Most people today just take it as a given that this mess is unsolvable, short of homeschooling, which I am A Great Proponent for, for those who can do it, and have the requisite knowledge and skills to do so.  Unfortunately, there are too many who do not possess these abilities and qualities nor can afford to stay home.

In lieu of that, Parents and Citizens, generally, should Demand An End and Total Dissolution of the U.S. Department of Education, a huge Wasteful Bureaucracy from which Spills This Liberal Agenda and Dumbing Down System to begin with.  Then, Abolish State Departments of Education.  Then, reduce the sized and waste of Your Local School Boards of Education.  Then, Build your Elementary and Middle Schools in the neighborhoods and communities where the children live and play, not to exceed 400 students in each school and no classroom sizes more than 20 students per 1 teacher.  This is the start and this can all be done with the existing monies after you abolish the Bureaucracy which is where most of Education Dollars are now spent, along with Contracts to Buy Useless Computers and other Media in Elementary and Middle Schools.  Computers are tools, not teaching aids.  Kids learn best and learn things that last, such as Math Skills by Doing Math.  Learn Writing by Writing.  Learn Reading By Reading.  Get Back To Basics.  Get back To Rational Thinking.

Without the Destruction Of the Bureaucracy that now Mandates all The Attrocities that are taking place, and being backed by Liberal Legislators, and the NEA, we will never turn this country around.  End of Conversation.  It is simply cut and dry.

Ready this writer's Town Hall Blogs:

Greyhawk in Al----Take Our Schools Back

                  Take Our Communities Back

M. Jerome Ennis, MAed in Tuscaloosa, Alabama

To AudiR10 and to Kepha:  These two had commented on a piece by Ms. Crouse who was promoting family values at a forum dealing with teen pregnancies, drug use and other deviance by adolescents, and of course, whe got a lot of Nay Sayers from the Deviant Radical Left who believe such nonsense as two gay parents can do as good a job as a stable heterosexual couple, etc.  First, of course, I suppose that these same sex marriage advocates must be products of the public school system since they obviously do not unerstand the concept of reproduction.  Under normal and natural conditions, it requires a Male And Femal to procreate.  No matter how normal these gay couples appear, and as they assume to be parents, no matter how Butch a woman, she is still a woman.  No matter how feminine a man behaves, he is still a He.  This type of Identity Crisis cannot be healthy.  This especially cannot be a healthy environment to raise children.  Anyway, read Ms. Crouses Article on Townhall.  It is good and the comments are out there in support and some opposed.  Happy Trails to you.

AudiR10 in Alabama.  You hit it on the head about the word No.  Fairness and consistency is essential in raising a child, running a school, a business or anything else.  Children, especially need to learn boundaries, and in fact, secretly want Mom and Dad to be in charge when they reach adolescence and their peers are pressuring them into all sorts of deviance such as alcohol and drug experimentation, sex, thievery, joining negative peer groups such as gangs, etc.  When a kid can say, 'yeah, I think you guys are  cool, but my mom and dad would never go along with this, I have to go home.'  Kids with well developed emotional growth, which is fostered in conventional households that have a positive male and female adult role model in them, aka--parents, are able to say No to Peer Presssure.  In the home, the school, workplace or anywhere else, if you have a set of rules, values, and standards, and they are fairly and consistently enforced, you have stability.  Children are exposed to faulty and negative inputs everyday of their lives on TV, movies, Video Games, The Internet, Peers at school, and The Public Schools themselves.  It takes a strong family with values and traditons and consistency to raise a child and prepare them for what they will begin to face and have to experience in the Public School Setting of Today.  The majority of the emotional growth problems begin when they enter public mandated schools.  This is especially true for boys, who do not possess the intellectual and emotional maturity, to be placed in a structured environment that goes totally at odds with natural and normal developmental abilities for males.  Males trail their female counterparts by as much as 3 years in emotional and intellectual developmental areas.  This is not opinion.  This is fact.  So, these little boys are mandated by The Government To Attend Schools at certain ages, with no concern for the need or the appropriateness of doing so. 

This writer will continue this piece in another comment as am limited to 2000 words.  To Kapha, you are right about God as well.
M. Jerome Ennis, MAed
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
jeromeennis@aol.com

Obviously, we must have a third party that is truly a third party, since, actually, we have truly only been a one-party country now for the past 3 or 4 decades.  As the late George C. Wallace of Alabama stated in the late 1960's when he ran as a third party candidate, (paraphrased) "We currently have two parties that we could call tweedle dee or tweedle dumb, because, as per their agendas and policies, their is not a dime's worth of difference between them."  That was true then, and it is more true today than ever before.  The Democrats bash Republican policies and when elected they change nothing, except to make more bureaucracy and more spending of money we don't have.  The Republicans bash the Democrat policies, and when elected, do nothing to change anything.  Tax, Tax, and the average American Citizen gets nothing for his or her money, except more and more dictatorial laws being enforced by Dictatorial Bureaucracies and more and more personal freedoms being stripped from us.  Yes, we need and I support a real alternative to this.  A party whose mission is to disband the local, state, and federal bureaucracies, and get a representative form of government that represents my interest and the interest of every other working, tax paying American, and not the Interests of The Highest Bidders who buy power by putting up money to the candidates who get elected and funnel money back to it's contributors with favored status legislation and laws, and for those who get elected by appealing to Welfare Bums who contribute nothing and vote for their candidates, such as Obama and Clinton, because they promise to give them something more for nothing.

Jerome Ennis--Alabama

Hi, everyone that receives this already knows me and my passion as a patriot who loves this country, and is sickened at how our country has been turned upside down.  Our schools do not educate, but they do indoctrinate.  The schools that don't and won't teach our children anything of real value are being mandated to do the agenda that is dictated by the U.S. Dept. of Education.  They blackmail states and local governments by stating, "do this or do that, but this is only a suggestion, BUT, IF YOU DO NOT IMPLEMENT WHAT WE ADVISE AND SUGGEST, WE, THE GOVERNMENT WITHHOLD FEDERAL FUNDING TO YOUR STATE AND SCHOOLS.  Is this blackmail or what.  So, the gutless local and state governments never challenge this and just cow tow for the all mighty dollars, WHICH BY THE WAY IS MY MONEY AND YOUR MONEY WHICH WE PAY IN TAXES.   It is not the Government's money.  It is not Congresses money.  It is not the U.S. Dept. of Education's money. No, it is Our Money.  We need to disband this Socialist government beginning at the local level, state level and federal level.  We need to find candidates who will not and do not affiliate with Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dumb, as George C. Wallace so adeptly called them back in 1968 when he ran as an Independent, and likely would have won if a Cowardly Scumbag Assassin had not shot him in the back, and by the way, that scumbag was recently released from a Maryland prison where he should have remained for the rest of his natural life.  But, that is another topic.  Criminals go free, while children are spirited away from parents by Fascist Family and Children's Services Gestapo everyday in this country.  Fascist, because they go unchallenged.  Anyway, hope you read this and will at least give some thought to helping turn the country around.  Love you all--Jerome

Subject: Debating With Sociopaths?

George Bush is taking heat because he says that he will not sit down and have a conversation or debate with a know Terrorist Supporter or Terrorists, generally. He is right on. Does anybody believe that you could sit down with a known serial killer, who is usually a Sociopath, and believe him when he tells you all the earnestness in the world, that "if you release me, I promise and give you my word, I will not return to serial killing." Of course not. You would not do this with a rapist or child molestor either. And basically, when you speak of the midget from Iran, whose name I will not even begin to spell or pronounce, but we all know of whom I speak, that is what you are dealing with. The little man is a Fascist and a Sociopath, much the same Hitler was. The Russians sat down with Hitler in 1939 and signed the Warsaw Pact, which basically, Stalin and Hitler agreed to leave each other alone as they both marched toward world dominance. Of course, Stalin was smart and knew that he could not believe Hitler, and went immediately preparing to fight the Nazis, and of course, eventually, Hitler broke his word and agreements. Well, that is what would happen if you actually you could believe anything the midget of Iran says. Hooray for Bush for telling it like it is, and I hope and pray, he never apologizes for saying it. I just wish we had somebody in this country running for President now who has integrity and courage and substance about them. The media has reduced the presidential race down to a farce with folks running for cover to apologize or to accept or denounce this or that endorsement. It is just entertainment.

Mandated Ignorance

This is a very interesting article and factually right on. Public school history texts are basically fairy tales. As for the youth of today voting, armed with ignorance, and political correctness is truly a dangerous thing. The media, of course, gives them nothing of substance to understand either, especially television programming, all of it. They weave Political Correctness into everything you watch these days. Sally Fields little Liberal Democrat program for example. The public school system creates and fosters ignorance and worse yet, is emotionally damaging to anybody subjected to it. The U.S. Department of Education is the reason for this. This giant bureaucracy that squanders billions of dollars per year needs to be the first such agency or department to be disbanded, if we ever get a Congress, Executive Branch, and Judicial Branch that becomes responsive to the people they presumably serve. I say, presumably, because, unless you have not been paying attention, none of these folks has done anything for the average American citizen who Works For A Living lately. They are too busy paying off their Contributors with favored status legislation, and on the other extreme giving more welfare and other give away programs to people who do not work and will not work, but yet get to vote for those who promise to give them something else for nothing. We better wake up and realize that this country is TEN TRILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT, AND THE RENT COMES DUE. Nobody of the Three Stooges We Have had shoved down our throats will even touch this subject as they talk about creating New Bureaucracies, and give away programs, domestically, and internationally. God Please Bless America, and Please Hurry. Jerome Ennis in Alabama

Subject: Debating With Sociopaths?

George Bush is taking heat because he says that he will not sit down and have a conversation or debate with a know Terrorist Supporter or Terrorists, generally. He is right on. Does anybody believe that you could sit down with a known serial killer, who is usually a Sociopath, and believe him when he tells you all the earnestness in the world, that "if you release me, I promise and give you my word, I will not return to serial killing." Of course not. You would not do this with a rapist or child molestor either. And basically, when you speak of the midget from Iran, whose name I will not even begin to spell or pronounce, but we all know of whom I speak, that is what you are dealing with. The little man is a Fascist and a Sociopath, much the same Hitler was. The Russians sat down with Hitler in 1939 and signed the Warsaw Pact, which basically, Stalin and Hitler agreed to leave each other alone as they both marched toward world dominance. Of course, Stalin was smart and knew that he could not believe Hitler, and went immediately preparing to fight the Nazis, and of course, eventually, Hitler broke his word and agreements. Well, that is what would happen if you actually you could believe anything the midget of Iran says. Hooray for Bush for telling it like it is, and I hope and pray, he never apologizes for saying it. I just wish we had somebody in this country running for President now who has integrity and courage and substance about them. The media has reduced the presidential race down to a farce with folks running for cover to apologize or to accept or denounce this or that endorsement. It is just entertainment.

Folks can sit here and fabricate, pontificate, and generally make stuff up as they go along, but the fact is that the SAT's have radically dropped, beginning in the early 1970's.  The reason for this being is this:  After the federally mandated social engineering was begun in earnest in the mid-1960's, for the next 5 or 6 years of SAT tests were being taken by students who had not been subjected to the educational reforms that were being federally mandated.  Schools in this country were intended to be located in the communities where the children live, with local and community control.  The federal and state governments were to have no control of local education, except to insure that they were funded.  No federal mandates by blackmail such as they now have.  You ask, Blackmail?  Yes, that is exactly what it is and that is exactly how the Federal Government became a proxy dictatorship.  It goes like this, "do what we suggest, or We, The Gov't. Keeps Your Funding."  So, D.C. and it' worthless agencies and departments, such as the U.S. Dept. of (mis-education and propaganda) force communities and states to adopt things that do not align with community standards of decency or anything else.  So, as the federally mandated by blackmail system became firmly entrenched, the local control was lost.  The community schools were lost and kids got bussed to warehouses in strategic locations.  Then, standardized testing got started wholesale.  Any time that you standardize test, you lower the standards.  Over time, the kids got dumbed down to the Lowest Common Denominator, which is a math term that few recent high school graduates know the meaning of.  It is not fault of the kids of today.  It is the fault of this huge bureaucracy that we have created in this country.  As for the SAT scores, yes they have consistently declined since the early 1970' and especially in the areas of reason and logic.  There is a reason for this.  Learning math the old fashioned way with pencil and paper exercises a part of the brain that has to do with reason and logic.  Not just reasoning in math terms, but reasoning and logic generally.  Also, when you use pencil and paper to write, do math, etc., you are creating experiential learning.  We all learn in various ways, listening, seeing, and doing.  In the old days, teachers used a blackboard and chalk, the students used paper and pencils.  After they had basic skills up to at least 8th grade competencies, that is the time to introduce a calculator or computer to be used as a tool to speed up work, but should never be used when learning.  The Social Engineers of the 1960's armed with good intentions destroyed the school system, the family, values, and our culture, generally.  But, here is the good new.  To fix America, we need to demand the end of the U.S. Department of Education, State Departments of Education, and the huge Local and County Boards of Education.  Then put the schools back in the neighborhoods where the children live.  Build no schools that house more than 400 students.  Class sizes no larger than 20.  No calculators or computers until at least 8th grade.  Then, you will see SAT scores that truly head back in the direction where they were in the mid 1960's.  And the country will be better off for it.  And not only, do the academic standards go down in mega schools as they teach to the lowest common denominator, the emotional and behavioral problems go up.  The public school system is directly responsible for the majority of the emotional and mental illnesses being manifested by youth today, who grow up and carry the dysfunction into their adult lives.  We better take our country back, beginning with our children and put there schools back in their neighborhoods with Local Control So that the kids know their classmates and so that their parents can more easily be involved.  This social engineering project has failed, and no, we do not need to throw more money into doing more of the same crap that we are already doing.  This writer is a master's level teacher and has experienced first hand a great education system that he experience as a child in a rural community school in Alabama and has experienced the modern era schools from the inside, as a teacher of high school age students who were in a self-contained classroom for students who had been identified as having emotional/behavioral problems.  Fortunately, since this teacher had them in a self contained setting, this teacher was able to help them overcome the emotional damage that had been inflicted on them by the public school system itself, and of course, after some of the emotional and behavioral stuff was straightened out and discipline established, we went to work on academic matters and my students caught up and excelled, and surpassed the "regular" students academically and more importantly were more emotionally stable and had a sense of self worth.  Start with the kids if you love this country.  Demand all politicians support local controlled education, and you will begin to make a difference.  As for SAT's I remember a decade or so ago, they came up with the idea of spotting the kids X number of points on the SAT, sort of like a golf handicap, to make it appear that scores had suddenly gone up based on some new idea the U.S.Dept. of Ed. had forced schools to implement.  These idiotic ideas such as "no child left behind" is total bunk.  We need to start a program, "no mega schools left period."  No U.S. Dept. Of Education is a great place to start in reforming this country.

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