Bruce Deitrick Price column
Bruce Deitrick Price's new novel is Frankie. Inspired by advances in AI and robots. A Unique Mystery. For info, visit frankie. zone.

Price is the author of six books, an artist, a poet, and an education reformer. He was born in Norfolk, Virginia, earned Honors in English Literature from Princeton, served two years in the Army, and then lived many years in Manhattan.

Price explains educational theories and methods on his ed site Improve-Education.org (founded in 2005; now being rebuilt). He has 400 education articles and videos on the Internet. More forcefully than most, Price argues that the public schools are mediocre because our Education Establishment wants them that way. His relevant book is Saving K-12

Price's literary site is
Lit4u.com .



A Bill of Rights for students 2023
Bruce Deitrick Price
August 14, 2023

The traditional view is that students are entitled to as much education as they can handle. Please discuss this manifesto as a catalyst for finding new . . .


Now here's my plan: Let's fix education
Bruce Deitrick Price
June 1, 2023

A CONSERVATIVE PODCAST ABOUT EDUCATION?? Yes, check it out. Episode 100 just published. When I was seventeen, my girlfriend gave me a book of cartoons . . .


K-12: No discipline, no manners, no learning
Bruce Deitrick Price
March 13, 2023

Senior citizens will tell you, when they were in school, classes were orderly, students well-behaved. That was the norm. Nobody thought much about it; but . . .


K 12: Excuses, excuses, always excuses
Bruce Deitrick Price
December 8, 2022

For many decades, the Education Establishment has shown itself unable or unwilling to improve public schools. I suspect they actually prefer wallowing in . . .


Are you concerned about the quality of our public schools?
Bruce Deitrick Price
August 6, 2022

(Background: When a local group wanted to start a new school some years back, they asked me to write a proposal. Here is that proposal, which anyone may use for . . .


Let us now praise our Culture Warriors
Bruce Deitrick Price
May 23, 2022

It's a safe generalization that creative people disproportionately end up calling themselves liberals. Conservatives tend to be, comparatively speaking, not so . . .


Why is Elon Musk afraid of AI?
Bruce Deitrick Price
May 8, 2022

I met my first robot 40 years ago and ever since that time, as a hobby, I've tracked the field. I had read about this robot in a magazine and wanted to . . .


K-12: Hope and hopelessness
Bruce Deitrick Price
March 25, 2022

Want better schools? Let’s talk about the best way to teach in every situation. To start, let's for a few seconds wonder what happened to classical . . .


The ugly truth about K-12
Bruce Deitrick Price
November 23, 2021

Study our public schools for any amount of time and you will probably agree they are handicapped by a variety of counterproductive theories and methods.  . . .


Have the American media betrayed us?
Bruce Deitrick Price
October 10, 2021

My answer is, yes. One-thousand times, yes. The subject is in fact painful for me because I was for so many years naïve and trusting toward the media.  . . .


K-12 methods: Bugs? Or features?
Bruce Deitrick Price
August 3, 2021

In the computer’s early days, when complex code was still spawning unpredictable results, almost every new piece of software had bugs. Clever product managers . . .


Communists know that with little effort they can turn you into a useful idiot
Bruce Deitrick Price
June 8, 2021

Why not? They've done it to millions of other people. Some of them probably better educated than you. If you're a typical person with little background in . . .


K-12: Infantilization
Bruce Deitrick Price
May 3, 2021

Our Education Establishment brags about its wonderful doctrines and the many advances seen in our public schools. The real story is quite the opposite, and . . .


K-12: Why cheating must be eliminated
Bruce Deitrick Price
April 18, 2021

Cheating is all too common in our public schools. Bad students want all the help they can get. Even the best students might steal an advantage if they think . . .


K-12: Commies and Liberals in bed together
Bruce Deitrick Price
January 31, 2021

The subtitle of this article might be The Strange Semantics of Subversion. Oh, the irony of it all. I remember reading, years ago, that Liberals and . . .


Fix education now: 8-point checklist for reforming public schools
Bruce Deitrick Price
November 16, 2020

If our irresponsible media would do its job, if our politicians and community leaders would be more involved in ending the great national embarrassment, if . . .


K-12: Errol Flynn and appearances can be deceiving
Bruce Deitrick Price
October 26, 2020

Errol Flynn is probably the most famous and beloved Hollywood star of all times. He's been dead 60 years. But a gushing fan on a tumblr page recently needed all . . .


Interview with Linda Goudsmit—'I write to fight'
Bruce Deitrick Price
September 14, 2020

Linda Goudsmit is the author of The Book of Humanitarian Hoaxes, a wonderfully informative work that every American should read. It explains quickly and . . .


“Actionable Intelligence" for Buck Sexton, conservative radio host
Bruce Deitrick Price
June 6, 2020

May 19, political pundit Dave Rubin appeared on the Buck Sexton Show to talk about his New York Times bestseller Don't Burn This Book. Buck and Dave sounded . . .


Phonics starter kit –- for parents, teachers, and national leaders
Bruce Deitrick Price
May 18, 2020

Sad to say, the Reading Wars continue in the USA. Millions of children are made to memorize sight-words, a proven road to illiteracy. Hundreds, perhaps . . .


K-12: Why do they hate Cursive so much?
Bruce Deitrick Price
March 29, 2020

Cursive has been controversial for years. The striking thing is that the Education Establishment feels really, really strongly about cursive. They hate it. But . . .


K-12 is a land of mystery
Bruce Deitrick Price
February 10, 2020

For those who enjoy a good puzzle, K-12 education is more intellectually entertaining than most people imagine. Classrooms are full of convoluted theories and . . .


The K-12 archipelago
Bruce Deitrick Price
January 6, 2020

The Gulag Archipelago was Stalin's personal penal system, 1934-1953, where roughly 2,000,000 people died from hunger and exhaustion. Hundreds of prisons were . . .


K-12: Killing literature
Bruce Deitrick Price
October 31, 2019

It's amazing how many ways our schools find to discourage any interest that students might have in literature. Is there a secret laboratory where education . . .


K-12: Illiteracy can kill us
Bruce Deitrick Price
September 12, 2019

Every time I hear about an industrial accident or a Navy ship catching fire, I wonder if the real cause is that the workers can't read the manuals. On the . . .


Sages on stages--please come back, we need you
Bruce Deitrick Price
July 17, 2019

Suppose you have been accepted to a major university and all you think about is the joy of attending lectures delivered by brilliant minds. Your life will . . .


Education: Why has cheating become an epidemic?
Bruce Deitrick Price
June 25, 2019

(A look back. This article was first published seven years ago. The public didn't know this sort of information, but you can be sure the people running . . .


Simplicity: how you know education is done correctly
Bruce Deitrick Price
May 14, 2019

"Keep it simple, stupid" is a famous formula for good writing. It's also a formula for good teaching. It works in every situation for every child. The good . . .


Schools for slaves
Bruce Deitrick Price
April 5, 2019

Bottom line, many of my articles conclude that our public schools operate at an unacceptably low level; that this mediocrity is the result of a strategy . . .


MEMO about the two big obstacles blocking education reform
Bruce Deitrick Price
March 21, 2019

During the last year I realized there were two themes flowing through almost every discussion of education, but these themes are often submerged and overlooked . . .


K-12: Land of promises, promises
Bruce Deitrick Price
January 17, 2019

The biggest promises in K-12 involve reading and sight-words. Children are told: Learn your sight-words and you will be good readers! There is a strange . . .


It's time to think critically about critical thinking
Bruce Deitrick Price
December 11, 2018

The goal of education has always been to achieve critical thinking. Needless to say, this involves a two-step process: first, students learn a great deal . . .


K-12: The politics of illiteracy
Bruce Deitrick Price
November 1, 2018

A real OMG moment occurred last week when the New York Times published the truth about reading. Yes, it's true. The New York Times came right out and told . . .


Memo to K-12 students: Resist
Bruce Deitrick Price
September 9, 2018

Okay, kids, gather round the campfire. There is something you need to know. Something scary. You are a participant in a vast psychological war. Believe it or . . .


K-12: Never quiet on the phonics front
Bruce Deitrick Price
August 6, 2018

No less an authority than Robert Sweet, President of the National Right to Read Foundation (NRRF), said there are a dozen good phonics programs and which . . .


"My kid can't read. What should I do?"
Bruce Deitrick Price
May 18, 2018

It's a common problem in the US. Children in the second and third grades, even the fourth and fifth grades, are struggling readers. They guess; they skip ahead; . . .


A stroll through the beautiful ruins of American public education
Bruce Deitrick Price
March 8, 2018

Q: What is your main feeling about K-12 education today? A: Sadness. There is a perennial waste of energy and money, both taken in great quantities from . . .


K-12: let's listen to a real educator
Bruce Deitrick Price
January 13, 2018

I think it's a fair suspicion that our Education Establishment lie much too often. If not that, their ideas are narrow, their horizons limited. Most . . .


K 12: Whom can you trust?
Bruce Deitrick Price
December 7, 2017

Memo to parents, teachers, and community leaders. In matters educational, don't be so darn trusting. Don't be so gullible. Don't be such an easy mark for the . . .


Memo to Wall Street: How many currency symbols can you read??
Bruce Deitrick Price
October 5, 2017

Here is a chart of the top 30 currency symbols in the world. Can you name them instantaneously? I assume that most people on Wall Street can do this. How . . .


Fourth of July: How do we thank our heroes?
Bruce Deitrick Price
July 2, 2017

How do we thank our heroes, the ones who worked hard all their lives and built this country, who sacrificed for a better future, who battled against enemies . . .


America, you've been punked
Bruce Deitrick Price
April 17, 2017

The Reading Wars were always chaotic and confusing. Here's the gist: On the one side, you had earnest, sincere people warning the country about the dangers . . .


K-12: the real problem is the Education Establishment
Bruce Deitrick Price
February 22, 2017

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 . . .


K-12: Grifter's paradise
Bruce Deitrick Price
January 26, 2017

K-12 education is a dangerous part of town. Swindlers and carnies rule the streets. You'll see rigged roulette, craps played with loaded dice, and three-card . . .


Why our journalists are so awful
Bruce Deitrick Price
December 8, 2016

Many people, especially liberals, were surprised that Trump won the election. The surprising thing for me was that so many people were so surprised. What, do . . .


Everyone should "oppose" public education
Bruce Deitrick Price
November 14, 2016

It's a long-running motif in American intellectual history. Critics of public schools are said to be misinformed, vicious people who want only to destroy . . .


An unfurnished mind is a terrible place to live
Bruce Deitrick Price
September 19, 2016

Thomas Jefferson made the gloomy prediction that we can be ignorant or free, not both. Given how ignorant the country has become, our prospects are sinking.  . . .


Public schools sabotaged by bogus reading instruction
Bruce Deitrick Price
September 2, 2016

The Reading Wars in the United States go back to roughly 1930. That's when the common-sense phonics approach was demonized and discarded. Every officially . . .


What to teach. How to teach...Two different issues
Bruce Deitrick Price
July 14, 2016

Most discussions about education blur two separate questions: What should be taught? And how should it be taught? Typically, our Education Establishment . . .


Public schools are a threat to national security
Bruce Deitrick Price
May 13, 2016

Judging by columns that appear occasionally in our newspapers, the Defense Department is not happy with the quality of students coming out of our K-12 system.  . . .


Why socialism is a bad deal
Bruce Deitrick Price
March 23, 2016

Thanks to Bernie and Hillary, Socialism is on everyone's mind. These politicians, like so many in our media and universities, claim it's a glorious idea.  . . .


Education reform isn't a pipe dream
Bruce Deitrick Price
March 9, 2016

Not long ago Forbes Magazine ran a column titled "Is education reform a pipe dream?" Long story short, the columnist steered the discussion into financial . . .


Reading IS Phonics
Bruce Deitrick Price
February 3, 2016

The last 80 years have seen one of the weirdest intellectual debates you can imagine. The Education Establishment constantly argues that phonics is wrong or . . .


Memo to World: save America to save yourself
Bruce Deitrick Price
October 17, 2015

Let's look back 30 or 40 years. The USSR (Communist Russia) was vast and powerful. The Kremlin had control over the Iron Curtain countries – East Germany, . . .


Official lies may be killing the country
Bruce Deitrick Price
September 10, 2015

First, a note about counterfeit money. It doesn't matter if the bill is 99% perfect. If a single word or squiggle is incorrect, the bill is counterfeit. It also . . .


Communism's goals, 1963 and now
Bruce Deitrick Price
August 24, 2015

This list of 45 Communist goals was introduced into the Congressional record in January 1963. The list provides a snapshot of Communist thinking in the . . .


What everyone needs to know about education
Bruce Deitrick Price
August 15, 2015

The most striking thing about our public schools is that they have been in perpetual decline for many decades. Why? The government has its own tests called . . .


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