In 2024, 50% of US K-12 students read below grade level. 74% of US K-12 students do math below grade level. 66% of US students write below grade level. Public education is failing to teach reading, writing and math. Kids are bored and are spending too much time on Tic Tok, social media and texting each other.
Those of us with kids, grandkids and great grandkids have seen the deterioration of Public K-12 education since the late 1980s.
Our kids attended Catholic K-12 schools in St. Louis Mo. and Salina Kansas from 1970 to 1983 before tuition was charged. Funding for Catholic Schools was covered by Parish contributions. When we moved to Atlanta Georgia, the Catholic Schools had a 3-year waiting list. We bought a home in Dunwoody GA, a suburb in Metro Atlanta and registered them at Austin Elementary. Our oldest girl had graduated high school in Salina KS and entered Dekalb College of Dental Hygiene with her mom in 1983.
The kids did well at Austin
and went on to Dunwoody HS and did well there. Indoctrination began when prayer
at school was restricted and gender-free titles were introduced. Our kids made
fun of this.
The kids did complain about teachers who couldn’t explain new math. I told them “You are on your own”. After that I showed them how to do math. Our youngest kids graduated from Dunwoody HS in 1992.
In 1986, our first grandchild was born and she and her mom lived with us. She grew up with our kids who were in high school and they were always taking our grand daughter everywhere and so did we. She thrived at Austin Elementary. Later, they moved to Gwinnett County schools where they didn’t teach math. By 2000, Dunwoody HS was completely Woke and our first granddaughter graduated in 2004.
In 2007, Our great grandkids and our first grand-daughter moved back with us. We got to help teach them to walk. They attended Austin Elementary where they were plummeted with “projects”, but they survived. We noticed no indoctrination. In 2020 they moved to the exurbs and the great grandkids found a school they liked. Some Indoctrination was detected during Covid, but the great grandkids made fun of it.
We don’t know of many grandparents who got to help raise their great grandkids. We were blessed and we are grateful. We blame federal education grants for the debacles like new math, condom use, “everybody is racist”, “everybody should be a social justice activist” and teachers who don’t teach reading, writing or math. 3 of our grandkids dropped out of school because they weren’t learning the basics, but they recovered on their own. Our great grandkids are thriving now in the Exurban boondocks.
US Federal funding for K-12 Education by year
2023 $79.6B
2022 $76.4B
2021 $73.5B
2020 $72.7B
2019 $71.1B
https://www.k12dive.com/news/4-charts-explain-federal-FY-2023-K-12-spending/640364/
Most of these federal funds are grants and subsidies with political indoctrination strings attached. If we cut off these funds, the indoctrination will stop. The blame for this sabotage is shared by the US Education Agency, the Congress, the President, the Teacher’s Unions, the State Legislatures and the School Boards. States need to pass Voucher laws and ban all social justice indoctrination or none of this will change.
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We established our family home as a refuge for wounded family members. Their rehabilitation has been aimed at ensuring that they will be self-supporting with jobs they love and can afford to take. We are concerned about the fragility of our economy and believe that we benefitted from the best economy the US has ever seen that lasted over 70 years between 1950 and 2020. We pray that the US will restore energy production, manufacturing and the rule of law to enable us to return to peaceful prosperity.
We know that indoctrination to become social justice activists has replaced reading writing and math in most public schools. We know that school choice using vouchers is being considered and agree with this to force public schools to become competitive. We know that some in Congress believe we should close the US Department of Education and we agree. Our educational attainment scores and systemic indoctrination indicate that K-12 needs to be returned to reading, writing and math. In addition, history, civics, money management, taxes, contracts, driving, car maintenance and nutrition should be included in K-12. All K-12 graduates should have what they need to function as adults.
We know that US colleges are too expensive and non-occupational degrees are worthless to most students. The curriculum needs to be cut back and tailored to occupational degrees. Federal funding of colleges needs to end. State funding should only remain for occupational degrees. We will still need Doctors, Engineers, Programmers, Scientists. Financial Analysts, etc. Lawyers need to become “Origionalists”. The current crop of Lawyers tend to rely on past court rulings that have corrupted the US Constitution and created reversals in Supreme Court Rulings.
We need to move Teen Unemployment from 10% to 5%, so that Teens can learn how to work to provide their own allowances for their own expenses like auto insurance, used cars and spending money. They should work part-time and summers.
Student Loans should be limited to their ability to repay these loans. That should be based on their academic performance, occupational course selection and ability to repay their loans.
US college graduates should blog and speak up about their work experiences to inform K-12 elementary schools, high schools and colleges to get them on-track. They are the products of our deteriorating education system and should weigh in on the reforms.
I attended a Catholic elementary school in the 1950s, a Catholic high school and a Catholic college in the 1960s and can attest to the excellence of the curriculum I received. My costs were lower. My elementary school was free. I got a scholarship to high school that lowered my tuition from $500 per year to $250 per year and my college costs were $1000 per year. I paid 100% of my high school and college costs working as a musician from age 14 and doing summer jobs. In college I took 20 hours per semester and worked 6 nights per week as a musician. I regarded myself as a customer in school and was allowed to retain what I judged to be relevant and was allowed to discard what I judged to be false or irrelevant. I lived at home and commuted to school. I did all my extra-curricular activities in high school and didn’t participate in “campus activities” in college.
To prepare for a career in Personnel, I majored in Psychology as it applied to industrial environments. I was allowed to take graduate seminars in Industrial Psych for undergraduate credit. I took pre-med courses including General Zoology and Chemistry. I didn’t take the usual clinical psych classes. I minored in English, Philosophy and Theology to gain insight to human behavior. My reports, tests and exams were written, not multiple choice. It was a “classical education curriculum”. There were no BS degrees in Human Resources anywhere. I worked as a therapist at St. Louis State School and Hospital as a summer job. We had 900 mentally retarded patients. I also worked at Granite City Steel as a summer job. We had union steelworkers and I predicted they would go bankrupt and close. They did close and were eventually reopened as a US Steel plant. I also worked as a musician 6 nights per week in college. I took 20 hours per semester. College wasn’t hard and I actually enjoyed taking the courses. I graduated in 3.5 years. My work as a musician was my recreation and acted as a ballast to my full schedule.
In my Personnel career, I took the tests I used to individualize employee development. I learned that I was “Inner Directed”. I took the Meyers Briggs and was ENTJ, Extroverted, Intuitive, Thinking and Judging. I took the DISC and was high Dominant and Influencing, low Steadiness in routine work and medium Compliant. I was a leader. I took Personality Styles and I was a Strong Achiever. I took System for Identifying Motivated Abilities and confirmed that my inner directedness and reliance on self-learning drove all of my innovations. All of this confirmed how my motivation drove my career to establish my own consulting practice at age 50.
My purpose in sharing my own experience is to provide a case study of a career for you to use to determine what occupations fit your own motivated abilities. If you can determine God’s Plan for you and pursue that path, you will be eternally grateful for a very good life. I had a ball being me and so should you.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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