Over the last century, American education has continued to decline, both in academic achievement and moral quality. 

Probably one of the first to point out this obvious decline was Rudolph Flesch, who, in 1955, wrote Why Johnny Can't Read and What You Can Do about It.  Some years later (1981), he wrote a follow-up, Why Johnny Still Can't Read.

From that day to this one, many authors have written numerous great books about our educational system.  While most of these books have been strong on criticism, few have offered workable solutions.

One of the best books on the subject is Crimes of Our Educators: How Utopians Are Using Schools to Destroy America's Children:

Utopian dictators like Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao are criminals – genocidal psychopaths who have killed more human beings in the last hundred years than any other ideologues in history.

In the United States another form of utopians, the "progressives," have tried to destroy traditional America by strategically dumbing down her people. America's future is being crippled on purpose in order to fundamentally transform the nation, its values, and its system of government.

American author and veteran educator Samuel Blumenfeld and journalist Alex Newman have taken on the public education establishment as never before and exposed it for the de facto criminal enterprise it is. 

Dr. James Dobson has suggested that the public education system cannot be saved and that children must be removed from the system and either enrolled in a private school or homeschooled.  For many, homeschooling appears to be the better solution, as even many private schools have continued to follow the lead of the government schools.

During the past two years, because of the pandemic, many children were locked out of schools and taught at home, forced to learn through distance learning.  Parents, who became the teachers at that point, saw what was being taught to their children.  Many parents were seriously alarmed.

For most of our history as a nation, America has been the greatest nation on the Earth.  There is more freedom here than anywhere else.  Thousands continue to risk their lives to come here.  Historically, many foreigners came here with nothing, only to personally experience the American dream and become very successful.  They soon learned that in America, anyone who works hard and saves for the future can be successful.

Unfortunately, our kids are being taught that America is an evil place and it is all the fault of the white race.  Education is no longer a place of training, but a place of indoctrination.

Is it any wonder?  Most education in universities, and especially in teacher colleges, has a socialist, America-last philosophy.  Teacher candidates who love children and really want to succeed graduate believing that the government is the answer to every problem.  Not only that, but our very cultural system, our system of free enterprise, is put down and made to look evil.

Four, or even five years is a long time to be in training to be a teacher.  Students in those institutions are constantly bombarded with the message that there is something wrong with the American political/economic system.  This theme is supported by the textbook publishers, as well as such groups as the National Education Association.  Truth: Poor education requires more remedial teachers, which means more union members. 

There have been many great programs designed to help improve education.  In 1984, "A Nation at Risk" was published.  What that study basically said is that if a foreign power had done what we have done to ourselves, we would have considered it an act of war.

Then there were Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind,  and Race to the Top.  There were also other studies made of our educational system by private industries.  Most of them were able to define the problem, but few offered good solutions.

Most conservative commentators have pointed out that spending more money, while it makes teachers and administrators richer, usually does not improve academic achievement.  The claims of these commentators have been vocal and loud.  However, someone pointed out that spending a lot more money on education has never really been tried.

So a judge in Kansas City, Missouri gave the school district the ability to spend all on whatever they deemed to be beneficial.  He would see that it was paid for with more taxes.  They built an Olympic-size swimming pool, a petting zoo, and other "worthy" projects.

Still, the achievement of the students did not improve, and after ten years, the judge just gave up.

We are told that these new expensive programs are "for the children," but any thinking person has to recognize that most of the benefit goes to the teachers and administrators and not to the students.  In fact, private schools educate children successfully for far less money.  All it takes to be successful is a teacher who is grounded in what made America great and who truly loves children and wants to see them succeed.

For many years, we worked with Christian schools.  We took mothers, who often had little academic training, but who loved children, and most of whom had raised a family, and gave them one week of training and then put them into the classroom.  Our children tested far above those in the government schools.

Several education commentators have pointed out that many of our young people, who were locked out of their school for almost two years, will never catch up.  These are just lost years, almost like being in a coma for that period of time.

If the goal of our government schools is to train our young people in our great history and help them be successful as they enter the world of life, then they have been a dismal failure.  However, if the goal of these schools is to prepare children to accept more government control and even government tyranny, then these schools have been great successes.

Those who serve on local school boards have found that they have little control over either the curricula or the staff.  Most of these standards are set by the state Board of Education or the state Department of Education.  The solution, then, is for the various state legislatures to take back control of both the academic standards and the standards for those who are to be our teachers.  If America is to continue to be the light for the rest of the world, then we must once again regain control of our educational system.

Jim Hollingsworth is a graduate of Pensacola Christian College, with a Masters in biblical studies.  He has written four books: Climate Change: A Convenient Truth (Second Edition: a book especially for children); Cortez: A Biography (The Conquest of Mexico by Hernando Cortez); The Ancient Culture of the Aztec Empire (the Conquest from the viewpoint of the natives); and Abortion Compassion (a pro-life book on abortion).

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.