A few thoughts about the article which appeared Wednesday on American Thinker, a prestigious conservative site for those who don’t know:
One: It’s a good article; I hope everyone will read it. But the thing that really impressed me was the comments, now at 80. They’re typically smart and well-informed. So, to anyone puzzled by what’s going on in the public schools and pressed for time, I say, skip the article and read a few dozen comments. You will learn a lot about the depressing reality that both parents and students must contend with. It is a nightmare. Simple problems are made complicated. Children figure out how to do something but their answer doesn’t count because it’s not done in the bogus way commanded by the school authorities. (The people behind this thing are best understood as ideological fanatics.)
Two: With an assist from Abbott and Costello, this article attempts to be somewhat amusing. Comedy is difficult and not even esteemed on American Thinker. But I like to try because I persist in believing that K-12 education is a comedy gold mine. I keep wondering why SNL has not figured this out. It’s not simple ha-ha humor. It’s graveyard humor. It’s chaos and catastrophe humor. It’s the kind of humor so common in Russia as the people were ground down by the Communist Party.
Three: Point is, education reformers have to try every trick and tactic. There is massive cooperation, let’s say, between the school system, media, foundations, higher education, government agencies, etc. This is what people in the mixed martial arts call a chokehold. The United States of America is in a chokehold. I think what we need most of all is education about education. The people who run our communities should know why sight-words are a bogus method, Common Core is foolishness, and Constructivism is a silly gimmick. Is there anybody in Tidewater who can evaluate those assertions? Is there anybody on the local paper who understands these things? Does anyone in the Republican Party understand why our K-12 system is so in love with mediocrity? Sadly, I don’t think so. If I’m wrong, I would like to see those people step forward. I think the Pilot is obligated to report in depth. I think the Republican Party is too passive. We need fighters.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/03/k12_comedy_core.html
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
In the spirit of #MeToo or #WalkAway, I have a personal horror story to tell about this.
One of my children was behaving badly in public school. He was, however, a straight A student and had tested at an IQ over 170. Still, his bad behavior was so disruptive that the teachers became alarmed and called a meeting with my wife and me. The solution they offered was to place our son in a special ed program with peers who couldn’t read or write. Going through the paperwork during the meeting, my wife noticed that the school counselor had falsified our son’s grades so that he would qualify for the move. All the school representatives suddenly became very apologetic when we pointed this out.
In retrospect I have some sympathy for the school. Our son really was a handful, and I can appreciate they didn’t have many options. But neither did we at the time. So, for us, the promise of public education was all but non-existent. It was, instead, a cruelty.
My choice for public school reform would be robust voucher programs that allow many different escape routes and options under parental control. Barring that, I wouldn’t oppose the simple elimination of public schools as an institution. I have confidence that parents and teachers would work out effective solutions on their own.
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Picking up from, “I think the Republican Party is too passive. We need fighters….”
Today, third hour, Mark Steyn said the most important thing I’ve heard in a long time. He said he’d never seen the Republicans push for anything important. He had never seen conservatives push for anything important. Maybe not his exact words but his comments were that sweeping. Quite remarkable. I’ve been wondering about this passivity.
In particular, I’m troubled by the thought that there is not enough difference between Republicans and Democrats. They merely pretend to squabble? It’s all theater?
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