| 17;ve been writing about education more than 25 | | | | articles in a book titled The Education Enigma |
| years. It’s been a fascinating journey...but | | | | (What Happened To American Education). Partly |
| puzzling | | | | it’s a history book. It’s also a |
| So much in education is counterintuitive. Our | | | | guidebook to the toxic nonsense in American |
| schools seem to do everything in the slowest, | | | | schools. Most importantly, it’s a map to a |
| most inefficient ways. How can we explain this? | | | | better future. It’s also entertaining. What |
| It’s almost as if our educators merely | | | | other book talks about Pavlov, Mick Jagger, the |
| pretend to believe in universal education. What | | | | Tao, John Dewey, robots and the plight of |
| they seen more deeply committed to is universal | | | | poetry? |
| mediocrity. | | | | My thesis is that we have no hope of |
| When you consider all the studies and statistics, | | | | improvement unless we understand exactly what |
| you realize that they all paint the same bleak and | | | | happened to American education: our schools |
| depressing picture. We spend more and more | | | | were made dumb by design. Throwing more |
| billions every year but SAT scores fall. Our better | | | | billions of dollars at the problem won’t help. |
| students do not compete well with the better | | | | Writing more glowing policy recommendations |
| students from other countries. The general public | | | | won’t help. Giving money to so-called best |
| seems to know barely enough to read a daily | | | | practice won’t help. Our educators are set |
| newspaper. Can most Americans find Idaho on a | | | | in their ways. Our first job is simply this: we have |
| map? Never mind Japan? And then | | | | to grasp that our house is dirty and then clean it. |
| there’s the really big mystery: 50 million | | | | We have to get rid of the over-hyped |
| functional illiterates. How could this happen? | | | | “progressive” innovations that turn |
| So what we have is an educational system that | | | | out in practice to be destructive and regressive. |
| vastly overspends while hugely underperforming. | | | | For example, Whole Word, Reform Math, |
| How do they get away with it? (Now President | | | | Constructivism, Self Esteem, Cooperative |
| Obama wants to up the ante. I’d suggest | | | | Learning, Fuzzy Anything, and much more. We |
| reading this book first.) | | | | need to restore basics and academics to their |
| To answer all these puzzles, I researched further | | | | proper prominence. |
| and further back in history. I tried to understand | | | | Many people are comforted by the idea that our |
| how the early educators, a century ago, looked | | | | educators are clumsy or befuddled by fads. No, |
| at life, at their country, at children, and at this | | | | I’m afraid you really have a much better |
| new field they had created. You want to know | | | | sense of what happened if you imagine a bunch |
| what’s really funny? These people in fact | | | | of guys like John Dewey gathered around a table |
| were not primarily interested in education as most | | | | discussing their philosophical goals, devising |
| of us understand that term. They were obsessed | | | | strategies, and trying to figure out how to keep |
| with ideology, psychological breakthroughs, and | | | | the public from interfering. I know people who shy |
| cultural transformations. They saw the school as a | | | | away from the word conspiracy. But be realistic. |
| tool. Education was the factory in which they | | | | This track record goes back nearly a century. |
| intended to build a new society. Note that nobody | | | | Let’s respect those 50 million functional |
| asked them to do this; they arrogantly appointed | | | | illiterates who are spending their lives in a twilight |
| themselves our saviors. Thanks for nothing. | | | | zone thanks to John Dewey and his heirs. You |
| At this point I have more than 120 articles on the | | | | can’t create this kind of disaster in a few |
| web trying to explain how and why our educators | | | | years or by accident. No, the perpetrators have |
| got off track. I’ve been especially | | | | to keep plugging away, decade after decade. |
| obsessed by the reading wars, which is far and | | | | I should mention by the way that I never criticize |
| away our biggest, dumbest scandal and a | | | | teachers. I’m concerned only with the top |
| paradigm for everything else. As I understood the | | | | educators, people with Ph.D.’s at Teachers |
| damage caused by bogus reading methods, I | | | | College and such. These people are responsible for |
| began to have a clearer sense of what we need | | | | what happens in American education. Teachers |
| to do across the board: namely, toss out all the | | | | are as much their victims as children are. |
| bogus ideas. | | | | If you might enjoy a short, fast but entirely |
| Oddly enough, we are engaged in a war with our | | | | intellectual critique of American education, please |
| own educators. I want to persuade the public that | | | | check out The Education Enigma (on Amazon or |
| this is an INTELLECTUAL war; and we must fight | | | | any store can order it for you). The ideas in this |
| the bad ideas promoted by educators with good | | | | book can save our public schools. |
| ideas. So I’ve collected my 50 favorite | | | | |