially correct text books waiting to pick up where Mr. Rugg's and his new social studies textbooks left off.

VOCABULARY:

Not only has the content changed to promote a new political system and a new social order, but many texts were edited simply because they were found to be "offensive" to one minority group or another. As the idea of relativism and political correctness began to emerge in the 1960s and 1970s a new round of attacks started against traditional education; attacks that are still continuing today and they seem to get even more ridiculous with each passing day. So what do you do when you have to please everyone? Well, you either ignore the offensive parts of the textbook, you tear out the offensive page, or you rewrite the books to say what you want them to say so that no one gets mad, and it is the last option that seems to be the modern trend. But not just in history books, it is happening in every textbook and in every subject. Remember the report from Senator Byrd? His big question was "Why [do] we need multicultural review of an algebra textbook?"[23] Well, the answer is clear, to make sure that the language used in the book is not offensive to any one particular group of people. So whether we like it or not, all textbooks must receive the seal of approval from some multicultural review board out to protect the rights of the latest minority group. These reviewers are the people that Diane Ravitch calls the "Language Police." Here is a sample list of some of the words that have been banned from our children's textbooks, along with the reason for their banning:

Abnormal (banned as demeaning to persons with disabilities)

Aged (banned as demeaning to older persons)

America/Americans (use with care, because it suggests "geographical chauvinism" refer instead to people of the United States)

Black/blacks (banned as a noun)

Brave (banned as offensive when it refers to a Native American person)

Colored (banned as offensive, when it refers to specific group)

Congressman (banned as sexist, replace with member of congress, representative)

Devil (banned)

Fisherman (banned as sexist, replace with fisher, angler)

Gay (banned, as it suggest homosexual, replace with happy)

God (banned)

Homosexual (banned, replace with person, child)

Housewife (banned as sexist, replace with homemaker, head of the household)

Idiot (banned as offensive to person with mental disability)

Mothering (banned as sexist, replace with nurturing, parenting)

Provider (banned as a synonym for husband)

Repairman (banned as sexist, replace with repair person, maintenance person)

Satan (banned)

White (banned as adjective meaning pure)

Workmanship (banned as sexist, no replacement)[24]

This is just a small sample of the madness of these so called language police - the list goes on and on. But not only have single words been edited out of the text books, but entire topics have been labeled taboo and banned as well. Topics such as behavior that could lead to dangerous situations, e.g., children should not go with strangers, the subject of conflict with authority (parents, teachers, law), or things like Crime, Divorce, Drinking, Lying or duplicity of any kind.[25] Teachers are no longer allowed to say something is morally wrong. They can tell a child the consequences of bad behavior, simply because there are laws governing how crimes are punished, but they can not approach the subject from a moral prospective. Even references to Christmas, Easter and Hanukah are now all to be avoided. The traditional merry Christmas and Christmas break have been replaced with things like happy holidays and winter break. The classic "Away in a Manger" has been replaced with "Here Comes Santa Clause" or "Jingle Bells." We have gone to the extreme to censor every form of "possibly" offensive language from every area of the government public schools and their textbooks, and no subject has been left untouched. We are becoming obsessed with pleasing everyone. As long as the group you're pleasing is politically correct enough and acceptable enough to the desires of the educational reformers. Christianity for example is one of those groups that are considered to be too inclusive, or too closed minded and therefore cannot be tolerated. We tolerate all views they say, but all views obviously do not include Christianity.

So how are these current trends affecting our children? How can you teach a child that "We hold these truths to be self-evident" and that "all men are created equal" and that all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights", if God and creation are taboo subjects and can not be mentioned in the classroom or the text book? How can we teach morals to children if there is no standard on which to base these morals? Well, the truth is, educational reformers have come up with a new standard, or at least a replacement standard; a replacement that grew naturally out of the ideas and philosophies of those men who shaped modern education. Ideas like those of the Unitarian Horace Mann, where morals should be taught, only taught without those individual trappings of religion that tend divide us. Or ideas like those of Atheist Charles Darwin, who in his book "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle of Life," popularized a particular view of evolution; a view which teaches that man answers to no one but himself, because there is no creator God; a view that has been taught over and over in the government school classroom. Or even ideas like those of the Humanist John Dewey who replaced the supremacy of God with the supremacy of man, and through the propagation of progressive education techniques that taught that the value of anything is based only on the quality of the experience. In all of these, morals are basically boiled down to be totally relative to the immediate situation. In the modern vernacular, they call it "Values Clarification." It is a concept that is based on a 1972 book with the same title by Sidney Simon, Leland Howe, and Howard Kirschenbaum. The book was designed to "engage students and teachers in the active formulation and examination of values" but "it does not teach a particular set of values."[26] It taught that what was moral or right to one group may or may not be moral or right to another. What was right or wrong, was completely dependant upon whom you were and where you were located. It completely removed the standard of God and the Bible, and replaced it with a new standard of YOU; in other words, it is up to each individual to determine his own value system. But in his book, "Which Way to Educate?" author and Christian educator Philip May stated the truth so clearly when he said that "What the Bible says on the subject of morality is undeniably applicable to the upbringing of children and young people." He goes on to say that the unfortunate problem is "many people today are ignorant and confused about Christian morality. Most children are now growing up unaware [that there is a set] of moral standards based on the law of God."[27] Why, because those moral standards, by law, cannot be taught in the government "public" school system of modern America. They have been edited out of the modern American textbook, and completely removed from the curriculum because they have been found to be offensive to one group or another. So the results of many of these modern trends are not only generation after generation of academically bankrupt children, but also generation after generation of morally bankrupt children.

So what else has our government done to help? What reforms have they implemented to help us solve the problems identified by "A Nation At Risk?" Actually there have been several. Over the last few decades our government has been very active in promoting education reform. But exactly what kind of reforms are they promoting? Well, the first of these major new reforms are those designed to create a national workforce of skilled labors. They are being carried out under the Goals 2000 Educate America Act (HR1804), the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (HR2884), and the Improving America's School Act (HR6), all of which were passed and signed into law under the Clinton administration in 1994.[28] Lumped collectively under the name of Outcome-Based Education or OBE for short, these programs are not designed to directly improve academics or increase morality, but are focused instead on modifying children's behavior and preparing them to be the workforce of tomorrow. This, according to the government reformers, should result in improved academics and morality. The Littleton, Colorado school system was one of the first test bed systems that the NEA and the government used to experiment with this new educational model. The program was implemented there in the late 1980s. It was basically a testing ground for many of these various educational theories. In 1987 the Colorado Eagle Forum produced a video in which Tara Backer, a student of Columbine High School in Littleton, spoke at length about the focus on death, dying and suicide in her sophomore classes.[29] She explained that the topic of death was integrated into many of her courses. She stated that death was made to look so glamorous that living was difficult, and that reincarnation would likely solve students' problems. So how well did the program do? On November 3, 1993, parents who were part of the Littleton school district voted by a two-to-one margin to oust the pro-OBE school board members and replace them with members who favored a more traditional "back-to-basics" approach to education.[30] Obviously, to the majority of the Littleton school board, this experiment was not successful. One can only judge by what would appear to be very damaging and lasting results. On April 20th, 1999, what is now known as the Columbine High School massacre, occurred in Littleton, Colorado. Two students, who had been indoctrinated with OBE and Values Clarification type teaching techniques, came to school that day with two twenty pound bombs, two sawed-off shotguns, a 9mm semi-automatic carbine, and a 9mm AB-10 semi-automatic pistol. The results, thirteen dead and twenty-four injured, not counting the two deceased shooters. They had decided to take the cowards way out and committed suicide.

But even in spite of this and the growing number of other like occurrences, many people have not linked the violent behavior of children in the classrooms to the material that is being taught to them. But the sad truth is, if you teach children that they have descended from animals, why should you not expect them to act like animals. If you teach a child that he can come up with his own value system, then why are we shocked when he does exactly that! But for some reason, the Federal Government still does not get it. Their idea of what is wrong is always, we must not be spending enough money on education. But we are now under a new administration, we have a Republican President, and a Republican controlled House and Senate, they must be doing a better job, right? Well not exactly, while the Democratic Clinton administration set aside billions and billions in tax dollars toward their various OBE type education reform programs, the Bush administration would not be outdone in the area of education reform. The latest in government innovation in education is known as the "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2001, (HR1). As a result of this Act, there are four educational objectives that dominate President Bush's agenda for education, they are: accountability, standards, testing and choice.[31] The one-thousand plus page NCLB education document combined a big spending increase with an increase in conservative buzzwords. The spending increases seemed to please the Democrats and the many conservative buzzwords that were included, such as "accountability," "standards," and "testing," seemed to be enough to please the Republicans. It all sounded good anyway, and everyone was happy. But what has it really accomplished for education? What kind of return are we getting for our lofty investment? Well so far, it has only cost us a lot more money in the form of tax dollars and has not delivered any real improvements in education. Not to mention the fact that it has tightened the reign of government control of the local education system. To me, this would be the opposite of choice. But the government still insists that their new way is much better than the "old" one, which is really no different than the "new" one. But the good news is, many local educators are coming up with ways to get around all these new standards for accountability. They are not letting these new standards of educational excellence keep them from the business as usual process of public education. Instead of improving the teaching methods to improve the test scores, the Texas State Board of Education for example has reduced the number of questions students must answer correctly in order to pass their exams.[32] So now more students pass, and the state gets more funding, but are students learning any more? Absolutely not! They are not learning more simply because the methods have not changed. No real reform is happening. Because the ones doing the reforming continue to ignore the time tested and proven methods for teaching traditional basic education and continue to look for exciting new methods that always seem to fall short, but sound so good in a sales pitch.

Another part of the "No Child Left Behind" Act is that more funds are being set aside for Mental Health Integration. Millions of dollars have been earmarked specifically for this new trend to help improve our schools and our students. It is designed to give more aid to the handicapped and those considered to be "At Risk." Now again, this all sounds good up front, but exactly who are the handicapped, and what are they really "At Risk" of? Well, the truth is, the majority of the handicapped or "At Risk" students that this funding goes to help are those considered to have a form of mental illness known as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It is actually the most diagnosed mental illness in America. These are the students that, according to the federal government, are the most "At Risk". So what exactly is ADHD? Well, ADHD was established as a mental illness back in 1987 by a vote of a committee of psychiatrists belonging to the American Psychiatric Association (APA). According to the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), there are two basic types. One characterized by inattention and the other by hyperactivity-impulsivity.[33] So how can you tell them apart? To me, both of these things would go together; at least they would if you were a "normal" child. Both of the words inattention and hyperactivity seem to describe my children very well. Well, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center and the National Institutes of Mental Health, here are some of the diagnostic criteria for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder:

1. Should have 6 or more of the following symptoms of inattention, persisting for at least 6 months to a degree that is maladaptive and inconsistent with developmental level:

Often fails to give close attention to detail, makes careless mistakes.

Often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play.

Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly.

Often does not follow through and fails to finish tasks.

Has difficulty organizing tasks and activities.

Avoids or dislikes tasks requiring sustained mental effort.

Often loses things necessary for tasks or activities.

Is often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli.

Is often forgetful in daily activities.

2. Should have 6 or more of the following symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity persisting for at least 6 months to a degree that is maladaptive and inconsistent with developmental level:

Often fidgets or squirms when sitting.

Has difficulty remaining seated when required to do so.

Often runs about or climbs excessively in inappropriate situations.

Has difficulty playing quietly.

Is often "on the go," acts as if "driven by a motor."

Often talks excessively.

Often blurts out answers to questions before they have been completed.

Has difficulty awaiting turn.

Often interrupts or intrudes on others.[34]

Now, I'm not sure, but I do not believe I've ever actually met a child that wouldn't pass, or rather fail, at least half of this list, and most would definitely qualify for all nine. So does that make all children mentally ill? Well, maybe not, but it's a good excuse if you are looking for a large group of lab rats. According to the official NEA Journal, they "predicted" in 1969 that a "New drama will play on the educational stage as DRUGS are introduced EXPERIMENTALLY to improve in the learner such qualities as personality, concentration and memory. The application of bio-chemical research findings, heretofore centered in the infra-human subjects, such as fish, could be a source of conspicuous controversy when CHILDREN become the objects of EXPERIMENTATION."[35] So as we can see, the NEA has been looking for a legal way to experiment with children for many years, at least since 1969. So now, with "No Child Left Behind," all they have to do is have some under-qualified "public" school counselor diagnose a child as "mentally ill," and then they can legally experiment on them with psychotropic drugs. At least they can as far as the Federal Government is concerned, and once they start experimenting, with drugs like Prozac, Ritalin, Luvox, or Paxil, they can then even have the Federal Government pick up the tab with tax payer's money. All too easy!

Another interesting aspect is that it is a rather new phenomenon. According to a report given November 1, 2000 to the Texas State Board of Education, in 1970, a best guess was offered that 150,000 children in the United States were taking Ritalin. A realistic estimate for 2000 was 5,000,000. The report went on to say that since Ritalin represents only 70% of the total prescriptions for amphetamine-type drugs, we can add the other 30% and we have about 7,000,000 school-age children in this country on stimulant, psychotropic drugs. That is about 45 times greater that the 1970 figures. That is a huge increase in the number of children on prescribed stimulant drugs in the last three decades.[36]

So is this some kind of frightful new behavior pattern for children? Are we just now finding out that children have a hard time sitting still? Or are the educational reformers just now getting tired of dealing with "normal" children and are in need of a new way to enforce their mind control and social conversion? In "The Sunday School Manual" a book published in 1923 by the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, L.P. Leavell stated in his discussion of the "beginner" pupil that:

"The beginner is restless. Restlessness is bodily energy expanded aimlessly or without direction toward definite ends. It is a spending of bodily powers rather than a using of them. Possibly the question most often asked by the little child of its mother is "What can I do?" The casual observer notices first of all the wiggling and fidgeting of a child. Parents and teachers often say "Be still" and "don't" Nature says "Do." " [37]

Was Mr. Leavell talking about ADHD, was he talking about a sick, abnormal, unhealthy child? Absolutely not! He was merely talking about the activity of a normal healthy growing child. He goes on to explain the cause behind the perceived problem, he says:

"Why is the little child so restless? Because it is growing. It must exercise. The heart pumps away at a powerful rate, sending the blood bounding to the extremities, which are not far away. The child must work off the energy generated. It is nature's provision against one-sided development. " [38]

So according to Mr. Leavell, a restless, wiggling, fidgeting, and questioning child is a normal healthy growing child. However in today's society, this child is considered to be "At Risk" and in need of medication!

These are many of the modern educational trends that have been sweeping America for the last century. Some are definitely scarier than others, but none would be what I would call beneficial. But whether they are beneficial or not, these are the trends that are in the traditional government school system of today. So is there no way out? Are we, as parents, stuck with a monopolized system that can not improve itself? Well not exactly, there are alternatives. In the next chapter we will look at many of the educational alternatives that are available to parents today, some of which are better than others.

[1] Report on education spending per primary school & secondary school students (Copyright NationMaster.com 2003-2005), http://www.nationmaster.com.
[2] National Commission on Excellence in Education, A NATION AT RISK: The Imperative for Educational Reform (April 26, 1983).
[3] National Commission on Excellence in Education.
[4] Sykes, 24.
[5] History Unwrapped – June 2005, (2005 American Vision), http://www.americanvision.org/osafarchive/june2005.asp
[6] Ravitch, Left Back, 253.
[7] Sykes, 102-103.
[8] Sykes, 102.
[9] Stormer, 6.
[10] Sykes, 93.
[11] Steve Garber, NASA History Web Curator, Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age, February 21, 2003 http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/sputnik/
[12] Edward Willett, Sputnik (1997), http://www.edwardwillett.com/Columns/sputnik.htm.
[13] Morris Kline, Why Johnny Can't Add: The Failure of the New Mathematics (St. Martin's Press, 1973), chapter 9
[14] Senator Robert Byrd, A Failure to Produce Better Students (Congressional Record of June 9, 1997), S5393.
[15] Byrd, S5393.
[16] Byrd, S5393.
[17] Professor David Klein, A Brief History of American K-12 Mathematics Education in the 20th Century (Pre-Print edition)
[18] Stormer, 6.
[19] Ravitch, Left Back, 256.
[20] John Taylor Gotto, The Underground History of American Education, On-line Edition (The Odysseus Group, 2000-2003), Chapter 12, page 15.
[21] Ravitch, Left Back, 127.
[22] Bob Parr, AKA Mr. Incredible, The Incredibles, (Disney/Pixar, 2005)
[23] Byrd, S5393.
[24] Diane Ravitch, The Language Police, How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn (Published by Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 171-183.
[25] Ravitch, The Language Police, 194-195.
[26] Glen Schultz, Kingdom Education, Second Edition, God's Plan For Educating Future Generations (LifeWay Press, 2002), 27.
[27] Philip May, Which Way to Educate? The Christian's role in education today (The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1975), 119.
[28] Stormer, 141.
[29] Phyllis Schlafly, What Caused Columbine? (Eagle Forum May 12, 1999), http://www.eagleforum.org/column/1999/may99/99-05-12.html.
[30] Dr. Phil Stringer (Florida), Outcome Based Education, http://www.usiap.org/Viewpoints/Society/Education/OutcomeBasedEducation.html
[31] Douglas B. Reeves, Ph.D., Crusade in the Classroom, How George W. Bush's Education Reforms will Affect Your Children, Our Schools (Simon & Schuster, 2001), 8.
[32] Phyllis Schlafly, More Children Left Behind (Eagle Forum, Oct. 29, 2003), http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2003/oct03/03-10-29.shtml
[33] Bruce N. Shortt, The Harsh Truth About Public Schools (The Chalcedon Foundation, 2004), 208.
[34] Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: 4th Edition (Washington, DC., American Psychiatric Association, 2000).
[35] Albert Burns, JUST A MATTER OF TIME: DRUG FREE ZONES? (April 8 2001), http://www.geocities.com/graymada/AB/drugfreezones.html, quoting Today's Education (January 1969) 29-31.
[36] John Breeding, Ph.D., Director, Texans For Safe Education, Testimony on the Issue of Psychiatric Drugs in Schools Before the Texas State Board of Education (November 1, 2000).
[37] B.W. Spillman, L.P. Leavell, and P.E. Burroughs, The Sunday School Manual (Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1923), 84.
[38] Spillman, 84.

The church of the living dead...

The church of the living What! Is that some new, low-budget, horror film?

Well no, not exactly... While it may not be a new Sam Rami film staring Bruce Campbell, it is a pretty horrifying way to describe the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Sadly, according to Jim Elliff, this is an accurate description of the vast majority of Southern Baptist churches in America today. According to his article titled “Southern Baptists, an Unregenerate Denomination”, Jim gives us some pretty gory details of how this once very lively denomination, has become rotten and lifeless. And while this may not be new news to most, it was very telling to me, especially when you consider our current numbers along side those of a few hundred years ago. Yes, we may boast of 16 million members, but when you look at the real numbers, we are not so impressive.

Anyway, this was a great article, I highly recommend it.

You know, I'm not a big comedy fan, but I do enjoy a good laugh every now and then, and this reminds me of a joke told by Mark Lowry on one of the Gaither homecoming programs. I don’t actually remember the joke, but it had something to do with raising the dead. The punch line was that if Jesus did that in his Baptist church, he’d have to raise everyone! I wonder if Mark Lowry reads Jim Elliff?

Grace & Peace!
Dave Scarbrough ~ dave@scarbrough.net

EDUCATING CHILDREN - Government and Education

By 1918, every state in United States had passed some form of compulsory attendance law, and the still fledgling Department of Education was now deeply involved. Though by this time, it had already been through several transformations. Originally it was created for the purpose of collecting information on schools and teaching, and to help the States establish more effective school systems, at least that was what the original charter said. But this didn’t last long; in 1869 it was transferred to the Department of the Interior as the Bureau of Education. Then in 1939 it was transferred again, by executive order, to the Federal Security Agency, which in 1953 became the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Although during these years, there was not an "official" Department of Education, the concept was still very much alive in Washington DC, and the eyes of the government were still clearly focused on education in America, and the potential it had for shaping society.

During the same years that the Department of Education was going through its many transformations, the National Education Association (NEA) was also making its long journey to become what it is today. Since its inception, it has been a "uniquely privileged organization."^[1] As a federally chartered corporation it was exempted from property taxes, which is a very unique status that not many unions enjoy. But as was stated earlier, the NEA was not actually started as a union in the modern sense. It was originally started as simply a professional organization, an organization whose goals were the promotion of new educational trends, improving schools, helping teachers, and improving cooperation among educators. But by the 1960s, their transformation into a powerful lobbying group and activist labor union was nearly complete. It was President John F. Kennedy who, in 1962, opened the way for the NEA to become a full fledged labor union. The President issued Executive Order 10988 which approved the formation of federal public sector unions. This allowed labor unions to organize and represent public sector employees, something that had not previously been done. Up until this point, the vast majority of unions were private sector unions. They were primarily concerned with things like better wages or better working conditions. But these new public sector unions were more concerned with things like political power and directing more funds toward their employer, which in this case was the Federal Government. So with this new status, the NEA could now organize and promote teachers strikes and other militant type actions under the protection of the union, and completely within the limits of the law. This gave the NEA the clout and staying power that it needed to effect changes in the education system. While the percentage of Americans in private sector unions has been in a steady decline over the past fifty years, the percentage of Americans in public sector unions has continued to grow, with groups like the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) leading the way. Together, their combined membership, in 2005, was well over 4 million, and they account for about 40 percent of the total membership of all public sector unions today. But even though they had the power and the numbers, they still didn’t have the official voice that they wanted or needed in Washington DC.

By the early 1970s, the NEA had become one of the nation’s largest political lobbying groups. Armed only with a great number of America’s teachers, they set out to regain their voice in our nation’s capitol. In 1972, the then NEA president, Catherine Barrett, was quoted as saying "We are the biggest potential striking force in this country and we are determined to control the direction of education."^[2] Like many of the educational reformers before them, they knew that if they could control education, they could control the direction of the country. With that as their goal, they set out to win their biggest political score to date, the election of Jimmy Carter as president. In 1976, that is exactly what happened. Jimmy Carter won the election, but just having "their" candidate in office was not enough. In return for their support, they, along with their new President, proposed legislation that would reestablish the Department of Education as an official government department again. This would give them the voice in Washington DC that they wanted and increase their political bargaining power exponentially. While there were many opposed to the idea of a new federal Department of Education, congress did manage to pass the new Carter/NEA legislation by a narrow margin of 215 to 201. By 1979, the Federal Department of Education was once again an independent branch of the government, and this time, it had a huge partner in crime, the NEA.

As an interesting side note, the night before President Carter signed the new bill into law creating the new Department of Education, a leading NEA official was quoted as offering a toast saying: "Here’s to the only union that owns its own Cabinet Department."^[3]

Once again, fully funded and ready to work, the Federal Department of Education was back on the job. While the stated mission of the Department of Education is "to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation"^[4] it would seem that a more accurate translation of this mission statement would be; to influence state education through legislation and the selective disbursement of federal aid based on compliance with federal standards as directed by the NEA. And it is that direction of the NEA, which continue to influence the efforts of this now colossal political force. With the strength of these two combined groups, the agenda of the educational reformers seems almost unstoppable, and for "public" education, that very well may be the case.

But what is their agenda? What sort of education reforms are they after? Well, the real problem is that most of their agenda has very little to do with education, and very much to do with politics. As they have become more politically involved, they have also become more radically liberal, and with this shift, their radical agenda has continued to drift away from Christian values of our forefathers. By the early 1990s, the NEA along with its smaller sister organization the AFT, displayed their tremendous political prowess to elect Bill Clinton as president. During the 1992 Democratic convention, the NEA alone accounted for one-fourth of all the delegates who attended the convention that year. As their political efforts increase, their radical agenda continues to evolve. Over the last 50 years their focus has been drawn more and more away from education and more towards any and all forms of radical social reform. In the past decade alone, the NEA has lobbied for "a host of non-education, culture-transforming resolutions supporting" many such things as: "abortion, homosexuality, radical feminism, nuclear disarmament, and world government."^[5] In their Annual Meeting held on July 7, 2005, in Los Angeles, California, one of the major business items that passed was a measure committing the NEA to "develop a strategy to counter new attacks on curricula and practices that support gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students and staff in public schools."^[6] In other words, they have committed themselves to promote homosexuality as a normal lifestyle through the public education systems. But that was not all, they also passed several other resolutions that had absolutely nothing to do with education, they included a call to boycott Wal-Mart, statehood for the District of Columbia, affirmative action, opposition to private accounts in Social Security, opposition to capital punishment, gun control, "single-payer health care", and endorsement of the International Criminal Court and the UN Declaration on Human Rights, just to name a few.

In an article entitled "How Public Schools Have Changed", Phyllis Schlafly commented that there were a few NEA resolutions that did pertain to education, they "called for the teaching of global, multicultural, suicide, environmental, and bilingual education." But as she also mentioned, apparently "resolutions about the need for improvement in the teaching of phonics or basic math didn't make the cut."^[7] So my question is; is this organization really in the education business? It is hard to tell, but one thing is for sure, they are a group with a current membership of nearly 3 million and they work daily with, and have direct access to, 99 percent of all school aged children in the United States!^[8] That is exactly the kind of influence they want. According to a recent report from the Family Research Counsel, that’s roughly 48 million children,^[9] that is about 1 out of every 6 people in our country! That makes the NEA a group with a tremendous potential realm of influence. But while the NEA’s radical left agenda has become increasingly damaging, none of its efforts have been more devastating to the children of America than its efforts to promote social reform through what has come to be known as "progressive education." This continues to be the ultimate goal; the promotion of social reform through progressive education policies and philosophies.

What exactly is progressive education? Well, progressive education comes in many different flavors. The American model is basically a group of ideas and philosophies that are aimed at making schools more effective agents of our democratic society. They are also aimed at the improvement of the democratic social order as a whole. Some have called it "child-centered", some have called it "social reconstructionist", but whatever the current label, they are all "progressive education," and it has been popular in this country for almost a century.

Progressive education is really nothing more than a term used to describe all these various ideas and philosophies that are used to promote of social reform through education. Although there are many different methods espoused among progressive educators, they all share a common conviction that democracy means the active participation by all citizens in the social, political and economic decisions that will affect all our lives. While on the surface this certainly sounds like a worthwhile goal, a deeper look into the specific philosophies reveals some serious flaws, especially when compared to the model found in Scripture. According to the philosophy of progressive education, the production of good citizens should consist of two essential elements.

First, it must require respect for diversity. This means that each individual should be recognized for his or her own abilities, interests, ideas, opinions, and cultural identity. It also means that each of these abilities, interests, ideas, opinions, and cultural identities are of equal value. One set should not be held above another because all are equally valid. There is not one single way of life or one single set of moral values that are better than all others! All are equally valid.

Secondly, it should require the development of a critical, socially minded intelligence. In other words, all persons should be required to develop a way of thinking that always considers community first, with the majority as the standard. This helps the individual to understand and participate effectively in the affairs of their community. Only as a collective can people achieve the common good, and they will only do that, according to the philosophy of progressive education, when they have been educated correctly, as good, tolerant minded, citizens. Through the promotion of progressive education, the thoughts and ideas of the individual actually become secondary to that of the community. There is also no one standard for right and wrong; everything is relative to the current situation or the current feelings of the majority. The desired outcome is simply unity under all standards as long as the common goal is achieved.

So where do these ideas come from? Well, American progressive education has its roots in the thoughts of many men. Men like the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, German philosopher Johann Herbart, and German educator Friedrich Froebel. All these men "sought to substitute natural methods for the traditional implements of learning."^[10] By natural methods we mean that they emphasized the experience of the learning situation over the mere learning of facts during an educational experience. While they were all successful in promoting this method, no one has influenced the propagation of progressive education, especially in America, more than John Dewey.

John was born in 1859 in Burlington, Vermont. His father owned a general store there. As a boy, John delivered papers. He was raised in a traditional American home and attended the White Street Congregational Church in Burlington. John was a bright young man who loved to read. At age fifteen, he entered college. He attended the University of Vermont and graduated head of his class with a major in philosophy. After graduation, he taught high school for two years in Oil City, Pennsylvania. Later he earned his doctorate degree from the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences at John Hopkins University. He studied under men like G. Stanley Hall, George S. Morris and Charles S. Price, all of whom were deeply influenced by the rationalism^[11] and the philosophy of German educators. After he earned his doctorate, John went on to teach at the University of Michigan and later the University of Minnesota. Soon after this, he moved to the University of Chicago where he assumed the role as the chair of the combined departments of psychology, philosophy and pedagogy.^[12] During his stay at the University of Chicago, he, along with the help of his wife Alice, conducted the first major experiment using progressive education techniques in a classroom setting. Dewey said that school "must represent present life – life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the playground."^[13] Dewey believed the best way for children to learn would be through hands on experience, and the things that they needed to learn were those things that helped them live out their day to day lives as participants in their communities. In this, we see the focus of the social reforming aspect of progressive education. The focus was removed from the dull every day subjects such as reading, writing and arithmetic and placed on hands-on activities such as sewing, cooking, gardening, carpentry, building, dramatics, storytelling, and recreating basic occupations.^[14] Dewey’s model "Laboratory School," was an exciting school. It was unlike anything that had ever been done in America before. Children were exposed to many different instructional techniques and experiences, and while the results of this experiment are questionable, each side of the debate claims victory. Dewey critics say it was a total failure. They say that history and the current state of education in America has proven this point. But Dewey supporters say it was an overwhelming success. They say that while many other attempts to run schools like Dewey’s have failed, they all did so because they did not carefully duplicate Dewey’s vision. So while no one really knows the outcome of this first model school experiment, I tend to side with his critics. We can look to the results of an experiment to determine its success or failure, and after decades of progressive education in our government school systems, all we have is decreased test scores and decreased moral values. Without a doubt, Dewey’s experiment was a failure.

After John left the University of Chicago, he was called as the head of the prestigious Teachers College at Columbia University in New York. In this position, by the 1950s, he became the nation’s most influential educator. As many as 20% of all American school superintendents and 40% of all American teacher college heads received advanced degrees under Dewey.^[15] Robert L. Cooke wrote about Dewey saying that he "probably applied his philosophy directly to education in a greater degree and in broader ways than any other man."^[16]

With the help of the NEA and the Department of Education, John Dewey’s educational philosophy has become the predominant method for training teachers in the United States. Even greater than his predecessor Horace Mann, John Dewey’s educational ideas have spread far and wide. While both had similar convictions about education they both also had their own religious bent as well. This is primarily where the two began to part ways. Mann was a Unitarian, and believed in teaching a form of religious morality to children, a form based on his own Unitarian beliefs. Dewey on the other hand was an atheist, and a humanist, and did not feel that moral training had any place in education. Where Mann believed that morals should be taught apart from the specific religious doctrines about a higher authority, Dewey believed that there was no higher authority to be accountable to. As one of the co-signors of the Humanist Manifesto I,^[17] Dewey believed that there were no moral absolutes, everything was relative to the situation at hand and that was relative to the quality of the experience. This was clearly visible in Dewey’s teaching style. It was one of his best known teaching techniques, known as experiential learning. The closing remarks of the Humanist Manifesto I sums up Dewey’s beliefs very clearly, it states:

"So stand the theses of religious humanism. Though we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task."^[18]

So to Dewey, positive experience was everything, the "quest for the good life" was the central task for all of mankind including children. If the experience was good to the child, if it brought him closer to the good life, then this was something of value to the child and should be retained. If it was not, then this was not something the child needed and should be put aside. The accumulation of mere facts was no longer the focus of education, only the accumulation of positive learning experiences. In this we see some of the most devastating effects of the progressive education movement. Not only has it resulted in the academic decline of the American student, but it has also been the chief cause of the moral decline as well. Thanks to progressive education, American students now achieve some of the lowest scores in the world on standardized tests. They also have little or no morality to go with them. Right and wrong have been relegated to the quality of the experience, to whether or not it feels good at the time. If it does, then it has value, otherwise it is simply discarded as outdated or unneeded.

This is the foundation that our current system of public education is built on. With the help of men like Horace Mann and John Dewey, and organizations like the NEA and AFT, the federal government has redefined the way education is to be carried out.

^[1] Charles J. Sykes, Dumbing Down Our Kids, Why American Children Fell Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, or Add (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1995), 230.
^[2] Samuel L. Blumenfeld, NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education (Phoenix, AZ: The Paradigm Company, 1985). 78.
^[3] Sykes, 231.
^[4] U.S. Department of Education, ED.gov official website, http://www.ed.gov/about/.
^[5] John A. Stormer, None Dare Call it Education: What’s happening in our schools? (Liberty Bell Press, 1999), p43.
^[6] National Education Association Website article, Annual Meeting, July 7, 2005, http://www.nea.org/annualmeeting/raaction/index.html
^[7] Phyllis Schlafly, How Public Schools Have Changed, (Eagle Forum Newsletter, Aug. 17, 2005).
^[8]Brian D. Ray Ph.D., 2004 - 2005 Worldwide Guide to Homeschooling: Facts and stats on the benefits of home school (Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2004), 27.
^[9] Family Research Counsel newsletter, August 17, 2005.
^[10] Towns, 319.
^[11] Towns, 310.
^[12] Ravitch, Diane, Left Back, A Century of Battles Over School Reform (Touchstone, 2000), 57.
^[13] John Dewey's declaration concerning education (The School Journal, Volume LIV, Number 3 January 16, 1897), 77-80.
^[14] Ravitch, Left Back, 172.
^[15] Stormer, 39-40.
^[16] Towns, 319.
^[17] Stormer, 44.
^[18] Humanist Manifesto I, Copyright 1973 by the American Humanist Association

EDUCATING CHILDREN - Education in Early American History

Education in America has gone through a major evolutionary process. But unlike the so-called "evolution of man" which is widely taught in the government school systems, the evolution of the American school is based on fact and not fiction. It is a process that started with the Pilgrims and Puritans who first settled this country in the 1600’s and is still continuing today.

So who were these Pilgrims and Puritans? Why did they come to America? The most common answer is religious freedom, and while this may be the most common answer, it may not be the best. So let us take a closer look at these two groups for a more complete answer.

The Pilgrims were mostly farmers, and with the exception of their leaders, they were generally not well educated. However, this did not mean they were illiterate, because standards for literacy were much higher then. All this really meant was that while most them could read and write, they had little or no formal university education. The Puritans on the other hand were generally better educated. They were primarily from England’s middle and professional class.^[1] Though the Pilgrims and Puritans were drastically different in makeup, their goals were strikingly similar. Each group wanted very similar things. They wanted the freedom to worship God in accordance with their own beliefs, they wanted the freedom to teach those beliefs to their children, and most of all they wanted all men everywhere to know the Lord. But while each group wanted similar things, they each took a drastically different approach to achieve them.

The Pilgrims wanted no part of the Church of England. To them, it was too much like the Roman Church. Too much of the emphasis was on pomp and show with little focus on reading and interpreting scripture. There was also a great divide between the clergy and the laity, and the King of England, James I, wanted it to stay that way. It was his opinion that royally appointed bishops were one of the pillars of a strong monarchy. His response to their protests was "No bishop, no king."^[2] So the only real recourse that the Pilgrims had was to flee the country. But only after several different failed attempts did they finally escape to Holland. It was on February 12, 1609 that they settled in Leyden, Holland, which was a small town about twenty miles southwest of Amsterdam. Here they remained for the next eleven years. It was here that they finally experienced the religious freedom that they had so longed for back in their mother country of England. But, if they had finally found religious freedom among the Dutch, why did they make the dangerous voyage to America? The real reason can be found in the document known as the Mayflower Compact, it says:

"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain. France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, & etc. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together in a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation, and the of the ends aforesaid: and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient of the general good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November, in the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620."^[3]

So the main reason for their final departure to the Americas was "for the Glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian Faith." They were missionaries at heart and wanted to carry their faith to the uttermost parts of the world. Here in the "New World", they would have the freedom to worship God according to their own beliefs. They would have the freedom to teach those beliefs to their children. Most of all, here they would be able to carry the gospel to a land where it had not been before.

While the Pilgrims were busy trying to escape their current situation, their better educated and more affluent counterparts, the Puritans, were doing what they could to reform the church and the government from within. They didn’t really want to form a new church; they just wanted to purify the one they had. They were the dominant party in the English House of Commons,^[4] and they tried to use their positions of influence to persuade the English people and her king, to adopt a form of government that was more religiously tolerant. While this was only partially successful, many of their members, some 900 or so Puritans, saw the proverbial writing on the wall and sailed to America in 1630 under the leadership of John Winthrop.

John was born in Suffolk, England in 1587. He was the only son of Adam Winthrop, the lord of Groton Manor. He was privately educated as a youngster and later attended Trinity College in Cambridge. After a few years of college, he returned home to help run his fathers estate. He was later married and had 10 children. John went on to study law and then at some point became part of the Puritan movement. Once in this new movement John became more and more dissatisfied with the Church of England and worked feverishly to try and implement change from within. But after much effort, John discovered that change was not coming, so he decided to leave his home in search of a better place to raise his family. This is when John became involved with a company known as the Massachusetts Bay Company. This was a newly chartered company that would travel to the New World and setup an entirely new way of life. John, with his background in management and law was quickly elected the first Governor. With that, John and the rest of the Puritans sailed aboard the ship Arbella along with a flotilla of eleven other ships to the New World, and like the Pilgrims, who went before them some ten years earlier and had drafted the Mayflower Compact, these men also drafted their on covenant to explain their actions. It stated:

"God Almighty in His most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankind as in all times some must be rich, some poor; some high and eminent in power and dignity, others mean and in subjection. First, to hold conformity with rest of His works, ... Secondly, that He might have the more occasion to manifest the work of His spirit, ... Thirdly, that every man might have need of other, ... All men thus (by divine providence) ranked into two sorts, rich and poor, under the first are comprehended all such as are able to live comfortably by their own means duly improved, and all others are poor, according to the former distribution. There are two rules whereby we are to walk, one toward another; justice and mercy. ... There is likewise a double law by which we are regulated in our conversation, one towards another; in both the former respects, the law of nature and the law of grace, or the moral law of the Gospel. (1) For the persons, we are a company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ; (2) the care of the public must oversway all private respects by which not only conscience but mere civil policy doth bind us; (3) the end is to improve our lives to do more service to the Lord, the comfort and increase of the body of Christ whereof we are members; (4) for the means whereby this must be effected, they are twofold: a conformity with the work and the end we aim at. ... Thus stands the cause between God and us: we are entered into covenant with Him for this work; we have taken out a commission, the Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles, ... if we shall neglect the observation of these articles ... the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us. ... Therefore, let us choose life, that we, and our seed may live; by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity."^[5]

While the Mayflower Compact was a distinctly religious document, the Arbella Covenant was even more so. The final line of the document gives a very clear summary: "Therefore, let us choose life, that we, and our seed may live; by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity." So if the Pilgrims were missionaries to the new world, the Puritans were missionaries too, but with a primary purpose of being a godly example for all to see, a light on a hill^[6] to shine before all men. They would strive to live according to the laws of God, and would train their children to do likewise.

In their search for religious freedom, both the Pilgrims and the Puritans eventually came to America, and once they were there, they would establish homes, churches and schools modeled after the pattern given in scripture. It is here, among the lives and homes of these early European settlers, that we find the Christian roots of education in American.

So what were some of these early Christian roots of American education? Well, from its earliest beginnings, the schools founded in this country were distinctly Christian. Harvard University for example, founded in 1636, just sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock,^[7] was founded on Christian principles. In her report, Plymouth Rocked: America Departs from Founding Values, Wendy Griffith states that "Harvard, chartered in Boston in 1636, was established primarily to train ministers of the Gospel, and to evangelize the northern Atlantic seaboard. A statue of John Harvard, a young minister when he came over from England, stands in Harvard Yard. For more than 200 years, Harvard remained dedicated to Christian education…"^[8] If you look at the statue of John Harvard, you will see an open Bible in his right hand. Harvard was clearly founded with Christian values in mind, but has since left those values behind and replaced them with the values of the world. But this was not the only school founded on Christian values that has become secular. Every historical Ivy League school founded in this nation had the same Christian moral roots. Take Columbia University for example; this is the 6th oldest school in our nation. According to an article in the New York Mercury on June 3, 1754, announcing the opening of King's College, the original name for Columbia, it stated that:

"The chief thing that is aimed at in this college is to teach and engage the children to know God in Jesus Christ and to love and serve Him in all sobriety, godliness, and righteousness of life, with perfect heart and a willing mind, and to train them up in all virtuous habits and all such useful knowledge as may render them creditable to their families and friends, ornaments to their country, and useful to the public weal in their generations."

But does Columbia still have those same lofty goals? Not in the least! Columbia University today is a totally secular institution. In fact, this is the same university where the well known humanist and atheist, John Dewey, was called as the head of its teacher’s college. But that is an issue that will be covered in greater detail later.

The founding of Christian schools of higher education was only the beginning of Christian education in this country. Just a few years after the founding of Harvard University, the first mandatory school law was established for elementary education. It was the Massachusetts Bay School Law of 1642. This law required parents and masters to teach their children the principles of religion and the capital laws of the commonwealth.^[9] The main idea behind this law was that it was the duty of those responsible for the children: parents and masters, to see that they could read the scripture for themselves and by doing so could become good citizens.

Five years after this first school law was passed another new law was enacted. It was the Massachusetts Law of 1647,^[10] also known as the Old Deluder Satan Act. This law stated that all towns with at least 50 residents should hire a school master. It seems that we’ve seen something similar to this somewhere before in history. You see prior to this, all elementary education was primarily carried out in the home. But there must have been some concern as to the quality of the education that parents were giving. Just like the Jewish leaders in the last century BC, those early American leaders questioned the ability of parents to teach their own children. So they sought to establish a system of improved education that would be better than what most children could receive at home, and what was the primary reason? The preamble to the Massachusetts Law tells us why, it stated:

"It being one chief e project of ye old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of ye Scriptures, as in former times by keeping him in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from ye use of tongues, yt so at least ye true since & meaning of ye original might be clouded by false glosses of saint seeming deceivers, yet learning may not be buried in ye grave of or fathers in ye church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting or endeavors…" ^[11]

The Massachusetts Law of 1647, like the School Law of 1642, was also drafted to ensure that children had an opportunity to learn to read the scripture. While it was enacted with good intentions, it would later lead to a national system of government controlled schools that would be totally devoid of Christianity; although that would not happen until many years later. But in the mean time, Christian influence in education was still going strong.

The next major milestone for education occurred in 1690 with the first printing of the New England Primer. The New England Primer used Bible lessons and spiritual training to teach children to read and was the home education book of choice for most Americans. It included such subjects as Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, The Lord's Prayer, The Ten Commandments, a Bible alphabet, two catechisms, Bible questions, a dialogue between Christ, the youth and the devil, and the advice John Rogers gave his nine children before he was martyred for Christ. A quick look at the rhyming alphabet of the New England Primer reveals a bit of the books Christian heritage. Here is a sample from the 1777 version, it begins with:

· A – In Adam's fall – We sinned all.
· B – Heaven to find – The Bible Mind.
· C – Christ crucified – For sinners died.
· D – The Deluge drowned – The Earth around.
· E – Elijah hid – By ravens fed. ^[12]

For nearly two-hundred years, the New England Primer was used to provide a Christian education to countless boys and girls in the home and schools all across our country.

As early American history progressed, many such events transpired; events that tie together education and Christianity. Events that clearly define what the founding fathers had in mind when they first established a new life in this country. While these events are exciting to look at, and would show us many different aspects of our early Christian educational roots, I believe it would be more helpful to narrow our focus to a more specific path. I would like to concentrate on those events which took us from our early Christian roots of education in early America, to the totally secular educational system of modern day America.

The first two of these major events are defining moments in our nation’s history. They would take place at the end of the 18th century. But while these events were of utmost importance to the direction of our country, they had absolutely nothing to do with education. So what were they? Well, the first one was the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788.^[13] This event helped set the stage for all future law in this country. The second was the Bill of Rights in 1790,^[14] which were the first 10 amendments to the constitution. So if these events have nothing to do with education, then why mention them at all? Well, these documents define the boundaries of the authority of our government. While they cover many different areas of our national or public life, nowhere do they mention anything about the government’s responsibility to educate children. But for some reason, here we are in the first part of the 21st century, little more than two-hundred years later, and the education system is controlled, almost entirely, by the federal government. So how did it get that way? Well, it all began with a population explosion in the early 1800s. Many immigrants were coming to America and most could neither speak nor read the English language. So a cry went forth for more "common" schools to help in the process of Americanizing these new citizens and their children. While many thought that schools could be supported privately through churches and private citizens, many others feared that too many would not accept such charity. So the end result lead to the need for tax funded "free" schools. But since the Federal government had no authority in the area of education, the majority of this process was left up to the individual states. At that time in the New England states, specifically Massachusetts, this effort was lead by a young lawyer named Horace Mann. Horace was also known as The Father of American Public Education.^[15] It was here that Horace and his fellow education reformers would set the pace for education in America, a pace that would be followed by educators for many years to come.

Horace was a bright young man with a passion for education. Although he had humble beginnings, he eventually graduated at the top of his class from Brown University. He then went on to study Law at Litchfield Massachusetts Law School. Later, Horace was elected to the Massachusetts state legislature where his passion for education manifested itself in legislation that ultimately formed the Massachusetts Commission to Improve Education. An organization that later became the Massachusetts State Board of Education.^[16] Eventually, in 1837, Horace gave up his law practice to become the Secretary of this organization.^[17] It was through his efforts as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, that state funding to education was doubled, teacher salaries increased, and many educational related laws and reforms were passed. These laws not only shaped education in his day, but also education for generations to come.

But what was Mann’s vision for education? Well, Horace believed that education should be free and available to all, no matter what a person’s status. He thought all children should be given the opportunity to learn the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Horace also felt that children needed moral instruction as well, and he patterned this instruction after his own liberal Unitarian beliefs;^[18] beliefs which stressed the unity of the nature of God as opposed to his tri-unity and promoted more "free-thinking" about who God was. Unitarians were extremely liberal, theologically, as were their Universalists counterparts. The two groups eventually merged into one to form the Unitarian Universalism church that we have today.^[19] This is the kind of ideology on which Mann patterned his public school model. It was a kind of nonsectarian religious education, one where moral principles would be taught, without the doctrinal ties that, to Mann, tended to divide the various religions of the day. So how was he to accomplish his dream of a unified well educated population? He would do it through education reform.

The first major step toward Mann’s educational ideal was the Compulsory Attendance Act of 1852.^[20] It was enacted, with his help, in the state of Massachusetts and required mandatory school attendance for children between the ages of eight and fourteen for at least three months out of each year. While there were other educational laws prior to this one, this was really the first that defined the total scope of what children would learn. So while local communities would provide the meeting place, Man and the other education reformers would supply the teachers and the curriculum. For those parents that would not participate, they would be threatened with a hefty twenty dollars fine. However, there was definitely more bark to this dog than there was bite. The problem was, the school board didn’t have the authority to arrest people or enforce the fine, so obviously something more was needed.

Another major step in the process of educational reform was to start the training earlier. The Compulsory Attendance Act of 1852 had already captured children as young as age 8 years old, but this wasn’t early enough to build a good foundation for reform. So in 1860, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, the sister of Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, who was the wife of Horace Mann, started the first English Language Kindergarten^[21] in Boston. By reaching children at an even earlier age, the chances were much greater that they could be molded into the model universal citizens that were at the center of Mann’s vision. The Peabody sisters were both Unitarian Transcendentalist, and they "strove to realize their vision of human goodness through practical application in the world."^[22] It was through the kindergarten where the practical application began. It was a process where by children could be molded and shaped at an even earlier age.

So as the schools progressed, Mann and his fellow education reformers found that they lacked real authority. So in 1873, the Massachusetts compulsory attendance law was revised. The school year was expanded from twelve to twenty weeks per year and they added the built in ability to enforce the law by forming jurisdictions for prosecution. They then hired truant officers to enforce the attendance laws, and as they did, many more towns began to fall into compliance.

Meanwhile, as this new business of mandatory state education progressed, it started to catch the attention of education leaders in other states. In 1850, many of these leaders got together and formed The National Teachers Association, which a few years later, in 1857, became the National Education Association^[23] or NEA. On the surface, this appeared to be a professional organization whose goals were the promotion of new educational trends, improving schools, helping teachers, and improving cooperation among educators. But in reality, the main idea behind this group was the promotion of government owned public schools, and the demise of private education.^[24] Because Mann and his cohorts in Massachusetts were doing such a great job with their education reform efforts, many education leaders of other states used Massachusetts as their model, and the NEA was the means for promoting these model ideas. As the process of government education matured in Massachusetts, more and more other states began to follow suit with the help and efforts of the NEA. As the movement continued to grow on a national scale, the Federal Government began to take notice. It was merely ten years after the official creation of the NEA, that in 1867, the US Department of Education was formed, and along with it, the rise of Federal Government involvement in the policies and practices of state education, and with this event, we have officially moved into the modern age of education.

So again, we see history repeat itself; just like the Roman Catholic Church of the sixth century, and the Jewish Rabbis of the first century, "Horace Mann and the education reformers [of his day] worked to extend the state’s role in defining what would be taught in schools and [also] preparing those whom would teach in them."^[25] As they expanded their efforts, other states followed through with the help and activities of the NEA which was followed by Federal Government involvement. Within a few short decades, education in America had gone from a mostly home based system founded on Christian principles, to one that was totally secular and controlled by the government. The foundation is now laid for a total government takeover of education in America. This event, along with many that came before it, have all added to the cause of the willing abdication of educational responsibilities by millions of parents all across the land.

^[1] Kienel, 370-371.
^[2] History of the Monarchy > The Stewarts > James VI and I (Crown Copyrithg, 2005), http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page136.asp.
^[3] Harold Jinks Editor, The Book of Freedom, Our American Heritage (Merkle Press Inc., 1968), 3.
^[4] Robert E. Lerner, Standish Meacham, and Edward McNall Burns, Western Civilizations Volume 2, Eleventh Edition (W W Norton, 1988), 531-534.
^[5] The Arbella Covenant or "A Modell of Christian Charity" 1630, http://www.curriculumunits.com/crucible/background/arabella.htm.
^[6] Matthew 5:14-16
^[7] President and Fellows of Harvard College, (Harvard College 2005), http://www.news.harvard.edu/guide/intro/.
^[8] Wendy Griffith, Plymouth Rocked: America Departs from Founding Values (CWNews, The Christian Broadcasting Network, 2005), http://www.cbn.com/CBNNews/CWN/073004plymouth.asp.
^[9] The Massachusetts Bay School Law 1642, http://personal.pitnet.net/primarysources/schoollaw1642.html.
^[10] The Massachusetts Law of 1647, http://www.extremeintellect.com/08EDUCATION/masslaw1647.htm.
^[11] The Massachusetts Law of 1647, http://www.extremeintellect.com/08EDUCATION/masslaw1647.htm.
^[12] The Rhyming alphabet from the New England Primer, printed by Edward Draper, 1777
^[13] ACLJ, American Center for Law & Justice, Foundations of Freedom booklet, 5.
^[14] ACLJ, 35.
^[15] Interactive State House, Education Timeline, http://www.mass.gov/statehouse/statues/mann_landing.htm.
^[16] Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia 1938 Edition, Volume 9 (F.E. Compton & Company, Chicago, 1938), 53.
^[17] Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia, Volume 4, 178.
^[18] Susan Ritchie, Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography, Horace Mann (Unitarian Universalist Historical Society (UUHS) 1999-2004), http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/horacemann.html.
^[19] John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions (Harvest House Publishers, 1999), 503.
^[20] Vicky Grocke, COMPULSORY EDUCATION, http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/%7Ecfrnb/compulso.html.
^[21] Interactive State House, Education Timeline, http://www.mass.gov/statehouse/1800.htm.
^[22] Susan Ritchie, Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography, The Peabody Sisters (Unitarian Universalist Historical Society (UUHS) 1999-2004), http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/peabodysisters.html.
^[23] Jodie Gilmore, National "Indoctrination" Association (The NewAmerican, Vol. 20, No. 17, August 23, 2004), http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2004/08-23-2004/indoctrination.htm.
^[24] Lowell Ponte, Unholy Trinity (FrontPageMagazine.com, July 16, 2004), http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=14258.
^[25] Matthew J. Brouillette, School Choice in Michigan: A Primer for Freedom in Education, (Mackinac Center for Public Policy, 1999), 9.