On Education
by Dr. Wasley Krogdahl (Kentucky)
Historically, Kentucky has been below even the low national average
in educational attainment. It was ostensibly to remedy this unfortunate
state of affairs that the Commonwealth undertook a thoroughgoing reform
of its public school system in 1990 by adopting the Kentucky Educational
Reform Act (KERA). Kentuckians welcomed the prospect of educational
improvement and the economic advancement which would follow from it.
Instead, they got a warmed-over program of "progressive"
education which it is now clear has been an expensive and disastrous
social experiment. Contrary to the promises of KERA’S proponents,
Kentucky students’ scores on ACT, SAT and Armed Forces Qualification
tests have either remained low or actually fallen.
The "reformed" curriculum and instructional methods of KERA
are producing intellectually crippled graduates in ever larger numbers.
These graduates are being dumped onto a society and an economy which is
less and less able to absorb unqualified workers and poorly educated or
miseducated citizens.
Of the many reasons which may be cited for the drastic modification
or outright repeal of KERA, two may be singled out as compelling: (1)
KERA has utterly failed to achieve the primary mission of all education,
namely, to instruct young people how to read with comprehension at a
level equal to their verbal understanding -- i.e., to impart literacy to
all children; and (2) KERA has entrenched a system devoid of moral
instruction and a course of sex education which together have been shown
to contribute massively to the breakdown of public morals.
Illiteracy
One of KERA’s most ardent supporters has admitted publicly that
illiteracy -- both functional and total -- currently stands at
approximately 40 percent in Kentucky. In our grandparents’ day, all
children who went to school learned to read, and even many of those who
did not were able to learn from their parents or peers. Since school
attendance is now compulsory, the method of intensive systematic phonics
which was used to teach reading successfully several generations ago
could and would eliminate illiteracy if adopted.
Unfortunately, the entrenched educational establishment is resolutely
committed, notwithstanding mountains of evidence to the contrary, to the
infamous "whole language" method which has long been
thoroughly discredited.
But illiteracy is not only a cultural and economic handicap to its
victims; it is a contributing cause of truancy, juvenile crime, teen-age
drug abuse, sexual promiscuity and school drop-out.
An exhaustive study by the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that
"Schools are apparently contributing to the delinquency problem by
continuing to provide [instruction by methods that have] failed
repeatedly. ... What brings about the delinquency is not the academic
failure per se, but sustained frustration which results from continued
failure. ... The anti-social aggression that Pavlov was able to create
in the laboratory is also being created in tens of thousands of
classrooms across our nation as a result of schools of education
providing reading pedagogy based on theories of teaching and learning
that cannot be validated by experimental research."
Moral Decline
A major component of the KERA curriculum is sex education. As pointed
out by the distinguished economist Dr. Thomas Sowell of the Hoover
Institute at Stanford University, it is hardly necessary to devote an
entire course of instruction in sexual physiology and technique
extending from kindergarten through twelfth grade to what any parent,
pastor or physician could teach in half an hour or less. As Dr. Sowell
says, the real but unstated motive of such courses is to undo the moral
and religious instruction of home and church.
The distinguished sociologist Dr. Judith Reisman and her
collaborator, psychotherapist Edward Eichel say in their book
"Kinsey, Sex and Fraud" that "Kinsey’s conclusions ...
are the basis for much that is taught in sex education. ... [C]riminal
experimentation has been the prime source of Kinsey’s childhood
sexuality data."
They go on to say that "a sex education ‘establishment’ in
the United States is well on the way to introducing full-blown Kinseyan
philosophy into the nation’s schools, via control of sex education
programming" and that this philosophy is a belief that "every
type of sexual activity is natural and thus normal, and should begin as
early in life as possible"!
Conclusions
On the basis of the foregoing brief summaries of some of the most
serious flaws in the public educational system, the following changes
are urged:
• The Legislature [in every state -- ed] should enact a bill modeled
on a 1996 bill passed by the Ohio Legislature (S.B. 230) which
requires that to be certified, teachers must have passed at least
one six-hour course in the teaching of reading by the method of
systematic intensive phonics.
• The Legislature should require, as Ohio now does, that every
applicant for a teacher’s certificate in the early grades must
give proof of having successfully passed a course in the teaching of
reading by systematic intensive phonics.
• The Legislature should direct that the KIRIS tests be replaced by
standardized national tests in academic subjects.
• The Legislature should direct that the KIRIS tests be replaced by
standardized national tests in academic subjects.
• The Legislature should eliminate from the public school system
every provision of the school-to-work program. This program is a
totalitarian scheme to regiment schoolchildren into trades or
professions prematurely and without regard to the wishes of
ambitions of the children themselves or their families. It is a
violation of the constitutional prohibition of involuntary
servitude.
• The Legislature should specify that parents shall have the
absolute right to decide whether or not their children shall take
sex education in the school. Such sources must also be open to
review by any citizen of the Commonwealth.
Some Expert’s Opinions
"We must dispel the myth that we can improve our educational
system by simply spending more money on it. This is a demonstrable
falsehood, and yet we subscribe to it over and over again, at great cost
to the taxpayer and at far greater cost to the quality of our
children’s education." -- Dr. John Silber, President of Boston
University
"For too long, we have been unwilling to deal with the root
cause of the problem of illiteracy in America: the flawed methods we
have used to teach our children to read." -- Former U.S. Sen.
William Armstrong (Colorado)
"For most who cannot read, competing in the work world is
impossible." -- Former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh
"The [method of] teaching of reading ... is totally wrong and
flies in the face of all logic and common sense." -- Rudolf Flesch,
author of "Why Johnny Can’t Read"
"How did the army manage to teach young men whom the public
schools had considered hopeless how to read? By using the phonics
techniques which Rudolf Flesch had advocated and which were resoundingly
rejected by the professional educators." -- Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld,
author of "The New Illiterates"
"An unrestricted voucher system would be the most effective way
to reform an educational system that now helps to shape a life of
misery, poverty and crime for many children of the inner city." --
Rose Friedman and Dr. Milton Firedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, in
"Free to Choose", #1 national best seller
Dr. Wasley Krogdahl is the Professor Emeritus of
Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Kentucky.
