I read The Pledge to America with growing respect. It’s written clearly and directly. Some say it’s too long. But it does cover all the bases.

Except one.

Republican leaders don’t seem to understand that Education is a huge issue, a winning issue. Promise to fix the public schools. That is what the public wants to hear.

“Education,” in the broadest sense, is the simplest way to understand why we have so many problems with our society and our schools.

Simply enough, the far-left took over public education almost 100 years ago. That doesn’t mean they could always do what they wanted. They had to be diplomatic; they often had to be sneaky. Now and then they would lose a battle and have to retreat momentarily. But none of this changes the fundamental reality.

John Dewey and all of his colleagues were socialists. They believed socialism was the future, and it was their solemn duty to move the country in that direction. They plotted to do this through the public schools. What could be easier? You control the education schools; you tell the teachers what to think and what to teach. All the people who administer the system (principals, superintendents, bureaucrats at all levels) are vetted, groomed, and purged when necessary. Only true believers are allowed into the top positions. Soon enough, a small clique of elite educators controlled what went on in public schools.

The main thrust, and this was according to the Gospel of John Dewey, was that the overriding concern must always be the child’s social life. Everything else was secondary. But that “everything else” included virtually all the subjects and concerns that schools had traditionally been designed to deal with. Dewey wanted a new kind of school that would accomplish his ideological goals. From there it was a long but steady slide toward having 50 million functional illiterates; people who don’t know where the country is on a map; and college students who don’t know what 7 x 8 is. Everyone has heard the horror stories. Point is, they are NOT accidents. They are the direct result of an Education Establishment that’s been perverted by ideology, to the point where they stopped doing their essential job.

Most Americans sense this, they truly hate it, and they want Republicans to fix it. (Everyone knows that Democrats won’t.)

How to fix the schools is simpler than many suppose. We do the opposite of everything that the Education Establishment likes. (Remember, they picked their methods for ideological, not academic, reasons.)

If they scorn foundational knowledge, we insist on teaching it. If they push Whole Word, we push phonics. If they want Reform Math, we want real math. If they want constructivism and teachers reduced to being facilitators, we say no, teachers have to know their subjects and then teach them. If the Education Establishment says everything has to be done cooperatively in groups, we say no, children should learn to work and think independently. If the Education Establishment wants to use self-esteem to reduce academic achievement, we point out where real self-esteem comes from–doing a difficult job well. And so on through another twenty gimmicks and hoaxes that the Education Establishment deeply loves.

New approach: facts are fun, knowledge is power. So let’s emphasize both.

Hey, it’s not rocket science. There’s probably an excellent private or parochial school in every city in America. Do what they do! Meanwhile, drive a stake through the ghost of John Dewey. Reform (and curtail) the ed schools. Cut the Department of Education in half…Republicans should be pledging such things.

And why, ultimately? Because the Education Establishment has consistently used its underhanded control of the schools to push a far-left agenda. Good for socialist educators and their friends. Bad for America.

(For related analysis, see “47: Teach One Fact Each Day” on Improve-Education.org.)

Author Bio: Bruce Deitrick Price is the founder of Improve-Education.org, a high-level education and intellectual site. One focus is reading; see “42: Reading Resources.” Another focus is education reform; see “38: Saving Public Schools.” Price is an author, artist and poet. His fifth book is “THE EDUCATION ENIGMA–What Happened to American Education.”

Category: Politics
Keywords: election, congress, government, k-12, public schools, liberals,