Thomas Sowell famously wrote that a growing problem with the US education system “isn’t that Johnny can’t read”. The real problem, Sowell said, is that Johnny can’t think, because “Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.”
As we see, American students have an excess of feeling: mostly rage, resentment and tantrums. They’re certainly in no position to think, or even read and academic achievement doesn’t even figure on the Biden administration’s education radar.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona was blasted by parent groups and advocates for leaving out academics in a statement of priorities amid the Department of Education’s annual report card indicating the largest score drop in reading among nine-year-old students since 1990.
As children struggle to read on grade level, the DOE has been spending hundreds of millions on equity-focused programs and grants. On Wednesday, for example, the DOE announced $116 million in grants “to support equity”.
No wonder more and more parents – including a growing number of black parents – are pulling their children out of a public school system that is focussed more on convincing children to saddle themselves with years of surgical and chemical mutilation, scream helplessly at the sky dragon or obsess with imaginary racial grievances.
On Biden’s first day in office, the president signed an executive order to address “systemic racism” and push equity into all federal agencies, the White House said. Vice President Kamala Harris similarly called for “equity” in the Hurricane Ian relief response in Florida.
Cardona has also said in 2022 that “encouraging teacher diversity” is a key priority.
By “diversity”, they apparently mean trannies, race-baiters and paedophiles.
Teaching kids to actually read and write? Don’t be a bigot.
Parents around the country as well as education experts have been complaining about decreases in literacy as a result of school closures. For example, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, named Kristin Jackson, blamed teachers’ unions for her child’s struggles with reading at grade level.
“I don’t think they have the best interests of kids at all,” she said […]
Former secretary of education William Bennett under President Ronald Reagan said that “[children’s] life chances are radically diminished” when they struggle with literacy.
“Third-grade literacy falling is catastrophic both nationally and individually… When schools fail, the groups that are the hardest hit are those already at highest risk,” Bennett said.
Sure, but at least they feel good about being illiterate and innumerate.
Responding to the nation’s tanking reading and math scores among children, Cardona said – during an interview with CBS News – “We should make sure mental health support access is a foundational part of the experience for our students and staff.”
“For us, it’s critically important that we provide a foundation for mental health support. Access to mental health supports. That we’re aware of our students’ emotional state.”
Fox News
Exactly as Sowell warned, they can’t think, because they don’t even know what thinking is. Cardona, in Sowell’s words, “confuses it with feeling”.
