Let’s Dumb Down
Terry Dashner…………………..Faith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013
Says Mona Charen in her book, Do-Gooders How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim To Help (And The Rest Of Us) (Sentinel 2004), “When the World War II memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., on Memorial Day 2004, the Washington Post ran a story about what high school students in the area know about the war. Tiffany Charles, a B student, was typical. She could not name the president who served during World War II, nor could she name a single battle or any general. But she is quite aware the United States interned Japanese-Americans during the war. Of seventy-six students surveyed by the Post, 66 percent knew about the Japanese-American internment but only 33 percent could name even one American general.”
When you substitute old-fashion-classroom-lecture for “hands-on” touchy-feely-I’m Okay-your Okay-classroom-hogwash, you reap the whirl wind like that mentioned above—students who know nothing of the facts of history but only that we interned a specific class of people during a time of world war. Help us Lord, please. Which is the greater sin—a generation of poorly educated students or a national education system that is careful not to offend anyone for the sake of every man’s perceived Constitutional right not to be offended?
Mona continues, “In 1965, the average per-pupil expenditure for primary and secondary schools students was $3,000 per year. By 1995, it had more than doubled to $6,500 (in constant dollars). Performance (i.e., test scores) did not improve. Indeed, in many areas, performance has declined. Spending rose in every category—salaries, equipment, special programs, transportation, and administration. Spending also rose at every governmental level-local, state, and federal. By 2003-2004, local, state, and federal governments spent half a trillion dollars on elementary and secondary education…In 2003-2004, the United States spent $375 billion on defense, so education spending far outstrips defense spending.” Are we getting any bang for our buck?
Again Mrs. Charen states, “And students are becoming dumber with every passing decade. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a group of industrialized nations that includes all of Europe and North America as well as Japan, South Korea, and a few others. The United States—surprise, surprise—is at the very top of K-12 spending. Yet our fifteen-year-olds perform only in the middle of the pack academically.”
What’s the problem with out schools? Item, in 1979 we decided to introduce a federal Department of Education. At its inception its budget was a meager $14 billion and it employed 450 people. By 2001 the department’s budget had soared to $43 billion and its workforce increased to 4,800 without educating one American student. What’s the problem? Item, “During the mid 1990s, sixteen-to sixty-five-year-olds from fourteen countries in Europe and North America participated in a literacy test. Our older age groups, those whose schooling did not include sex education, child-centered learning, cooperative learning, and creative spelling, did very well. Americans aged fifty-six to sixty-five ranked second highest among those nations participating. But the youngest group, those aged sixteen-to twenty-five, ranked fourteen-dead last.” (Charen p.203)
The problem is this: Item, “A suburban New York school district advertised jobs available for thirty-five teachers. They received 800 applications and decided to thin the ranks by administering an eleventh-grade state examination in English. Only 25 percent of the would-be teachers answered forty of the fifty questions correctly. In Massachusetts, 59 percent of prospective teachers flunked a state licensing exam.” (Charen p.209) Item, since the Supreme Court case of Tinker v. Des Moines School District in 1969, involving three male students who sued the district for being suspended, having worn black bands on their arms to protest the Viet Nam war, the schools’ authority to maintain student discipline has been thrown out the windows. Teachers are careful today not to discipline too sternly, knowing they may be sued in federal court, which has typically favored the student.
The problem is this: Item, American lawyers who work for the ACLU. The problem is this: Item, school vouchers, which could be used to get students out of bad schools into good private schools are dismissed as not workable by the top African-American leaders and leading national minority organizations. This, too, is hogwash. Catholic schools continue to excel above and beyond public schools and are more than willing to extend its hand to embrace the poor and minority but top minority leaders say no. I’m wondering. Do these leaders really help the very people they claim to represent and watch over?
The problem is this: No morning blessing over the classroom. No one is allowed to invoke the blessings of the Almighty over the daily learning activities. No prayer, no godly favor. No favor, no success. No prosperity, only misery. We’ve taken God out of school classrooms, and we’ve reaped a “dumb down.” Through men’s ostensibly wise safeguards against religion (watching out for the potential brain washing of children by religious fanatics), we’ve inherited the whirl wind of stupidity, ignorance, and arrogance in the face of God. God help us, and have mercy on our “dumb” souls.
Keep the faith. We will need much faith to withstand the NEA. Stay the course. The youngsters will need our tutoring, we who were educated without the sex education classes, relative ethics, situational ethics, and etc. May Jesus come, soon.
Pastor T. dash.
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