Fred Martinez is staff religion editor of the Conservative Monitor and a frequent contributor to the San Francisco Faith, a Northern California newspaper. He can be reached at MrtnzFred@aol.com.
The lie of the perfect presidential family, which the assassination prolonged, ushered in the sexual revolution. Whereas the ending of the lying presidential family coincided with the end of the myth of “the good American education.” Maybe with the recent German tragedy Europe will realize that the good American public education model is a lie.
Market researcher, C. Britt Beemer, thinks the “Columbine factor” has changed our country's mindset. His surveys show 70% of parents now think danger in schools will continue to increase. “Informed parents” are, also, dissatisfied with public school's drugs, peer pressure, and poor teaching. He sees a trend towards single income families and home schooling.
After 50 years of feminist propaganda, parents appear to be realizing that children are smarter and healthier when they spend more time with them. After 150 years of education propaganda, parents are beginning to see public schools as unsafe to the moral, intellectual, and bodily safety of their kids.
John Taylor Gatto — former New York City and State Teacher of the Year — documents how the education system purposely has created a mass of illiterates. His book, The Underground History of American Education, demonstrates that in 1840 — before public education — 93% to 100% of poor and rich had “complex literacy.”
But, since “compulsory” schools began, each succeeding generation has become more illiterate. After WWII, with increased funding of public schools, black illiteracy doubled and white illiteracy quadrupled. Notice that the increased funding of our public schools preceded the “dumbing down” which in turn preceded the violence.
Justice Department records show that violent criminals are overwhelmingly (80%) illiterate. Since WWII, as illiteracy increased, so did crime. Out-of-wedlock births quadrupled and in the 60's “bizarre violence … became common.”
Why the “dumbing down”? Gatto documents that throwing money at education is a waste unless certain instituted changes are reversed. The first “well-documented” change that gave rise to illiteracy was the American schools' massive conversion to “non-phonetic ways of teaching reading.”
Then, in the 60s, schools began replacing morality and discipline with reinforcement schedules. There was no longer right or wrong, only the sterile, therapeutic concepts of “positive and negative reinforcement” to maintain the “social order.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why in the 60's “bizarre violence … became common”.
As the strange psychology of “planned smiles”, “stern looks”, “self-esteem” and “aggression management” replaced the Ten Commandments, school security guards and metal detectors became a growth industry.
And teachers that were true educators, like Jaime Estalante of Stand and Deliver fame, and teachers-of-the-year like John Gatto were weeded out. Look it up on the Internet — they were both forced out. We all can remember two or three good teachers like Estalante and Gatto, but they were the exceptions, not the rule.
If it is true — as Gatto with overwhelming evidence shows in his book — that the educational system purposely has created a mass of illiterates, and if Justice Department statistics are true that violent criminals are overwhelmingly (80%) illiterate, then the education system in our American-copying global culture is increasingly unsafe at any price.
