Important Recap!

I have some information that was posted on this blog in December that needs to be repeated. Articles are popping up on the internet about “Dumbing Down America”. Some of them are humorous and some of them are serious. The two articles posted here are in the latter category. It is so important for every citizen to ‘Wake Up’ and realize what is happening in our public schools. Therefore, I am reprinting two critical articles for your review. The first is about a deliberate plot to maintain an under-educated middle and lower class. The second is about the way too many children are being warped by inappropriate and indiscriminate drugging, for alleged psychiatric disorders.

Repeat of Article 1:
Dumbing Down of America?

Wow! This morning I read an article by Tom DeWeese, President of the American Policy Center and Editor of The DeWeese Report.

I say “Wow!”, because this is quite an article.

Mr. DeWeese makes a solid argument that there is a a deliberate conspiracy on the part of the Department of Education and the National Education Association (NEA) to dumb-down American education. Along the way he blasts No Child Left Behind (NCLB) as failing to address the core problems.

This article gives an overview of the ‘Big Picture’ so clearly that it is hard not to immediately agree with everything he says. In fact, Mr. DeWeese spells out the disaster that our schools have become so well, that I can only hope that people (especially parents and taxpayers) will be jolted into action to demand change.

The article explains so many things:

• 20 years ago the US ranked FIRST in the world in high school diplomas and college degrees.




• Now our education system ranks 18th out of 24 industrialized nations in effectiveness.




• We are already second in the world in money spent per student, yet




• American students grow more illiterate by the year.

As Mr. DeWeese points out,

“Twenty years ago the U.S. ranked first in the world in the number of young adults who had high school diplomas and college degrees. Today we rank ninth and seventh, respectively, among industrialized nations. Compared to Europe and Asia, 15-year-olds in the United States are below average in applying math skills to real-life tasks.”

He continues by pointing out that the National Education Association is NOT a professional organization of teachers dedicated to improving quality of teaching. Instead, Americans need to remember that it is a Labor Union, with the goal being to “. . . get more money into the educational system. Clearly the NEA is not about education - it’s about money and a political
agenda.”

The article pulls no punches. Rather than try to paraphrase, let me quote directly:

“Clearly the nation’s education system is not teaching the children. They can’t read or work math problems without a calculator. They can’t spell, find their own country on a map, name the president of the United States or quote a single founding father. America’s children are becoming just plain dumb.

“Yet we have been focusing on a massive national campaign to “fix” the schools for the past decade or more. Now we have ultra high-tech, carpeted, air-conditioned school buildings with computers and television sets. We have education programs full of new ideas, new methods, and new directions. In the 1990’s we set “national standards,” accountability through “national testing” through Goals 2000.

Through that program we declared that every child would come to school “ready to learn,” “no child would be left behind,” and pledged that our kids would be “second to none” in the world. Above all, we’ve spent money, money and more money. The result, American students have fallen further behind, placing 19th out of 21 nations in math, 16th in science, and dead last in physics.

“Most Americans find that statement to be astonishing and, in fact, to be beyond belief. Parents don’t want to let go of their child-like faith that the American education system is the best in the world, designed to give their children the academic strength to make them the smartest in the world.

Politicians continue to offer old solutions of more money and more federal attention, almost stamping their feet, demanding that kids learn something. Programs are being proposed that call for teacher testing to hold them accountable for producing educated children. More programs call for annual tests to find out if children have learned anything. The nation is in panic. But none of these hysterical responses will improve education - because none of them address the very root of the problem.

“As fantastic as it seems, the entire history of the education restructuring effort is carefully and thoroughly documented in a book called The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. The book was written by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, a former official at the Department of Education in the Reagan Administration. While there in 1981 - 1982, Charlotte found the “mother lode” hidden away at the Department. In short, she found all of the education establishment’s plans for restructuring America’s classrooms. Not only did she find the plans for what they intended to do, she discovered how they were going to do it and most importantly why. Since uncovering this monstrous plan, Charlotte Iserbyt has dedicated her life to getting that information into the hands of parents, politicians and the news media.

He concludes:

“Americans who want to rid the nation of this plague have little choice but to insist that their representatives in Congress begin a complete investigation into the Department of Education and its policies, its waste, and its fraud on the taxpayers, parents and children of this nation.

“Perhaps then, as the facts are exposed under the hot lights of a Congressional hearing, the American people will begin to understand that the problem with education isn’t low paid teachers and crowded classrooms - but rather, is the result of a cynical, deliberate attempt to dumb-down America to promote a radical political agenda. For that is the truth.”

This article is so chock full of ideas that I have included a link here, so that you can read it in it’s entirety.

Looks like it’s time to wake up and take action! Read Set Our Teachers FREE! A Plan to Save Public Education by Don Kingsland. Learn how parents, teachers and taxpayers can change American Public Schools with The Kingsland Plan.

WOW!

Repeat of Article 2:
Education & Bipolar Disorder Revisited

Massive increases in the diagnoses of psychiatric disorders in America’s children!

In 1994, there were twenty thousand documented cases of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Today, there are 800 thousand cases. That’s forty times as many diagnoses! But ADHD is just one diagnosis.

What about the massive increase in Bipolar Disorder diagnoses? Forty times as many cases from 1994 to 2003? And many more since then!

Bipolar Disorder, sounds neat and clean, doesn’t it? Yup! Bipolar Disorder. But it’s just a sanitized way to describe a condition that used to be called Manic-Depression. Does that ring any bells?

Think back to all the things you’ve ever heard about Manic-Depression and the odd behaviors associated with it. Just keep reminding yourself that 40 times as many children have been diagnosed with an illness that was formerly only thought to occur in adults (and that still has not been proved to even exist in children). And they are being medicated with powerful and expensive drugs, that have serious side effects. Who stands to benefit from this? Huh?

Well, I’ve done some real pondering on this issue. It is especially personal to me, because I have loved ones who suffer with this painful emotional dichotomy. I have seen the ravages of this “disorder” first-hand.

First, let me say that in spite of the increase in diagnoses, even the experts don’t agree whether it is a valid diagnosis in children, or not. And even specialists who say it may be a valid diagnosis say that bipolar disorder is over-diagnosed.

Let’s take a look at some issues that may lead to this type of diagnosis:

• A child may have an explosive personality, with outbursts.
• A child may exhibit aggression.
• A child may be angry, even have rage.

Now, let’s look at each of these issues:

FIRST:
Childhood is a time of bombastic, even explosive, outbursts. Do you ever remember your parents telling you to “settle down”, or to “speak more quietly” when you were a child? Have you ever thought back as an adult and wished you had one-tenth of the energy you experienced as a child? Or, have you ever watched a youngster get angry with a playmate, then quickly settle down to play harmoniously after the tears were dried?

Childhood is the time when we learn about the world, ourselves and others. It is a time when we learn to modulate, moderate and curb our enthusiasms. It is the time when we learn, through trial and error, to play nicely with others, or suffer the consequences.

SECOND:
With the role models children are inundated with on a daily basis (through the media, including warfare games on their Playstations), is it any wonder that children see aggression as the mode to success in life?

Losers are weak; they let people walk all over them; they even get killed. The strong get what they want.

Psychiatrists have known for years that Passive-Aggressive behavior is one of the chosen defense mechanisms of those who feel they can gain control in no other way.

Who has less control over their lives than a child? They don’t get to decide if there is a divorce or if they get to see their father (or mother, as the case may be). Nowadays, they may not even HAVE an acknowledged father. They have no say about where they will live or under what conditions. In most cases, they don’t even get to decide what they’re going to get to eat for dinner. Helpless? Hopeless? Possibly.

THIRD:
Given the helplessness and lack of control I just mentioned, is it possible a child can be angry, even in a rage, over the conditions in their lives? Does it make sense to say the child has a “disorder” because they have these angry feelings? Given the natural childhood tendencies to rambunctiousness, and the automatic need to learn modulation and moderation, children need time to learn how to handle these explosive emotions.

How dare we say that anti-psychotic drugs are the preferred solution! These emotional upheavals and mood swings are not just a modern phenomena. One only needs to read the tragic fiction love story of “Romeo and Juliet”, written many years ago by William Shakespeare, to realize that emotional upheaval (and faulty judgments and behaviors) of young people have been with us for a long time.

As a society, we need to start looking at the causes of some of this anger and rage, instead of just prescribing drugs (which, by the way, were never intended for children and have nasty side-effects, like massive weight gain, tremors and lack of fine motor skills, just to name a few).

Psychiatrists don’t know if the children being treated would ever have developed a full-blown case of Bipolar Disorder as adults. Even psychiatrists are arguing among themselves whether this is a valid diagnosis for children, some as young as 5 or 6.

What they DO KNOW is that most children who qualify for the diagnosis DO NOT develop mania in later years. No, they usually develop clinical depression. How sad!

If you’ve ever known an adult diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (which used to be called Manic Depression), then you know they can function as level-headed, sane adults, with no outlandish behaviors or flamboyance, IF THEY TAKE THEIR MEDICINE. The difficulty is keeping them on their medications because they miss the wonderful exhilaration of their manic phases.

Is it any wonder these diagnosed children grow up to be depressed? They are being sedated before they’ve even had a chance to experience the childhood exhilaration of just being alive!

We have some serious problems in our society, including a public educational system that has completely deteriorated. The issue of over-diagnosing psychiatric disorders gives a whole new meaning to “drugs in our schools”. It’s about time that we wake up to the fact that things won’t get fixed with a pill.

Social problems are impacting our educational system and social problems MUST be taken into consideration in any education reform programs.

What we are doing to our children is insane! We are teaching them that pills and drugs are the solution to every uncomfortable problem. And we wonder why drug abuse is so prevalent in our country.

If you want to know about a plan that will revamp our school systems completely AND offers solutions for the impact of social problems in our schools, then you MUST read Set Our Teachers FREE! A Plan to Save Public Education by Don Kingsland. Learn all about The Kingsland Plan TODAY! I’d be happy to tell you where you can get your very own copy!

Remember, drugs can be THE problem, not THE solution!

Brennan Kingsland, RN, BSOM, CHN

Save Our Schools

The Kingsland Plan

Filed under: Education News