Right Side NewsBruce Deitrick Price’s education site is Improve-Education.org. (His four new novels are presented on his literary site Lit4u.com)
The New York Daily News reported that “Martha Stewart sent a letter to Bill de Blasio asking that his administration seek answers in the mystery ailment of Tickles, a carriage horse who had to be euthanized.” What really happened to that horse? Martha Stewart wanted answers! The “home-improvement maven” sent her demands directly to the mayor and […]
Private school kids can read. Classical academy kids can read. Montessori school kids can read. Homeschooled kids can read. Spot the pattern? It’s only kids in public schools who can’t read. Why is that? You would think our education professors would figure out what the schools are doing wrong. In fact, they have not figured out very […]
Obama plays the race card more than he plays golf. A month ago former Mayor Rudy Giuliani dared to say that Obama doesn’t really love this country. More surprising, Giuliani refused to back down. He said that our big problem is that Obama doesn’t grasp what it means to be an American. After all, his father […]
So, Al Capone lives in your city. Do you talk about it? Do you mention that this Mafia guy got his mansion by breaking the law, blackmailing people, buying and selling politicians, not to mention killing people? Seriously, do you ever talk about Al Capone? Or do you look the other way and pretend that […]
Suppose someone wanted to dumb down a country. How would they accomplish this? In fact, no research is required. We don’t need to speculate about what the most brilliant Pavlonians might do. American public schools have been dumbing down students for most of a century. The best techniques have been discovered, refined, and locked in place for […]
A history professor, writing in VEER (an arts and culture magazine published in Norfolk, Virginia), tells a startling anecdote: “A couple of years back, a student came to me for a conference, late in the semester, and asked, ‘Which came first, the Civil War or the Revolutionary War?’ Never mind that we had spent a week on […]
Early morning hours. They got drunk and had a fight. She spit on him and hit him. He hit her back. She was unconscious on the floor. A punch or a slap? Too drunk to stand up? Initially, the event was treated as a trivial physical altercation. A month later they got married. Next, Rice […]
Stats and anecdotes suggest that our public schools could be much better. This is not a new story. In 1983, the government conducted a long investigation. The final report, titled “A Nation at Risk,” stated that public schools are so bad they must have been created by an “unfriendly foreign power.” If you intend your […]
Sugar is sweet and fun to eat. But too much of it will kill you, just as having sugar in the gas tank will damage your car. We see the same contradiction in education. All new ideas are sold to the public as tasty treats and nutritious as well. In fact, they invariably turn out to be […]
There is a lot of dejection in the land. Melancholy. Guilt. White people everywhere walking about with sad faces. All pouty and pathetic. Well, of course. Obama turned out to be a dishonest political operator who has made so many mistakes people are actually saying he is the worst president ever, even worse than the Democrat who used […]
Dangerous Twits (Monty Python)Perhaps the most repeated cliché in American education is this: “They mean well. They just can’t get their act together.” Teachers, parents, politicians, and editorial writers repeat this cliché when they want to forgive the Education Establishment for creating so many destructive policies and dumbed-down schools. It’s a sweet and hopeful sentiment. […]