A Note: Perrin went out carousing late Halloween evening, followed by a book launch dinner party thing Friday night, followed by a Saturday meeting of the Old Timer’s Cigar Club. The proverbial truck has runneth him over and he may have encountered the cold bug. Therefore, quality may be affected. Deal with it.
“Q” is back and advising of pre-battle stations tactical alerts, whatever that might mean. From whence I derived my title! Amidst all the mysterious, cryptic stuff, like “Rig for Red,” I am aware of two subjects about which the anons were dead right: a real-time satellite/Atlantic cable blackout, which I independently verified through multiple intel sources, and; a major shift in the K-12 teaching of certain Twentieth-Century history, which I myself verified. This column has nothing else to do with Q, rather being concerned with the K-12 “education,” history and all, as provided by America’s public schools.
Every time I write one of these academic missives, I conduct a minimal amount of research. Based on my inquiries to The GOOGLE, I usually get results like these:
(American Conservative) Liberal Bias Starts Long Before College
(American Conservative) Should Conservatives leave Public Schools?
Unfortunately, those being AC pieces, they always immediately devolve into quotes from or about charlatans like Dennis Prager or drug addicts like Jordan Peterson. And they wonder why they have failed to conserve anything - the schools least of all. Anyway, the answer to that second title is a resounding “Yes.” Why? Well, there’s no need to take the word of neo-Trotskyites or tearful meth heads. The system itself does an alarmingly good job of self-exposure.
Every single year, the stats come out by the dump truck loads. For instance, we have the US DOE [SIC] NCES 2019 Condition of Education report. (See also: 2018’s report).
Per this year’s NCES indictment, the average public school district spends approximately $12,800 per year, per student. That’s the second-highest in the world, behind Norway’s $15,000 figure. The OECD average is about $9,500; many countries spend considerably less. (Note: Georgia, in general, spends below both the US and the OECD averages).
You’re really getting your money’s worth, let me tell you. Check this out:
Reading proficiency: 4th Grade - 37%, 8th Grade - 36%, 12th Grade - 37%.
Math proficiency: 4th Grade - 40%, 8th Grade - 34%, 12th Grade - 25%.
Science proficiency: 4th Grade - 38%, 8th Grade - 22%, 12th Grade - 34%.
Social Studies: NOT EVEN MEASURED (no need to worry about the Axis-Allies switcharoo, because the kids ain’t paying attention anyway!)
It almost looks like the longer children are in these “schools,” the less they know. With reading, there is essentially no change over eight years of instruction. Math is a freefall collapse that speaks for itself. Given the dependence of science on both reading and mathematics, the rebound from 8th to 12th grades is suspicious. In summation: two-thirds of government school inmates are functionally illiterate and three-quarters are innumerate. Their scientific methods aren’t and they have no concept of history or civic awareness. Yet and still, the national graduation rate is around 85%. Something does not add up, especially given the steady increases in cure-all funding. Mexico, by the way, gets better results for a fraction of the cost. Y’all need to vote harder or something.
This is all part of a long-term trend which is both worsening and terminal. The time for emergency fixes was back in the 80s. Now, it’s time to homeschool or to give up and give in. Tom Ironsides delves deep into these issues and much more in The Substitute. I realize that the Smart Boy Gammas from Farcebook already know all about it, based on some super-relevant movie or something. The rest of you, at least the 37% elite proficients, might want to read up on it.
Said Aristotle, “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” That’s still true twenty-four centuries later - just not in our schools, where the roots and fruits are bitter because they are rotten.