REASON ONE – You want to know why public schools don't teach reading or math, they don't teach knowledge, they don't teach discipline, they don't teach precision, they don't teach cursive, they don't teach much of anything. I'll explain all that.

(I’ve been studying K-12 for 35 years. I am endlessly fascinated by this endless crime scene. Very little is true or logical. For example, English is a phonetic language and phonics works for everyone; so naturally the left-wing professors of education made all students memorize sight-words, which is like going back to hieroglyphics, which are very difficult and that’s the real reason we have 50 million functional illiterates.)

REASON TWO – Let's pull back for a wide shot of the whole educational boondoggle. It's dystopian and disgraceful. I'm astonished that our upscale citizens—CEOs, millionaires, billionaires, and community leaders at all levels— have participated in the creation of the worst school system on the planet. It is stunning that the American people have put up with SO MUCH DYSFUNCTION AND CALCULATED DISHONESTY.

This is not a casual claim by me. The Internet is now full of videos by burned-out teachers saying they're quitting, videos by students wondering why they can't read, and parents saying their kids aren’t learning anything.

We need the upscale people—and everyone else— to be much more involved.

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We especially need honesty from the professors and bureaucrats who debase our K-12. If we have 50 million functional illiterates, clearly the people in charge don't know what they're doing. Or they are traitors. Which?

We have more than 19,000 private schools. Pick the highest rated private schools in your area and copy them. The students will probably get some real education for the first time in years. Ditto homeschooling.

HERE’S A SHORT LIST OF NECESSARY IMPROVEMENTS:

NO sight-words. Phonics must be used. That means all students learn the letters and then their sounds, in the first month.

NO constructivism. Direct instruction is very good for children. (For background, see "Deconstructing Constructivism: A Widely Misunderstood and Misapplied Theory of Learning" at wordpress.com)

NO New Math or Common Core Math. Teach basic arithmetic like they did 75 years ago.

So the curriculum is Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Geography, and History, from the get-go. Teach something new, interesting, and easy every day.

No chaos, no confusion, no disruptions, no cell phones, no bullying, no cheating, no deliberately spoiling children in a way that will destroy their character. Our job is to take every child up to each one’s potential.

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The Education Establishment has nothing honorable to sell. Millions of words saying little.

I'm trying to state quickly the overall situation (it's disgraceful) so that parents will have something to discuss with each other…I have thousands of articles on the Internet; enter my name and any ed subject you're interested in, and you'll find some good articles…Or look at 195 episodes of my podcast, Let's Fix Education. Pick any 3 at random, you'll be an expert in 20 minutes. (Podcasts are audio or transcripts, whichever you prefer.)

Above all else, Americans must turn away from the alibis offered by our left-wing professors. It's not possible the schools could be so bad by accident or bad luck. And I really believe, if we got rid of the malfeasance, we could have good schools very quickly.

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The Fascinating History Behind Our K-12 Collapse. Nothing By Accident.

In 1917 the Communist government of the USSR formed a new worldwide initiative called the Communist International or Comintern. They were not subtle. They declared war on everybody and they were very proud about it. The first infiltrations started in 1920s, and the targets were the media and education, more than any other sectors. So the strategy was simple. Do everything possible to decrease education at all levels, and use the media to shield the corrupted educators from criticism. (Here is my article about the Comintern: Can You Handle the Truth about the Comintern?)

THE BIG PICTURE: Search YouTube for videos about: problems in K-12; why our public schools are so bad: how do we fix our schools?; where did our K-12 go wrong? You will get a blizzard of painful information about, for example, high school students who can't read, can’t do decimals, can't find Australia on a map, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum.

Bruce Deitrick Price is the author of Saving K–12 and The Education Enigma. His new novel is The Boy Who Saves The World (suspense, crime, A.I., intrigue, romance). See Lit4u.com for info on Price’s books.