Physical Education – the Basis for Lying About American Education

by Tom Rhodes, 2/4/2015

What does it take to get an A grade in high school physical education? You know the answer, show up, dress out, participate. That’s it. The 100 pound nerd or 250 pound couch potato who can’t catch a ball, shoot a free-throw, bench press 200 pounds, tackle, block, run a mile, or do 10 pull up s gets the same A that the Jock who can do 100 pull ups and earns a football scholarship for showing up. The question is why?

Apply that to Algebra II. Why doesn’t the kid who shows up, does the work, and participates in class, but can’t solve a simple quadratic equation, can’t factor a polynomial, can’t figure out the length of the two sides of a right triangle given the length of the hypotenuse and the cosign of one angle, not get an A?

Why do we accept the fact that the 100 pound nerd can try as hard as he wants, will never be able to bench press 200 pounds, but ignore the fact that the 90 IQ jock will never be able to do higher math? Imagine how the 100 pound asthmatic nerd would feel if he was told to get an A in phys-ed he had to do 50 pushups in 2 min, 100 sit-ups in 2 min, 20 pull ups, and run a mile yards in less than 8 min.

I’m a smart man, that’s not bragging any more than Rob Gronkowski saying he’s an excellent athlete. Just statements of fact, like saying somebody is tall or short, measurable facts. I used to believe that if anybody applied themselves they could do anything. If I decided I wanted to learn C++ or Python, I could do it, it would take time and work but the outcome would be assured, I would learn those languages. It wasn’t until about the midway point of my first semester teaching high school chemistry, that I learned I was wrong. The fact is there are a significant number of people that no matter how hard they apply themselves and how hard they work, won’t ever be able to do chemistry, or calculus, or factor a polynomial, they don’t have the mental capacity. Just like no matter how hard I work and apply myself I’ll never be able to kick a 50 yd field goal, or win a marathon. I’m different than the athletes that can do those things. My desire, my effort, my attitude, nothing would matter, I don’t have the physical capability and never will. Never in in my physical prime regardless of effort and training would I be able to run a 100 meters in 13 seconds it can’t happen, much less 10 seconds times required to be a successful sprinter.

In fact the reality is that less than a 1000 people in the whole world are physically capable of running a 10 second 100 meter sprint. That is an accepted fact. We accept the fact that in any given high school only a small percentage of students could qualify for any varsity sport. Saying all kids should be on the varsity team is idiotic. The 100 pound asthmatic nerd does not belong on the football team, not only isn’t he qualified, he is physically unable to do so. Oh he could dress out and participate, but never ever perform even at the average level, much less be competitive. Why then should he get an A in Phys-Ed? If being able to factor quadric equations is a requirement to get an A in Algebra II, and predicting the results of chemical reactions and balancing chemical equations is a requirement to get an A in chemistry, why isn’t running a 100 meters in less than 12 seconds a requirement to get an A in Phys-Ed? If demonstrating performance in academics is the how people are judged in academic classes, why not demonstrating performance in athletics how people are judged in Phys-Ed?

The point is somebody asked that question, and rather than give the 100 pound asthmatic nerd a D in phys-ed because he has below average physical capability, we lowered the standards so that showing up, dressing out, and participating was good enough to get an A (excellent) grade. Grades used to mean something F = failed, D = performed below average, C performed at average level, B = performed above average, A = excellent performance. Any class academic or physical or artistic that doesn’t have the vast majority of students receiving a C grade, meaning they are average, is problematic. Assume a middle sized high school with 2000 students, all of them have to take physical science in their first year That would be about 600 students. A normal distribution curve would mean that of those 600 freshman, if the class was fair and accurate there would be about 50 As, 125 Bs, 250 Cs, 125 D’s, and 50 kids would fail. Unless you skewed the test and lowered the standards so that low IQ kids could pass.

As a chemistry teacher that is exactly what I did, because my pay depended on student performance, regardless of student effort. If you showed up, did the work, and participated, and got at least 50% on every test, you got a C in my chemistry class. The tests were also skewed so that minimal effort could produce at least 50, but harder question did separate some of the excellent students. To fail you had to purposefully try. Part of why I did this is that there were a lot of kids who worked hard, did the work, and tried, but just mentally chemistry was beyond them, and failing a good hard working kid because he’s dumb is not acceptable in public school, any more than failing a kid in phys-ed because he’s physically far below average. Out of about 100 kids there were 20 As, 35 Bs, 40 Cs, 5 Ds and 2 Fs; I was chastised because I didn’t give out enough As, and didn’t understand that I was hurting the spirit of the students by not giving better grades based on effort not performance. Documenting that my grades accurately reflected their standardized test scores was meaningless. How students feel about themselves is more important than their actual performance. Three years of that was all I could take, I quit for a job that paid twice as much and had half the hassles. Having dozens of students contact me and thank me for preparing them for college and holding them to a realistic standard was a great reward.

For some reason culturally recognizing what everybody can see and knows isn’t acceptable. The 100 pound 5’4” asthmatic nerd is not physically above average, he’s not going to be dating the “hot” girls, he’s not going to be on the varsity squad, but you can’t give him a poor grade in phys-ed because he might make him feel bad, so the standards have been set so low he’ll get an A in phys-ed regardless of actual performance.

Physical Education standards and the thinking that lead to them crept into academic standards and thinking. The idea that everybody should be prepared to go to college, and actually go is absurd. Any student who doesn’t have at least an above average IQ and doesn’t score better than the 50th percentile on the ACT or SAT should not go to college, they don’t have the mental chops to perform at that level. Unless of course the colleges lower their standards so that people with below average IQ can pass. Sending dumb people to college is a waste of their time and money, and a waste of societies resources. The stats that say college graduates earn more money are not wrong. It’s not the college degree that earns more money, it’s the fact that more smarter people graduate college than dumb ones, and smart people earn more money than dumb people. Sorry but the 90 IQ waitress, who does an excellent job, but cannot and will not ever be able to factor simple quadratic equations shouldn’t be pushed into getting a meaningless degree.

The average high school GPA is 3.0, that means that a B is not above average but average, and on a 4.0 scale we have no meaningful measurements for excellence, the data is skewed. That’s why advanced academic students routinely have a 4.5 GPA on a 4.0 scale. The fact is intelligence and grades in high school reflect what you’ll earn in the future better than college degrees.


Note that a student with a B average in high school will earn about the average wage, and the dumber the student the lower their average wage. Now even if you’re dumb, if your 6’4” tall, can run a 10 second 100 meter dash, jump 6 feet in the air, and catch a ball thrown from 60 yards away, you can make a lot of money because you can physically perform better than just about anybody else in the world. Being sub-par academically doesn’t’ mean you can’t excel someplace else. Of course the best world class athletes are not only superior physically but superior mentally.

Education should help every student maximize their potential. It should not ignore the fact that not everybody has the same capabilities. Our education system should not ignore or try to cover up the fact that half the people have below average intelligence, and that there are relatively few people with the mental capacity to do actual higher learning. Applying physical education grading schemes to academic grades only means we are lying to kids when we say that their 3.0 GPA means they are above average. They are not; they are just average. If your kid doesn’t have at least a 3.5 GPA, you should do some rational thinking before you waste $50K or allow your kid to borrow $50K to get a degree that in reality won’t get them a better job.

Lying to our kids is wrong, telling them they are “special” and they can do “anything they want” is a lie. If your kid has an IQ less than 120, don’t encourage her to become an chemist or engineer or doctor, you’re setting her up for failure. With rare exception, the average IQ person does not have the mental capability to be a chemist or engineer or doctor. That’s a hard fact just like it’s a hard fact that the average 100 pound nerd is never going to play professional sports. We need to quit lying to ourselves and our children. Not everybody is above average.

Dept. of Education – Success Story

By Tom Rhodes, 6/25/2014

For years I’ve be lamenting and documenting the historic fact that as we increase central control of education actual student performance and observable student knowledge has dramatically decreased as evidence of the failure of the Dept. of Education. We’ve spent gazillions of dollars for not only no improvement but statistically less educated students, who can’t critically think and don’t understand even the basics of history, science, etc. I was wrong, the Dept. of Education and centralized government control of education is a success. It produced exactly the results the ruling elite wanted.

We now have a nation of individuals who are easy prey to government hucksters and quacks. Americans now are easy prey for big business charlatans of all stripes. The education establishment has succeeded in dumbing down the nation. In a similar observation Dr. Walter Williams notes that historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. wrote in "The Disuniting of America": "History is to the nation ... as memory is to the individual. As an individual deprived of memory becomes disoriented and lost, not knowing where he has been or where he is going, so a nation denied a conception of its past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future."

The idea that the expression of some ideas that are not politically correct should be labeled as “hate speech” and outlawed, or the actual purpose of all 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights us unknown to most high school graduates. If we knew and understood the why and reasoning behind the Bill of Rights, and Declaration of independence, and the values that create the USA then special interest groups and politicians couldn't run roughshod over our liberties.

Right now if a college or university doesn’t assume people are guilty and deny them the right to defend themselves of certain crimes, the government is actually withholding funding. Think about that, government run universities are required to do away with the fourth and fifth amendments of the constitution in order to receive government funding. Imagine being charged with a crime, not allowed to cross examine witnesses, not allowed to have a lawyer, and not allowed to defend yourself, not allowed to face and question your accuser, and judged in closed court with secret proceedings. That is what Eric Holder and the Obama Justice department are demanding of universities. It is allowed because people don’t know our basic rights, much less the reason behind them. If you don't know what I'm talking about google the latest George Will articles.

Of course a full third of people surveyed when asked the origin of the statement "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" responded by saying it's from our Bill of Rights. If you don’t know it’s origins, you too are part of the problem.

The Dept. of Education has been successful. I just didn’t understand it’s goals. They were not to produce a more educated citizenry, but produce technically adept workers who have no understanding of how to think, of our history, or of the values that this country was founded. Making them easily manipulated and controlled. Obviously the system as designed does work.

Mike Adam's Free Speech College Entrance Exam

Mike Adams is a college professor who recently won a first amendment case aganst the University of North Carolina. They denied him tenure because he was not liberal and chose to exercise his freedom of speech. In hopes of preventing other such free speech problems from infecting college campuses he's offered the follwoing solution.

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College campuses are becoming increasingly hostile towards certain forms of speech. One of the main reasons for the hostility is the admission of students who are too emotionally immature to tolerate dissenting opinions. In addition to lacking emotional maturity, many of these students lack humility. They believe that their emotions trump the ideas of others. Obviously, I disagree. In fact, I think that these students need to be weeded out early in the college application process. I think I have a specific plan that can help make that a reality.

We already ask students a lot of questions in the typical college application process. Some of the questions deal with diversity issues. But, strangely, no one ever tries to assess the prospective students' willingness to tolerate dissenting opinions. I propose adding ten questions to every college application in order to do just that. Because they are simple true/false questions, they will not take long for admissions committees to grade and evaluate. But they will help us weed out those students whose admission would impede the free flow of ideas on the campus. My proposed entrance exam questions are as follows:

1. Feminist students have a First Amendment right to chant the word "vagina" in the annual performance of the Vagina Monologues (note: please assume that no one is required to attend).

2. Anti-feminist students have a First Amendment right to criticize feminists for chanting "vagina" in the annual performance of the Vagina Monologues.

3. Liberal students have a First Amendment right to advocate for same sex marriage.

4. Conservative students have a First Amendment right to argue against same sex marriage.

5. Female students have a First Amendment right to argue that abortion is a constitutional right.

6. Male students have a First Amendment right to argue that aborting a man's children without his consent is an unconscionable act of murder.

7. Marxist students have a First Amendment right to argue that the Second Amendment applies only to militias.

8. Anti-communist students have a First Amendment right to argue that the Second Amendment is a fundamental individual right.

9. Black students have a First Amendment right to argue for race-based affirmative action.

10. White students have a First Amendment right to argue that affirmative action should be banned altogether.

The grading for this portion of the college application is pretty simple since the answer to every single question is "true." In fact, I would propose that this test is so easy that anyone missing a single question should fail the exam and be prevented from attending the university. This plan may sound harsh, but it would have numerous advantages. Here are just a few:

1. It would protect conservative students. Most conservative students hold ideas that are fully protected by the constitution but that somehow end up being defined by some students as “hate speech.” These filter questions will likely keep students who cry "hate speech" from enrolling at the university. Conservative students will therefore feel more comfortable expressing their views is discussions with fellow students.

2. It could protect liberal students, too. This test will also filter out any conservative censors of liberal speech. I've never seen one at my university, but there's nothing wrong with taking a little extra precaution.

3. It would prevent public relations headaches for college administrators. Students who cry "hate speech" are also more likely to file false charges of sexual and racial harassment. Getting rid of these students will likely reduce lawsuits. It will also likely reduce the number of false accusations of rape on college campuses. People who abuse speech codes in order to hurt people are also likely to do so the same thing with the criminal code. Sociopaths tend to be resourceful.

After we administer the test to prospective students, we should also administer it to the entire faculty. And we should fire those who fail the test. This would likely result in the need to shut down the departments of Sociology, English, Women's Studies, Social Work, and the entire School of Education.

In other words, my free speech entrance exam would weed out the most emotionally immature and intellectually insecure members of our university community - thus leaving the university in the hands of serious people committed to debating serious ideas. It would be hard to imagine a greater service to the cause of genuine tolerance and intellectual diversity.

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The above was stolen from a Prof. Mike Adams article. I hope he doesn't get too mad, but it needs to be repeated everywhere it can be.

Statists Pervert the Concept – Pay it Forward

By Tom Rhodes, 4/17/2014

Pay if Forward, an OK movie if you like emotional chick flicks, but it is an old and venerated charitable concept that is grounded on voluntarily helping others and asking them to voluntarily do the same when they can. Pay it forward was used as a key plot element in the denouement of a Comedy play by Menander, Dyskolos, a prizewinning play in ancient Athens in 317 BC. The concept was rediscovered and described by Benjamin Franklin, who in a letter to Benjamin Webb in 1784, said, “I do not pretend to give such a deed; I only lend it to you. When you [...] meet with another honest Man in similar Distress, you must pay me by lending this Sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the Debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with another opportunity. I hope it may thus go thro' many hands, before it meets with a Knave that will stop its Progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.”

Pay it forward is an expression for describing the beneficiary of a good deed repaying it to others instead of to the original benefactor. The concept is old, but the phrase may have been coined by Lily Hardy Hammond in her 1916 book In the Garden of Delight.

On my way into work this morning listening to Morning Edition on NPR, I heard a story titled “Pay It Forward Proposal Could Help Students Afford College” by Leah Binkovitz. The story on their web page is described as a “new idea is making the rounds in education circles. Under the plan, states would allow students to go to college for free then they would pay back a percentage of their salaries after they graduate.”

This is a sick perversion of the old noble concept of Pay it forward. As proposed the state pays for students go to college, and after they graduate pay back to the state a percentage of their income based on their salary. The result will be students who get STEM degrees and garner high paying jobs will actually subsidize those who get “woman’s studies” degrees and end up working as bartenders, waitresses, and cab drivers. This program is not Pay it forward, this is “from each according to his ability to each according to his need”. This is a typical ploy of socialists who since the proven failure of Marxist ideology, attempt to cover their Marxist programs as anything other than socialism.

The concept of Paying if Forward is based voluntary charity, and hoping that a good deed will propagate itself and improve not only the life of the person you helped but nurture the idea and generosity of that person. This program is not based on the hope that a good deed will be propagated, accepting the risk that some Knave may stop its progress. The program described on NPR and proposed in the state of Michigan is not a “new idea.” It is based on redistribution of wealth without risk. It is simply a socialist system for higher education.

This program disguises itself as “charity” but it’ not. If it were truly a version of Paying if Forward, there would be no strings attached, a State or some foundation would simply say, “We believe in you, and are going to pay for your degree, all we ask is when you succeed you support us with as much as you can until you feel your debt has been paid so we can continue to Paying if Forward.” The plan proposed is not paying it forward, it is another way for statists and liberals to try and feel good about using the force of government to redistribute wealth, rather than be charitable themselves.

Real Rationale to Zero Tolerance

By Tom Rhodes, 3/5/2014

By now you’ve read a zillion stories about the absurdity of zero tolerance enforcement in our schools. Kids being suspended for pop-tart eaten into gun shapes, kids suspended or expelled for accidentally bringing a squirt gun to school, kids being suspended or expelled for Nerf guns, kids suspended or expelled for shooting a completely imaginary ‘bow and arrow’, and so forth. The latest is a boy suspended for 3 days for using his finger as an imaginary gun.

Bill Bush of The Columbus Dispatch wrote about the latest idiocy on March 4, 2014 in an article titled “Boy points finger like gun, gets suspended.” If you’ve read about any of the many other idiotic extremes in “zero tolerance” so you know the story. The quote from the principle gives us a hint about the true reason for statist zero tolerance rules in school. “The kids were told, ‘If you don’t stop doing this type of stuff, there would be consequences,’” Warner said. “It’s just been escalating.” Warnings included three newsletters sent home with kids, he said. More interesting and illuminating is reading the comments. It gives away the real reasoning behind Zero Tolerance rules and these absurd punishments for innocent behavior.

The reason for both an baseless rule and excessive punishment for violating the baseless rule is simple and Machiavellian. Think about the absurdity of suspending a 10 yr old boy for 3 days on a “weapons violation” for pointing his finger and saying “bang!” The purpose has nothing to do with “guns” it has everything to do with conditioning people to obey “laws” regardless of how absurd the law is or expect draconian disproportionate punishment. The idea being that you a mere individual has cannot conceive of how important any law is and must be indoctrinated to accept without question all rules/laws/dictates and obey or be made an example to others.

Guns are scary to liberals, so they use the fear of real guns to justify idiotic baseless rules that can be used to train kids to be obedient to the state. The idea that parents should take the time to stress to their kids how important it is to obey the state regardless of what rule the state creates. The boy, Nathan, when asked about his suspension said, “I was thinking it was dumb.” A 10 yr old knows that pretending his finger is a gun in a playground game isn’t going to hurt anybody and is not dangerous. The reality is that the state has sent out warnings and newsletters and repeated threats go garner compliance with a rule pretending to use a tool that is constitutionally protected. Now it has made good on the threat and without due process the boy has been suspended.

State Sen. Charleta Tavares, a Columbus Democrat, proposed legislation that would overturn a 1998 state law requiring schools to adopt zero-tolerance policies. Oh they will have hearings and make like they are considering it but it will never be allowed to get voted on, much less pass. It goes against the strength and supremacy of the state. What zero tolerance and it’s abusive implementation does does is teach children that the state can create any rules it wants no matter how absurd, and punish you for totally innocent behavior which harms nobody, and that no rationally authority, like your parents, can do anything to protect you from the arbitrary punishment of the state.


“The kids were told, ‘If you don’t stop doing this type of stuff, there would be consequences,’” and then saw or suffered real disproportionate consequences; this is conditioning. That way in the future when the state says “quit criticizing the state or there will be consequences” or some other clearly irrational and unconstitutional “rule”, those same kids will obey rather than suffer the consequences.

What’s happened in Connecticut, where a couple hundred thousand people simply ignored the dictates of the state to register their arms, is the problem. The idea that common people would simply ignore the state is what the state is trying to address through zero tolerance in schools. Train children that no matter what, non-compliance is worse than suffering tyranny. Common Core, is part of that, common indoctrination of state supremacy is the goal. Zero Tolerance for obviously innocent behavior is not designed because the state is afraid of a pop tart eaten into the shape of a gun, it’s there as a tool to indoctrinate obedience to the state.

Ivy League view of Freedom

By Tom Rhodes, 2/25/2014

If you read or hear about any ideas from Ivy League school, like Harvard, or any graduate from those schools you should consider such ideas as intellectually dishonest, and devoid of thought, but most certainly doubt them. The demonstration of how current Ivy League students and professors think is summed up in the writings of Sandra Korn, a Harvard senior, and columnist at the Harvard Crimson. She writes and boldly proclaims that dissenting opinions should be banned. That’s right she believes that freedom of speech and academic freedom are an impediment to justice.

She out right says that Harvard should not put up with research if the results don’t support her goals. Truth be damned. She concluded her ‘If you don’t agree with me Shut Up!’ diatribe with “I would encourage student and worker organizers to… use a framework of justice. After all, if we give up our obsessive reliance on the doctrine of academic freedom, we can consider more thoughtfully what is just.”

So we are supposed to give up Academic Freedom; an interesting but misguided position. First let’s consider what Academic Freedom is:

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008, Academic Freedom is the freedom of teachers and students to teach, study, and pursue knowledge and research without unreasonable interference or restriction from law, institutional regulations, or public pressure. Its basic elements include the freedom of teachers to inquire into any subject that evokes their intellectual concern; to present their findings to their students, colleagues, and others; to publish their data and conclusions without control or censorship; and to teach in the manner they consider professionally appropriate. For students, the basic elements include the freedom to study subjects that concern them and to form conclusions for themselves and express their opinions.

According to The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Academic Freedom is The right of teachers and students to express their ideas in the classroom or in writing, free from political, religious, or institutional restrictions, even if these ideas are unpopular.

Basically Academic Freedom is freedom of speech and thought for both teachers and students. The principle is that the government or other institutions don’t have the power nor authority to control what information teachers and students share nor what conclusions they make from what they learn. So Harvard Crimson approved and published an article that says we can consider what is just only if; we give up on freedom of speech, silence ideas that are not politically correct, censor research that doesn’t deliver the politically correct results, and not allow students to reach conclusions that are not politically correct can? WTF?

If that’s the kind of thinking that results from an education at Harvard and other Ivy League schools, then all I can say is forget an Ivy League education, it is worthless. That the Harvard Crimson would even consider publishing such totalitarian ideas promoting censorship shows the counsel of Harvard Professors on the same level as the publishers and editors of Mad Magazine (my apologies to Mad Magazine, at least it knows it’s satire, foolishness, and humor). Harvard’s vision taught to its student’s as expressed in the student paper the Harvard Crimson, is a vision that forbids research and discussion and ideas that whomever is in charge find objectionable is the same vision totalitarians have had and instituted throughout history.

The concept is that any ideas or philosophies that Sandra Korn doesn’t like are inherently immoral, unworthy, and don’t deserve to expressed, and those who hold philosophies or ideas she doesn’t approve don’t deserve the same freedom that allows her to publish such twaddle. She must have zero faith in what she believes because she will not tolerate having to compare her ideas to others. She must have a very shallow idea on what justice means, if she cannot “consider more thoughtfully what is just” when ideas she doesn’t approve of are rationally included in the discussion.

Besides ignoring the First Amendment to The Constitution all she is asking us to do is to disavow Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

All I can say is if you’re a parent considering sending your child to an Ivy League School, Don’t. It’s hard to believe that after 12 years of schooling in the USA, and 4 years at Harvard, a person could consider and promote the idea that censorship is a valid path to justice.

To Sandra Korn, all I say “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” But make no mistake, Ms. Korn, you better be willing to fight to the death to force us to give up “our obsessive reliance on the doctrine academic freedom.” Or do you propose to send others to fight to the death in your stead? We will not give up our “obsessive reliance” on freedom, you and your ilk will have to take it, and that you can’t do. In order to take our “obsessive reliance” on the doctrine of freedom, including academic freedom, you’re going to have to kill us. Is that what you call just?

Fall of American Education

By Tom Rhodes, 10/22/2013

In the last 50 years on average inflation adjusted dollars per student spend on education has tripled. Yet test scores continue to drop and the USA’s actual level of education and actual knowledge and ability to think is diminishing by most measurable standards. Colleges now have more classes in remedial English then Shakespeare. There are dozens of ideas about why this is happening, some politically correct some not PC. There is an idea that is staring us in the face that is so obvious but so Non-PC that it cannot be discussed. We’ll get to it in a moment.

Nobody can scientifically argue that there are not differences in people that are passed down genetically. When two taller people have a baby, the child will more than likely be taller than average. When two red heads have a baby, even though red hair is a recessive trait, the child will have a greater than average chance in having red hair. When two smart people breed, their offspring will more than likely be smarter than average; conversely when two dumb people breed, their offspring will more than likely have less than average intelligence. Like most traits there is a distribution of IQ among humans that can, and often is, illustrated by a bell curve.



One idea that nobody is allowed to talk about is feminism and the perverse incentives it has created being the cause of poorer and poorer standardized test scores. In fact there is an overall reduction in the average IQ of Western Civilization that corresponds with the rise in feminism. Statistics are clear, and on average the higher the education level and IQ of a woman the less children she has and the greater chance she will not have children. Conversely the less education a woman has the more likely she will have more children because we incentivize her to do so by providing her with more money for more children.

No it’s not politically correct to say it but. the reason SAT scores are not going up is because we are becoming dumber as a population. We are dumber as a population because we offer incentives for smart women not to breed and dumb women to breed - PERIOD. At least we’ll have dumb people to support our senior citizens, in Japan, which doesn’t allow much immigration, not only are the more educated having less children, the total fertility of the country is not sustainable. Some in Japan recognized the problem and have published results.

“If you don’t include your women graduates in your breeding pool and leave them on the shelf, you would end up a more stupid society…So what happens? There will be less bright people to support dumb people in the next generation. That’s a problem.” ~ Lee Kuan Yew

Today in Western Society, specifically the USA, we reward dumb women for breeding, and we reward smart women who remain childless. And we ask what’s wrong in “education” when despite more spending our average SAT and ACT test scores are declining. The answer is simple, fewer smart people are having kids. As a society we’ve told the best and brightest women that being a mother and having kids is beneath their capabilities, and to be a success they should postpone or avoid having children and have careers instead. Why would we expect the average of standardized test scores in the USA to do anything but decline, when our best and brightest are discouraged from doing the most important job a woman can do (that a man can’t), have and raise children. Any man of above average intellect can be an engineer or scientist, but none of them can have babies.

Actions always speak louder than words. If the government wants more of something it subsidizes it. The observable conclusion is that our government wants more smart women to get degrees instead of have children, and more dumb women to have children than get an education. Who’s willing to bet me on this woman’s Mensa Status? I can be certain she doesn’t have a STEM degree. We as a society have subsidized her to have babies. How many of you would bet $1000 that even 1 of her children will eventually earn an engineering or other STEM degree?



The reason our average ACT and SAT scores are going down not up is as plain as the nose on your face, on average more dumb women have kids than smart women, so on average we have dumber offspring. The solution is to have more smart women have more children, we should promote more smart women going to college to get a degree in Mrs. instead of BS. But our politically correct feminist society will continue to blame anything and everything except the scientific truth.

Public Schools are Cruel and Unusual.

By Tom Rhodes, 9/29/2013

Let’s start with the first example, Schools claim students have no civil rights and that even their actions on private property, not during school hours, are under the schools jurisdiction. Fox News Reports the following: .

Natural Born Killers

Two seventh-grade students in Virginia Beach, Va., were handed long-term suspensions Tuesday that will last until the end of the school year for playing with an airsoft gun in one of their front yards while waiting for the school bus. WAVY-TV reports that 13-year-old Khalid Caraballo and Aidan Clark will face an additional hearing in January to determine if they will be expelled for “possession, handling and use of a firearm” because the guns were fired at two others playing in Caraballo’s yard. …Khalid claims he never took the toy gun to the designated bus stop or Larkspur Middle School, according to the report. Two other students who fired guns were also suspended.

Government schools say your child can be expelled for playing with toy guns in their own yard. “The school’s so-called “zero-tolerance” policy on guns extends to private property, according to the report.”

One of the suspended (soon to be expelled) boys’ mother said, “My son is my private property. He does not become the school’s property until he goes to the bus stop, gets on the bus, and goes to school,”

Don’t confuse the fact that the boys, are not totally innocent, they are guilty of acting like boys. Some say they may have shot at some kids who weren’t part of their play. That’s something that should be punished, but not without due process, or by the school which clearly has no jurisdiction on the boy’s parents private property.

Don’t thik this is a isolated incident, Public schools now have a pattern of trying to dismiss students civil rights, especially recognition of the second amendment. Don’t take my word for it Google these absurd actions over the past couple years.

Bureaucrats suspended a little boy for taking bites out of a pop tart in such a way that it was shaped like a gun.

Bureaucrats suspended a 7-year boy for pretending to throw a non-existent grenade on the playground.

Bureaucrats suspended a 6-year old boy in Maryland for making a gun shape with his finger.

Bureaucrats busted a 5-year old girl in Pennsylvania for having a pink plastic gun that shoots bubbles.

A teacher in Rhode Island caught an 8-year old boy with some plastic toy army men.

Bureaucrats evacuated a school because an 11-year old boy made a motion detector for his science experiment.

Bureaucrats in Florida kicked an 8-year old boy out of school for a year because he had a plastic gun in his backpack.

In Virginia, not only did bureaucrats suspend a 10-year old boy for a toy gun, called the cops and had the kid arrested.

A third-grader got in trouble for having toy army men on his birthday cupcakes.

Two second-graders got suspended for holding pencils like they were guns.

Bureaucrats suspended a kindergartener for having a lego-sized toy gun.

Bureaucrats wanted a deaf child to change his sign-language name because it required him to shape his fingers in a way that resembled a gun.

Clearly the schools are making a concerted effort to indoctrinate through excessive punishment the children of America to undermine our Second Amendment. Many of these punishments are clearly disproportionate, to the point of being cruel and unusual.

Slate declares Obama’s are Bad People

By Tom Rhodes, 8/1/2013

Allison Benedikt of Slate published “a manifesto” decrying the Obama’s as bad people, titled: “If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person”

Read it for yourself, the premise is a simplistic revelation of liberal guilt. The idea being because good parents sacrifice and send their kids to good private schools instead of public schools they are depriving the public schools of good dedicated parents who will work to hold that school accountable. The reason public schools are failing is because good students with responsible parents abandon them. She claims that yes your kid will not get as good an education for a few generations as they could but so what, because you’re a good parent they will do fine. It’s unfair that the public school is deprived of good students with good parents. Benedikt says, “You want the best for your child, but your child doesn’t need it.”

Simple liberal logic, society’s needs for good parents and good student as models in public school outweighs a family’s needs and desires. Liberals simplistically believe that public education equals strong society and that all people have a duty to society greater than to themselves and their families. It’s simply unfair that your child has parents willing to sacrifice and make sure your child gets the best education they can and other children don’t, so to make things fair she is trying to guilt you into sending your child to public school.

Of course this is sheeple speek, to guilt the middle class. In reality you know that this isn’t true and that liberal in power don’t believe it to be true either, just look at liberal leaders, specifically the President of the United States, Obama. His kids don’t go to the local public schools in DC. Imagine how much safer a public school in DC would be because of the necessary Secret Service that would be there to protect Obama’s kids. Imagine how much better the educational opportunities would be for all the students of the DC public school would be if Michelle Obama was a member of the PTA. The Obama’s deprived Washington DC public schools the benefits of having their children in public school.

The Obama’s actions speak far louder than words. They know public education in DC sucks, and as such their children will not be exposed to the violence and culture that has resulted on one of the most expensive and poorest performing public school systems in the USA. It’s clear they don’t care about the community they live and as Allison Benedikt of Slate claims, they are Bad People.

Liberal Logic . . . NOT!

By Tom Rhodes, 5/22/2013

Liberals consistently use the mantra "If it will only save one life" to promote the idea that guns in the hands of private citizens is bad. This is not based on logic or reason, but an excuse to disarm the public so that tyrannical liberal government can flourish. Kind of like Michael Bloomberg who campaigns and promotes the idea that that adults aren't capable of making sound decisions concerning guns, cooking oil, sugar, salt, and the size of soda containers, but insist that teenagers should have free choice on making decisions about terminating the life of their babies through abortion without parental consent or even awareness. Logic and reason are not properties of liberal thought.

Theodore Beale wrote a great piece on public schools, noting that by amassing our children into schools results in far more deaths of children than if schooling were dispersed, like maybe into everybody's home; noting, " in the past four months, we have seen multiple incidences of multiple fatalities due to acts of Man and Nature, but the thought that perhaps it is not wise to congregate large numbers of vulnerable children together never seems to enter the national discourse." Considering the proven fact that as a group, by every measurable standard, homeschooled children out perform government schooled children his logic is sound.

Homeschool or Die vol. XXXLVI

I can't help but notice the difference between the way fatalities are treated depending upon whether the children killed are being educated at home or at public school. If seven children were killed by a demented homeschool mother, this would spark a national media outcry and demands for more restrictions on homeschooling.

And yet, in the past four months, we have seen multiple incidences of multiple fatalities due to acts of Man and Nature, but the thought that perhaps it is not wise to congregate large numbers of vulnerable children together never seems to enter the national discourse.

According to Wikipedia, there have been 278 tornado-related deaths at school since 1885. That is nearly 2.2 deaths per year, which is a trivial percentage of the 48 million or so children attending the public schools. And yet, they are entirely avoidable deaths; under the oft-cited "if just one life can be saved" metric, it cannot be denied that children who are not forced to congregate en masse at school cannot be killed by tornadoes there.

Two tornado-inflicted deaths per year isn't much, but add to them the 26 schoolbus deaths per year, the 600 school-automotive deaths per year, and the 34 violence-related deaths, and it soon becomes readily apparent that school cannot reasonably be considered a safe place for children.

Forget the superior education received by homeschooled children. Doesn't saving the lives of more than 662 children every year make banning school a moral imperative?

Especially in light of the fact that 119 children under the age of twelve, (and 565 under the age of 18), were killed by guns. School is literally more lethally dangerous than guns; something you might want to remind your average pro-public school, pro-gun control left-liberal.

Guns secure freedom at a lower cost in children's lives than the public schools manage to deliver inferior educations. We don't need gun control, we need school control.

End Public Education Before it Ruins Our Children's Lives

Edited by Tom Rhodes, 6/11/2012

This is the LPF's platform position addressing education.

IX. EDUCATION

1. Education is a parental responsibility and best handled at the most local level.

2. Because parents are best situated to decide what is in their own children's best interests, we support all measures that enhance the educational choices available, such as charter schools, vouchers or tax credits for private school tuition, and home schooling.

3. Compulsory attendance and truancy laws should be repealed. Students cannot be forced to learn, and teachers should not be forced to act as juvenile delinquency officers.

4. All individuals, regardless of age, are entitled to the protections of the constitutions of the United States and Florida. Random drug tests, locker searches without probable cause, censorship of student publications, or any similar actions violate those rights.

It's nice to see that college professors agree with the Libertarian position on education. Professor Jack Chambless had this to say in his Orlando Sentinel Guest Editorial

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Is it time to think about home schooling your child?
By Jack A. Chambless, June 10, 2012

For the past 21 years I have taught economics to more than 14,000 college students here in Central Florida.

During that time I have made a concerted effort to glean information from my Valencia students as to their educational background preceding their arrival in college.

Drawing from a sample size this large multiplied by two decades multiplied by hundreds of thousands of test answers has put me in a good position to offer the following advice to any reader of this paper with children in Florida's K-12 public schools.

Get them out now before you ruin their life.

While this may seem to be a bit harsh, let's look at the facts.

First, my best students every year are in order - Chinese, Eastern European, Indian and home-schooled Americans, and it is not even close when comparing this group to American public-school kids.

Since it is highly unlikely that any of you plan to move to Beijing, Warsaw or Bangalore, you might want to look at the facts concerning public vs. home-schooled American students.

(In Florida, more than 60,000 students in about 42,000 families study in home education programs, which meet the requirement for regular school attendance and were protected under state law in 1985.)

All of us have seen or heard about the annual disaster that is called FCAT results. Thanks to government officials in Washington, D.C. and Tallahassee, kids in government-run schools are failing miserably in a wide range of subjects while teachers face bureaucratic nightmares that strip them of their status as professionals and relegate them to servants of standardized testing.

It is also a fact of public education that incidents of bullying, teacher-student sexual misconduct, abusive behavior by teachers and incessant protection of poor teachers by education unions have put students in public schools in the unenviable position of dealing with issues that no learning environment should impose on them.

Moreover, the public education system in Florida and other states is one of the worst forms of monopoly power.

Everywhere in our lives as citizens we have free consumer choice as to where we shop for food, clothes, cellphones and more. However, if you are economically disadvantaged you rarely have this choice in education.

Poorer families in Florida are instead given the school district that their children are forced to attend. Rather than give poor parents choices so that competitive pressure is imposed on public education, we have lower-income families - mostly minorities - who are condemned to 13 years of inferior education just because they live in the wrong zip code.

Everywhere in America where vouchers or other forms of school choice exists, we see competition forcing the unionized public schools to adapt, or lose students.

This used to be the case in Florida, but those options are now lower than in past years and the victims show up in my classes woefully unprepared for challenging college course work.

It is routine that students from Florida's worst high schools make failing grades in college. These kids have been lied to by a system that tells them that a diploma from an "F" school will not impact them in college.

Meanwhile, the more than 2 million home-schooled kids around America (my two sons included) routinely appear in America's colleges with an education that prepares them for virtually anything.

The home-education movement has unleashed the forces of capitalism in such a way that anyone can find dozens of types of curricula for any grade level to help educate their kids in areas where one might not be an expert.

Home-school conventions like the one coming at the end of this month in Orlando offer thousands of options and professional speakers who can help guide willing parents through their child's formative years.

The home-schooled kids who show up in my classes usually arrive at the age of 16 or 17, score in the high 90's on their exams and then go off to places like Harvard, Penn and other world-class universities.

Jack A. Chambless is an economics professor at Valencia College.

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It is obvious that the government is not the solution to education, even college professors now recognize that as fact. When without any college education, parents can and routinely do better prepare their children for college than so called professional educators in the government schools, it is obvious that liberty and freedom of choice, even in education, is the solution.

University of Indoctrination

By Tom Rhodes, 6/23/2011

I spent a lovely Sunday riding my motorcycle, and ended up having a late lunch at a chain casual eatery noted for somewhat skimpy costumed waitresses, and good food. It was a slow summer afternoon, hot outside, cool inside, the beer, food and view were excellent. Chatting with the waitress I learned that she was a recent University of Florida graduate, with a degree in economics.

In her early 20’s, and having the attributes for this particular establishment, she chose to continue her college job after graduation because it paid significantly more than the jobs available with her degree. If the few other tables tipped the way my table did she was probably making $25 or more per hour during a slow day.

Finding out she was an economics major, and liking to stir the pot, I just had to ask her which major theories of economics were taught at UF and which one did she believe.

I was dumbfounded at her response, she said “What?” to which I replied, “You know, what was the predominant economic theory taught, Chicago School, Keynesian, Austrian, or what?

She didn’t have any idea what I was talking about, I asked if they discussed the various theories on economics, and how they differ in describing how the government actions influence the economy. She then said "Oh, We're not allowed to discuss any politics in class.”

“No debate on any difference economic theories at all?”

“No that would lead to politics which wasn’t allowed, we just learned what the book, and took the tests." They didn’t allow any theoretical discussion in the classes and they didn’t want the classes to have any conflict.

I was floored, not only did an economics major graduate from a major university with no political discussion of various economic theories, but she didn’t even have knowledge that there were multiple theories associated with economics. It sounded more like indoctrination than education.

Maybe I’ve just been out of college for too long, but I find it hard to believe that nowhere in the following required UF Economics Major Courses: ECO 2013 Principles of Macroeconomics; ECO 2023 Principles of Microeconomics; ECO 3101 Intermediate Microeconomics; ECO 3203 Intermediate Macroeconomics, that there are no competing ideas on economic theory addressed.

Sadly looking at the syllabi of those courses on-line, it is evident that an economic theory is taught, but not identified. From even a short chat with a graduate of the UF Economics program, it is evident that the economic theory taught is treated as if there were no other or competing economic theories. The young lady in question was definitely smart, but was totally ignorant not only of competing ideas but even that competing ideas existed.

It is no wonder a significant part of our population cannot logically debate ideas. While in college they aren’t allowed to debate ideas, and conflict is not allowed. Our young people are being taught that competitive ideas are not good, and that ideas other than those of their professors, are just political and not to be considered. I confirmed that within four years of courses at UF, the young lady in question never witnessed a debate on anything she was taught. This is a far cry from the way Dr. Michael Sandel teaches his course on Justice at Harvard. You can watch it at HERE, where debate and both sides of controversy are discussed, obviously without any fear that disagreeing with the professor will get you in trouble.

Any university program that discourages debate of competing ideas because of “politics” should be rethought. The idea that avoiding conflict in ideas at the college level is preferable to vibrant debate seems to me to be absurd. Yes students must be expected to provide the answers to exams that their professor want, whether they agree with those answers or not, but not even allowing the discussion of alternative ideas is not education but indoctrination.

A Failed Hypothesis

by Tom Rhodes, 6/1/2011
The hypothesis in question is that of the Federal Department of Education (DoED). Based on its mission statement that hypothesis is that “Centralized federal education programs will promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”

Virtually every high school science book has a section, sometimes a whole chapter on problem solving and the scientific method. For a short time (3 years) I was a high school chemistry teacher. Having come from the industrial world, not the teaching world, and realizing that very little of the chemistry I thought would be remembered past graduation, I stressed one thing over and over, problem solving and critical thinking. I believe that these skills would be far more valuable and germane for my students than remembering the atomic number and mass of Germanium. If you google “4 steps to problem solving,” you will find a veritable tsunami of information. The basic 4 steps are Analyze, Plan, Execute, and Evaluate. These four steps may have different terms to describe them but in essence they are the basis of logical rational problem solving. Kids ask a lot of hard questions, often not about the subject you are teaching. As a teacher I often responded with “You are smart enough to figure that one out. Use your problem solving skills and think for yourself, what was tried before, what worked, what didn’t.”

The first step to solving any is always analyzing the problem. This involves correctly defining the problem. This should include what you know in as much detail as possible, historical information of similar or identical problems, previous solutions that worked and those that didn’t work, and what the expected or desired results to any actions you will plan for solving the problem. Most problems that keep getting worse not better are caused by three things; 1) incorrectly identifying the problem, and 2) failure to correctly evaluate the results of the plan executed to solve the problem, 3) failure to analyze the hypothesis and conclude that is is wrong because the results are not as desired.

Consider the Department of Education, it’s mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.

The Department carries out its mission in two major ways. First, the Secretary and the Department play a leadership role in the ongoing national dialogue over how to improve the results of our education system for all students. This involves such activities as raising national and community awareness of the education challenges confronting the Nation, disseminating the latest discoveries on what works in teaching and learning, and helping communities work out solutions to difficult educational issues.

Second, the Department pursues its twin goals of access and excellence through the administration of programs that cover every area of education and range from preschool education through postdoctoral research.

The DoED has been in existence for over 30 years, any critical analysis of its mission and measureable results of implementing the plans created by the DoED conclusively indicate that both the DoED mission and execution of its plans have failed. Nobody can rationally argue that plans to improve US education by the US Government have, on the whole, been of much measurable success. Although a few of the DoED programs have had limited success, it can be reasonably concluded that as education as a whole, with an increase in centralized government influence, has cost more money and has produced no better, and usually worse outcomes.

We have a problem in our education system. Congress created a plan and the DoED to implement that plan to effect change. The DoED programs (plans) and have revised over and over again for the past 30 years, thus an attempt to follow basic scientific methods. The outcomes were not as desired, very expensive, and not successful. Rationally we should abandon the entire notion that with a country as large and varied as the USA founded on a system of strong States rights, that the federal government can centrally plan an education system that will meet the stated mission. Arguably the education of our students was as good or better before it was directed from Washington, and vast sums of wealth were not confiscated and redistributed in the name of education.

We have failed to correctly evaluate the results of the plans executed to solve the problem and failed to analyze the hypothesis created to fix the problem and consider that it may be in error. Rather than use emotion to attempt to keep promoting a failed hypothesis because we desperately want education to get better, we should use basic scientific thinking, and actually analyze the effects of centralized education programs.

The hypothesis, “Centralized federal education programs will promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access” through years of planning, execution and revision, has been completely disproven. Based on rational scientific evaluation of the results of 30 years of DoED programs, we should end the Department of Education. Diversity brings about innovation and change, not central control, we should let the 50 states all develop their own methods of education, the competition between different practices and ideas will provide a much better variety of education programs that will better serve our diverse nation.

Libertarian Thoughts on Current Events

By Tom Rhodes

Do you believe in Liberty?

Mike Adams, professor at UNC, proposed two very interesting questions: “Do you believe in the inherent ‘goodness’ or ‘perfectibility’ of mankind?” and “Does man get his rights from other men?”

If you or anybody you know answered yes to either question, it is clear they don’t believe in or understand the concept of liberty. Man is inherently evil, even the elite in power, hence we instituted a system of government that spreads out the power, and limits what government can do and charged the government with the specific and sole mandate of protecting individual rights.

The entire founding of our nation was based on the idea that man has rights that pre-exist the government, are natural, and not subject to the whims and wants of those in charge. They firmly believed that one person’s rights ended when they infringed upon the same rights of another; that all people should have the same rights, and all should be treated equally. They believed that no person’s right obligated another person to provide the means of exercising that right. Your right to keep and bear arms does not obligate others to provide you with arms to bear. The idea that mankind has rights not just privileges granted by those in control. Coupled with a healthy distrust for men in power, because history has always proven that “power corrupts,” our country was founded on the idea that the government has limits, not the people.

This idea was clearly stated in the purpose document for the founding of this country, The Declaration of Independence, which eloquently states that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights - that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness - To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Lies about racism.

After the first presidential debate In South Carolina – the home of secession, John C. Calhoun, Strom Thurmond, and the long-fluttering Stars and Bars over the state Capitol building – a black guy, Herman Cain, won in a landslide with a nearly all-white focus group of local Republicans. This provides compelling counter-evidence to the tired Democratic charge that conservatives and libertarians, especially from the south, detest Obama primarily because he’s black. The truth is that they despise him because he’s an old-fashioned, socialist, big government, anti-liberty, free-spending, elitist lefty.

Free Speech Dead in Denmark.

Tuesday May 3, 2011 marked the end of free speech in Denmark and the acceptance of Shariah law. Denmark convicted, Lars Hedegaard, president of the International Free Press Society, for offending Muslims. This will likely be used to set precedence in the EU.

Federal Government Hates South Carolina.

Because South Carolina doesn’t exercise the socialistic control of labor and business that northern states do, our federal government is denying them the opportunity to create high-skill, high-wage jobs, President Obama’s labor board, namely the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has undertaken a direct assault on South Carolina.

The NLRB has told both Boeing and South Carolina that because South Carolina is a right to work state, that Boeing cannot expand its production to South Carolina. Boeing is not reducing or closing a plant in Washington, but expanding, so it is not cutting union jobs in the North for non-union jobs in the South. It doesn’t matter, the government has determined that Boeing is not allowed to expand to right to work states.

Obama’s fidelity to Big Union Bosses extends to more than just South Carolina. The NLRB has begun to sue states whose citizens voted to protect themselves from coercion and intimidation by adding secret ballot guarantees to their state constitutions. There is proof that states with right-to-work laws are more financially and educationally accomplished than states where unionization is forced.

The Facts are clear, unemployment is lower in right-to-work states and home ownership is higher. There are more highly-educated workers than in forced unionization states. The overwhelming majority of young professionals – 94.3% to be exact, choose to live in right-to-work states. The best example is the giant sucking sound of the mass exodus of people, jobs, companies, and opportunity from Michigan to right-to-work states.

South Caroline Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina powerfully summed it up, “America will not win the future if Washington penalizes workers in states that have discovered winning economic strategies.”

It’s a Spending Problem

Our national debt is not a revenue problem it’s a spending problem; because regardless of the government’s income (tax revenue) it spends in excess. Hence we see still another call for expansion in the debt ceiling. Some may argue that it's necessary to keep the markets functioning, but they won't function for long if the government keeps spending trillions more than it takes in. Look at Greece and explain how well this strategy has worked for them. Even after they were bailed out by the EU, they have continued to spiral into more debt. We’re bigger than Greece but will end up in the same place if we continue to promise and spend more, than can be reasonably extracted from the public in taxes.

The tens of thousands of pages of tax law, the obvious inequality of taxes as currently collected, and the unwillingness of the Federal Government to live within its means, has lead to a situation where the majority of people no longer consider cheating on their taxes as immoral or unethical. This cannot be good for the country. To gain credibility and the support of the American people, the government must curb its spending.

National Curriculum

There is a movement to standardize K-12 curriculum. The very same educational professionals who have so miserably failed our students over the past 40 years are now advocating a "common curriculum" that would supposedly engage the minds of all American students, aligning their performance with the latest thinking as to what's needed. The Albert Shanker Institute, named for the late head of the American Federation of Teachers, wants a "coherent, sequential set of guidelines in the core academic disciplines, specifying the knowledge and skills" expected of all students.

To a conspiratorialist this sounds like a way for the government to control the ideas and knowledge that we expose all children. I doubt that, it’s probably just based on good intentions of people who refuse to look at reality, and think that what sounds good and feels good must somehow actually be good. It’s a bad idea just because it will completely stifle innovation in education, and make teachers worth even less. How much do you really know to herd children, and review the pre-planned power point, and give the pre-designed work sheet, and administer the pre-conceived test, which has been so dumbed down so that even the dumbest student can pass with little or no effort?

The Reality is that we have the exact educational systems that post-modern America wants. Not the best, nor the worst, the logical product of our feminized culture that demands equality not excellence. As long as we are more worried about how students feel about themselves than we are the quantity and quality of the knowledge they posses, our schools will continue to give us what we want -- Students, who think they are smart and successful, but who in reality cannot perform, especially when compared to other cultures. Because the results of academic competition in schools ends up with some kids not feeling as good about themselves as others, most schools no longer have valedictorians, class rankings, etc. Forcing schools to focus extraordinary effort on academically inferior and poorly motivated students, rather than use those resources to build up and advance our most gifted, has resulted in exactly what we want, equality of outcome not opportunity. Unless as a culture we are willing to separate the wheat from the chaff (academically speaking), and acknowledge that just like in sports not everyone has the same natural talents in intellect, we will continue to see poorer and poorer education. Post-modern America wants everybody to succeed, and if some can’t, we’ll just lower the standard so we can claim they did. We demand success whether it’s real or manufactured. In academics we will accept the lie and ignore reality so we can feel good about our children.

Great Event of 2010

Happy New Year Everybody. Celebrating some of the things government does do. This is a GREAT time lapse of STS 131's preparation... A must see!

Is Public Education A Failure?

There is no question that public education fails to impart knowledge and the ability to think critically to students. Private schools spending far less per student do a far better job. Homeschools spending thousands less than both public and private schools do far better. Research shows that homeschooled students are as much as a decade ahead of public school students in the ability to think.

Does this mean that public schools are a failure? That depends on what you believe is the goal of compulsory public education. Since the 1800’s when state-funded education was introduced, schools have mass-produced what society needs: relatively docile, compliant young citizens ready to slot straight into tedious jobs. In his 1990 New York City Teacher of the Year acceptance speech, John Taylor Gatto, clearly described the purpose of compulsory public education; "Schools were designed by Horace Mann and Barnas Sears and W.R. Harper of the University of Chicago and Edward Thorndike of Columbia Teachers College and other to be instruments for the scientific management of a mass population. Schools are intended to produce, through the application of formulas, formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled."

If that is the purpose and basis of compulsory public education, it is a success. In the US, as automation and other advances in technology allows us to manufacture far more with far fewer people, the need for more educated workers has decreased, and the need for more lower paid service people has increased. The type of worker we need, as seen by the massive amounts of illegal immigrants, are to do relatively low skilled low pay jobs. These are the jobs that some say Americans won’t do. A literate, well educated person is not going to settle for supporting themselves with a physically demanding, un-rewarding, labor intensive job like cleaning toilets, digging ditches, or picking food. A literate, well educated person is not going to accept the unreasoned excuses, and demonstrably false reasons the government uses to further reduce individual liberty.

Thus the government’s goal is not a critically thinking, self-reliant individual. Most European countries have outlawed home schooling and control what private schools can teach. Home schooling and self-education do not teach individuals to be compliant. In fact a school-free education gives children a taste of freedom and self-reliance, remote from performance-obsessed authorities. No need to ask permission for the toilet, no pressure to conform. If it catches on, it might result in fewer young people accepting the role of wage slave. It must seem like a dangerous trend to those responsible for running the national economy. Despite the clearly better performance and better proven education of home schooled children, the powers that be do not want you home schooling your child, or to even choose for your child to receive a private education outside of government controls.

"'Parent choice' proceeds from the belief that the purpose of education is to provide individual students with an education. In fact, educating the individual is but a means to the true end of education, which is to create a viable social order to which individuals contribute and by which they are sustained. "Family choice' is, therefore, basically selfish and anti-social in that it focuses on the "wants' of a single family rather than the "needs' of society." ~ Association of California School Administrators

Maybe a better question is; "How Did We Ever Come to Believe that the State Should Tell Our Children What to Think?" If the goal of education is to transfer knowledge and exercise young minds to be able to think clearly and logically, not to create compliant, obedient, masses the government can control, then we must change what we are doing. The foundation of the USA, was based on radical ideas and clarity of observation and thought by men with little or no formal education. It was after the age of enlightenment which created the Declaration of Indpendence, and US Constitution, and Bill of Rights, that compulsory schooling was instituted. Free thinking people are not conducive to government control.

The idea that compulsory schools are not an effective way to educate individuals is not new or radical.

“Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” ~ Plato

“Just as eating against one’s will is injurious to health, so studying without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.” ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” ~ Albert Einstein

"Schools have not necessarily much to do with education... they are mainly institutions of control, where basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school." ~ Winston Churchill

“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.” ~ Isaac Asimov

To escape the trap we are now caught will require acts of courage and imagination: first – question the legitimacy of the school monopoly; Second – garner political resolve to deconstruct current model of schooling; Third – return education and schooling to real people and real communities taking it away from the abstract hands of the federal government.

Let’s start with the biggest lie, you need a formal education to be successful, and that because all parents won’t educate their children the state must do so. That we have a “collective responsibility” to fund and supply other peoples kids with an education because “they are our future”. This is collectivist thinking that has proven to fail throughout history. The "collective obligation" paradigm has failed so utterly in modern American schooling. We should shift our paradigm back to the paradigm that built this country and ushered in the industrial age; You have no obligation to educate anyone's offspring but your own.

This does not mean that you are not free to accept our natural feeling of charity by offering to voluntarily help fund the schooling of orphans and such. Unless we go back to the idea that as a nation we will only thrive again when we recognize, as our Chinese competitors realize, that this is a competition. You and I have a vested interest in seeing our children get the best education we can offer them, the better we educate them the more competitive they will be, and better prepared to provide for themselves and us in our old age.

In Massachusetts, prior to compulsory public education literacy was at 98%, it has never again reached greater than 91%. Obviously compulsory public education’s goal is not a literate thinking population, and has failed to produce such.

Proof that formal education is not necessary or in most cases desirable for success abound all around us. Bill Gates, arguably the most successful person of modern times is a college dropout. Don’t buy into the lie that he is an exception, when it comes to success Gates is not an anomaly of success but more the rule.

Here are a few famous dropouts:

• Thomas Sowell - Economist, author and political commentator. One of my favorite writers on political and economic philosophy.

• George Carlin - Comedian. One of my favorite comedians, especially because of his word play.

• Albert Einstein: Nobel Prize-winning physicist; "Time" magazine's "Man of the Century" (20th century) (after dropping out of high school, he studied on his own and passed the entrance exam on his second try to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
• John D. Rockefeller Sr.- Self-made billionaire American businessman-philanthropist; co-founder of "The Standard Oil Company;" history's first recorded billionaire (dropped out of high school two months before graduation; took business courses for ten weeks at Folsom Mercantile College [a chain business school])

• Henry Ford: Self-made multimillionaire American businessman; assembly-line auto manufacturing pioneer; founder of the "Ford Motor Company"

• Walt Disney: Oscar-winning American film/TV producer; animation and theme park pioneer; self-made multimillionaire founder and spokesperson of "The Walt Disney Studios/Company; "Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient; Congressional Gold Medal recipient; French Legion of Honor admittee/Medal recipient (received honorary high-school diploma from hometown high school at age 58)

• Abraham Lincoln: 16th President of the United States; (little formal education - Lincoln himself estimated approximately one year; home schooling/life experience; later earned a law degree through self study of books that he borrowed from friends)

• Carl Sandburg: Pulitzer Prize-winning American author (little formal education; later passed entrance exam to Lombard College and graduated)

• Diana, Princess of Wales

• George Burns: Oscar-winning actor/comedian (elementary school dropout)

• Dave Thomas: Self-made multimillionaire American businessman; founder-spokesperson of the "Wendy's" fast-food restaurant chain (equivalency diploma)

• Martin Van Buren: 8th President of the United States (little formal education; began studying law at age 14 while an apprentice at a law firm, later became a lawyer)

• Andrew Carnegie: Self-made multimillionaire American businessman and philanthropist (elementary school dropout)

• John Chancellor: American television journalist; evening news anchorman

• "Colonel" Harlan Sanders: Self-made multimillionaire American businessman; founder-spokesperson of the "Kentucky Fried Chicken/KFC" fast-food restaurant chain (elementary school dropout; later earned a correspondence course law degree)

• Samuel L. Clemens ("Mark Twain"): Best-selling American author and humorist (elementary school dropout)

• Christopher Columbus: Italian explorer (little formal education; home schooling/life experience; went to sea in his youth)

• Davy Crockett: Early American frontiersman; U.S. Congressman (Tennessee Representative); died at the battle of the Alamo (little formal education - less than six months; home schooling/life experience)

• Charles Dickens: Best-selling British author (elementary school dropout)

• Joe DiMaggio: National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

• Sir Francis Drake: British explorer; knighted in the United Kingdom (little formal education; home schooling/life experience; went to sea in his youth)

• George Eastman: Self-made multimillionaire American inventor; founder of the "Kodak" roll film camera, corporation, and chemical company

• Thomas Edison: Self-made multimillionaire, most famous and productive inventor of all time; invented the filament electric light bulb, phonograph, and motion picture camera; electrical power usage pioneer; Congressional Gold Medal recipient; knighted (France: bestowed the rank of Chevalier, (had no formal education - home schooled)

• Benjamin Franklin: American politician - diplomat - author - printer - publisher-scientist - inventor; co-author and co-signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence; one of the founders of The United States of America; face is pictured on the U.S. one-hundred dollar bill (little formal education [less than two years]; home schooling/life experience)

• Clark Gable: Oscar-winning actor

• George Gershwin: Oscar-nominated and most celebrated American songwriter-and classical composer; Congressional Gold Medal recipient

• Amadeo Peter Giannini: American-born founder of "Bank of America"

• Cary Grant: Oscar-winning actor

• W.T.Grant: Self-made multimillionaire American businessman; founder of the "W.T. Grant Company" department store chain

• H.L. Hunt: Self-made billionaire American oil industrialist (elementary school dropout)

• John Huston: Oscar-winning American film director-actor (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, etc.)

• Elton John: Oscar-winning songwriter-singer; Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee; knighted by the United Kingdom

• Andrew Jackson: 7th President of the United States (no formal education; home schooling/life experience)

• John Paul Jones: Scottish-born American Revolutionary War U.S. navy commander; famous quote: "I have not yet begun to fight." (little formal education; home schooling/life experience; went to sea in his youth)

• Henry J. Kaiser: Self-made multimillionaire American businessman; founder of "Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation," "Kaiser Steel," etc.

• Kirk Kerkorian: Self-made billionaire American businessman

• Ray Kroc: Self-made billionaire American businessman; founder of the "McDonald's" fast-food restaurant chain

• Jerry Lewis: Actor-comedian-singer-entertainer-humanitarian; knighted (France: Chevalier [or Chev.] Jerry Lewis)

• John Major: British Prime Minister 1990-1997

• William Shakespeare: British playwright; best-selling British author

• George Bernard Shaw: Nobel Prize-winning Irish-born British playwright; best-selling author

• Frank Sinatra: Oscar-winning actor-singer; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient; Congressional Gold Medal recipient

• John Philip Sousa: American composer-conductor (elementary school dropout)

• Zachary Taylor: 12th President of the United States (little formal education; home schooling/life experience)

• George Washington: 1st President of the United States; former general; Chairman of the Constitutional Convention; U.S. nickname: "The Father of Our Country"; face is pictured on the U.S. one dollar bill and twenty-five cent coin (quarter) (no formal education; home schooling/life experience; went to sea in his youth)

• William Faulkner: Nobel Prize-winning and Pulitzer Prize-winning American author; screenwriter (dropped out of high school in second year; later attended University of Mississippi but did not graduate)

• Herman Melville: Best-selling American author and writer of Moby Dick, arguably the greatest novel of all time.

• Liza Minnelli: Oscar-winning actress-singer

• Robert Mitchum: Oscar-nominated actor

• Claude Monet: French painter (elementary school dropout)

• David H. Murdock: Self-made billionaire American businessman

• Florence Nightingale: History's most notable nurse; best-selling Italian-born British nursing book author (no formal education; home schooling/life experience)

• Thomas Paine: American Revolutionary War era political theorist; best-selling British-born American author; famous quote: "These are the times that try men's souls." (little formal education; home schooling/life experience)

• Millard Fillmore: 13th President of the United States (little formal education - six months; home schooling/life experience; studied law while serving as a legal clerk with a judge and law firm; later became a lawyer)

• Will Rogers: American author-humorist-lecturer-actor-entertainer; famous quote: "I never met a man I didn't like."

• Frederick Henry Royce: Self-made multimillionaire British businessman; co-founder-designer of the "Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Company"; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Frederick Henry Royce) (elementary school dropout)

• Edmond Safra: Lebanese-born billionaire banker-philanthropist

• David Sarnoff: Russian-born American radio and television pioneer; given the title "Father of American Television" by the Television Broadcasters Association

• William Saroyan: Oscar-winning screenwriter; Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright

• Vidal Sassoon: Self-made multimillionaire British businessman; founder of "Vidal Sassoon" hairstyling salons, academies, and hair-care products

• Walt Whitman: Best-selling American poet (elementary school dropout)

• Orville & Wilbur Wright: Aviation pioneers; Congressional Gold Medal recipients

• Grover Cleveland: 22nd and 24th President of the United States; face is pictured on the one-thousand dollar bill, which is no longer printed; (dropped out of school to help family earn income; studied law while serving as a clerk at a law firm, later became a lawyer)

• Irving Berlin: Oscar-winning American songwriter-composer; film story writer; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient; Congressional Gold Medal recipient

• Paul Allen, billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, founder of Xiant software, owner of Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trailblazers. Dropped out of Washington State to start up Microsoft with Bill Gates.

• H.G. Wells - best-selling British author (dropped out to help family earn income; later returned and went on to college)

• Jim Clark -self-made billionaire American businessman; founder of "Netscape"; first Internet billionaire (17, U.S. Navy)

• Jimmy Dean -..singer-songwriter-actor; self-made multimillionaire American businessman; founder of the "Jimmy Dean Foods" brand sausage business (16, U.S. Merchant Marines; 18, U.S. Air Force)

• Andrew Jackson......7th U.S. President; face is pictured on the U.S. twenty dollar bill (13, U.S. Continental Army; orphaned at 14; little formal education; home schooling/life experience; studied law in his late teens and became a lawyer)
• Leon Uris -..best-selling American author (Exodus, etc.) (17, U.S. Marines)

• Walter L. Smith.....former president of Florida A&M University (equivalency diploma, at age 23)

• W. Clement Stone....self-made multimillionaire (some sources indicate billionaire) American businessman-author; founder of "Success" magazine (elementary school dropout; later attended high-school night courses and then some college)

• Jack London - best-selling American author (dropped out at 14 to work; later gained admission to the University of California; left after one semester)

• Arthur Ernest Morgan....American flood-control engineer; college president-author; appointed by President Roosevelt to be director of the Tennessee Valley Authority public works project (left high school after three years; later attended the University of Colorado for six weeks)

• Ray Charles -.singer-pianist; Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee

• Cher......Oscar-winning actress-singer

• Maurice Chevalier.... Oscar-winning actor-singer; French Legion of Honor inductee/Medal recipient (note: rank bestowed in 1938

• Pierce Brosnan - actor

• Ellen Burnstyn - Oscar-winning actress

• Raymond Burr - actor

• Sammy Cahn - Oscar-winning American songwriter-composer

• Michael Caine - Oscar-winning actor; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Michael Caine)

• Glen Campbell - country music star

• Daniel Gilbert - Harvard University psychology professor (equivalency diploma)

• Dizzy Gillespie - musician-composer (received honorary diploma from high school he attended)

• Patrick Henry - American Revolutionary War era politician; Virginia's first governor; famous quote: "Give me liberty, or give me death!" (little formal education; home schooling/life experience; later studied on his own and earned a law degree)

• Peter Jennings - Canadian-born American television journalist; evening news anchorman

• Ansel Adams - American wilderness photographer; photography book author; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

• Julie Andrews - Oscar-winning actress-singer

• Louis Armstrong - singer-musician

• Brooke Astor -wealthy American socialite-philanthropist-author; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

• Pearl Bailey - singer-actress; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

• Lucille Ball -actress-comedienne-producer; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

• Bill Bartman -self-made billionaire American businessman

• Count Basie -.bandleader-pianist

• Jack Benny - comedian-actor-violinist

• Humphrey Bogart - Oscar-winning actor

• Peter Bogdanovich - Oscar-nominated American film director-screenwriter (The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon, Mask, etc.)

• Whoopie Goldberg - Oscar-winning actress-comedienne

• Benny Goodman - bandleader-clarinetist

• Lew Grade -British film/TV producer (TV: The Avengers, The Saint, Secret Agent, The Prisoner, The Muppet Show, etc.); knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Lew Grade)

• Philip Emeagwali - supercomputer scientist; one of the pioneers of the Internet (high-IQ high-school dropout; left school in native Nigeria due to war conditions and lack of tuition money; continued to study on his own and earned an equivalency diploma; later won a scholarship to Oregon College of Education in the United States; transferred after one year to Oregon State University)

• Danny Thomas -actor-producer-humanitarian (actor: Make Room for Daddy/The Danny Thomas Show; co-producer: The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, etc.); Congressional Gold Medal recipient

• Peter Ustinov - Oscar-winning actor

• Hiram Stevens - American-born engineering inventor; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Hiram Stevens)

• Patrick Stewart - actor-writer-producer-director; former captain of the Enterprise on TV's Star Trek: The Next Generation and in films.

• Kemmons Wilson - self-made multimillionaire American businessman; founder of the "Holiday Inn" hotel chain

• Kjell Inge Rokke.....self-made billionaire Norwegian businessman

• David Puttnam - Oscar-winning British film producer (Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express, etc.); knighted (United Kingdom: Sir David Puttnam)

• Anthony Quinn - Oscar-winning actor

• Julie London - singer-actress

• Sophia Loren - Oscar-winning actress; best-selling Italian-born author; former model (elementary school dropout)

• Joe Louis -..boxer; Congressional Gold Medal recipient

• Roy Rogers - actor-singer-guitarist

• Walter Nash - New Zealand Prime Minister 1957-1960; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Walter Nash)

• Olivia Newton-John - singer-actress; British-born Australian author

• Rosa Parks - U.S. civil rights activist-pioneer; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient; Congressional Gold Medal recipient

• Mary Pickford - Oscar-winning actress; early Hollywood pioneer; co-founder of "United Artists Corporation" (little formal education [six months]; home schooling/life experience)

• Sydney Poitier - Oscar-winning actor (elementary school dropout)

• Frederick "Freddy" Laker - self-made multimillionaire British businessman; airline entrepreneur; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Frederick [or Freddy] Laker)

• Tommy Lasorda - baseball team manager; National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee

• David Lean - Oscar-winning British film director (Lawrence of Arabia, DrZhivago, etc.); knighted (United Kingdom: Sir David Lean)

• Anton van Leeuwenhoek - Dutch microscope maker; world's first microbiologist; discoverer of bacteria, blood cells, and sperm cells)

• Richard Branson - self-made billionaire British businessman; founder of "Virgin Atlantic Airways," "Virgin Records," etc.; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Richard Branson)

• Isaac Merrit Singer - American sewing machine inventor; self-made multimillionaire founder of "Singer Industries," "I.M. Singer and Company," etc. (elementary school dropout)

• Alfred E. Smith - New York Governor; 1928 Democratic U.S. Presidential candidate (elementary school dropout)

• Charles Chaplin - Oscar-winning actor-writer-director-producer; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Charles [or Charlie] Chaplin) (elementary school dropout)

• Sean Connery -Oscar-winning actor; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Sean Connery)

• Jack Kent Cooke - self-made billionaire Canadian-born American media businessman

• Noel Coward - Oscar-winning actor-director-producer-playwright-composer; knighted (United Kingdom: Sir Noel Coward) (elementary school dropout)

• Joan Crawford - Oscar-winning actress; former dancer

• Charles E. Culpeper - self-made multimillionaire American businessman; early 1900s' owner and head of "The Coca Cola Bottling Company"

• Robert De Niro - Oscar-winning actor-producer; knighted (France: Chevalier [Knight] of the Legion of Honor; Chevalier [or Chev.] Robert De Niro)

• Gerard Depardieu - Oscar-nominated actor; knighted (France: Chevalier [or Chev.] Gerard Depardieu) (elementary school dropout)

• Richard Desmond - self-made billionaire British publisher

• Thomas Dolby - musician-composer; music producer

• Joe Lewis - self-made billionaire British businessman

• Carl Lindner - self-made billionaire American businessman

• John Llewellyn - U.S. Labor leader pioneer; for 40 years until his retirement, president of the United Mine Workers' Union

• Marcus Loew -self-made multimillionaire American businessman; early Hollywood pioneer; founder of the "Loews" movie-theater chain; co-founder of "MGM" studios (elementary school dropout)

• Mary Lyon -.American women's education pioneer; early American teacher; founder of Mount Holyoke College (America's first women's college)

• Sonny Bono - - singer-songwriter-actor; U.S. Congressman (California U.S. Representative)

• Duke Ellington - Oscar-nominated American composer-bandleader; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

• Ella Fitzgerald - singer; Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

• Aretha Franklin - singer; Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee

• Horace Greeley - American newspaper publisher-editor; U.S. Congressman; 1872 U.S. Presidential candidate; co-founder of the Republican party in the United States

• Thomas Haffa - self-made double-digit billionaire German media businessman

• J.R. Simplot - self-made billionaire American agricultural businessman

• Robert Maxwell - self-made billionaire British publisher

• Rod McKuen - best-selling American poet (elementary school dropout)