Summary: Many teachers mistakenly think they have the same interests and goals as the Education Establishment. Not at all, explains Bruce Price, founder of Improve-Education.org. “It’s startling,” notes Bruce Price, founder of Improve-Education.org. “Many classroom teachers feel they are part of the Education Establishment, that small clique at the top making policy. I’m constantly surprised […]

SUMMARY: Traditional education is continuously criticized. Maybe teachers were too strict. But now we’ve gone too far the other way. We need some of that old-fashioned discipline and tough love. Several generations back, teachers could spank students or rap knuckles with a stick. They could yank an unruly kid’s ear. If you were a teacher, […]

It’s not enough that the Education Establishment of this country has dropped tons of stupid policies on us. No, they have done something else almost as diabolical. They have blurred the distinction between teachers, that is the people in the classrooms, and educators, that is, the bosses at the top. These two groups have no […]

Listen To Me, You Rich Successful People In Your Big Houses: I know, I know, you don’t want to think about all the bad public schools out there. Nothing to do with you, right?? Wrong. The effects are oozing through the society. You are in danger. Want safety? Here are three threats we have to […]

(Summary: the big question is why the public schools waste so much time on weird non-academic topics, most of them hostile to traditional beliefs? The real witch in this story may be the Education Establishment.) This is a story about a missed opportunity. But first we have to ask what is the big deal? Still […]

In all the comments I see left on internet articles about education, two themes dominate: 1) The first is, average Americans have no idea how bad the public schools are. The Education Establishment has done a brilliant job at PR and misinformation. They have tried to deceive the public; and the public is deceived. Unfortunately. […]

(Summary: some schools would rather have a tornado pass by than actually teach anything. It’s this country’s number-one medical problem: brains rarely used, now atrophied.) Welcome to America where there’s an incessant whine about testing. The Education Establishment like to give the impression the children don’t do anything but take tests ALL DAY, and teachers […]

The August 2 cover of TIME magazine screamed: “The Case Against Summer Vacation.” With this subtitle: “We romanticize it. But all that downtime is making our kids fall behind — especially those who can least afford to.” Now, isn’t TIME magazine clearly telling us that summer vacation is a BAD thing?? In fact, toward the […]

Learning styles–something that hardly existed 25 years ago–now seems to be a fixed part of American education. Do you ever suspect that maybe we’ve let this thing go too far? Sure, some kids are left-handed and some right-handed; but we’ve always managed to teach them as though they were more or less the same. Now […]

The only thing most Americans agree on is that the public schools are mediocre. As to why this happened and what we should do next, there is a total bedlam of beliefs and opinions. People have a hundred theories to explain our ed problems. But here’s the bizarre thing: people don’t want to blame the […]