As America prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of its independence it is apparent that many citizens know little if anything about the history of their country.
Based on national statistics students graduating from America’s high schools know little about anything else either, including geography or math.
Why? Many students can’t read and therefore cannot comprehend their textbooks. Union teachers and ideological administrators prioritize using classrooms for sociopolitical messaging over instruction.
According to an analysis of state standardization tests taken by more than two million K-8 students, reading scores of Americas fourth and eighth graders are now two points below the 2022 level, dropping three points lower than the already low 2019 level.
Covid didn’t cause the decrease, say experts, it only increased it.
Chicago schools are a prime example of what’s going wrong. On May 1 Chicago teachers fought to close the city’s schools for May Day with the explicit goal of bringing its students out to protest the Trump administration and ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) and what its organizers called “fascism”. In May students and teachers bolted schools to attend a May 1 International Workers’ Day protest.
The schools stayed open to thwart a walkout this year, but teachers and students attended the protests anyway on the taxpayers’ dime. This in a city that dismally lags the nation’s average in academic scores. Unfortunately, the union’s undereducated students couldn’t spell ICE if they were spotted the “I” and the “C”.
Samples of the damage the teachers’ unions are doing are apparent weekly on The FOX News Jesse Waters program that features a man-on-the-street segment where a flippant interviewer named Johnny asks people simple questions about current events and American history.
Prowling packed summer beaches with his microphone and camera Johnny regularly interviews pretty bikini-clad college coeds and their male companions whose answers to simple questions publicly displays their ignorance and should embarrass educators, particularly the schools these nitwits attend.
Their giggling answers to questions such as who won the Civil War range from Germany and Russia to Canada and California. I’m not making this up. They would be hilariously funny if the college student respondents weren’t so giddy and nonchalantly dim.
It’s as if they were taught history and geography by the “Sailor Boys” Rosemary Clooney sang about in her humorous 1955 song “Sailor Boys, They Talk To Me In English”:
Sailor boy he talk to me in English
Sailor boy he tell me what to say
Sailor boy he talk to me in English
Now I know all about the USA
San Francisco is in Chicago
Arizona is in Wyoming
Missouri is in Machusetts
And everything in Texas is Vermont
The man successful is in the navy
Is very lucky to kiss the sailor
He promise next year I win the sweepstake
So I kiss the sailor when he tell me that
Sailor boy he talk to me in English
Sailor boy he tell me what to say
Sailor boy he talk to me in English
Now I know all about the USA
The president man is Davy Crockett
He join the navy to come and see me
He make me present of Pennsylvania
But every time we kiss I give him back
He bring me banjo from Old Suzanna
Sing me chorus from Yankee Doodle
And in the moon-light he say he love me
And I love to hear a sailor tell me that
People have posted Internet videos of citizens who can’t identify what country the United States gained its independence from; some didn’t know July 4 is Independence Day; others can’t name the first president.
It is unfortunate that people are this ignorant. Our public education system is failing. And it’s the teachers’ unions that are largely to blame, because they’re too busy with their political agendas and campaign fund raising to be bothered with education.
Teachers pay union dues. Citizens pay taxes to pay teachers and fund schools. Where’s the money actually going? Obviously not toward education.
The national teachers’ unions have spent more than $1 billion on political activity and advocacy since 2015, according to The Center Square news service.
It reported the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association together directed $669 million in federal political spending and an additional $336 million in state and local spending. The total includes member dues, political action committee contributions and Committee on Political Education funds. Teachers’ unions collect COPE and PAC dollars separately from their dues and fees. There is no money collected that appears to go toward improving the education of America’s children, just money to left-wing causes and funds to help elect more radical extremists.
So, where are the Congressional hearings with TSA President Randi Weingarten and other union offenders being questioned about their dismal failures, questionable finances. and indoctrination efforts?
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Meanwhile Back At The Ranch: There’s a Nassau County organization hereabouts dedicated to ensuring that area students are learning about America’s history and the qualities that made it the greatest nation in the world.
The U.S. Constitution Scholarship Foundation (USCSF) is a 501(c)3 educational and scholarship organization dedicated to increasing knowledge and understanding of the U.S. Constitution.
Its programs include the University of US, a free after school educational program available to high school students in Nassau County.
Established to promote a greater understanding and appreciation of the U.S. Constitution. Through its Scholarship Program, USCSF has awarded over $350,000 in Scholarships and Awards to qualifying Nassau County high school students. Its annual Constitution Bowl provides an opportunity for teams from all Nassau County high schools and home school students to compete for thousands of dollars in scholarship awards by answering questions about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and key Supreme Court decisions.
Its Speakers Forum program brings comprehensive speakers to Nassau County on an annual basis to educate and engage the broader community. These forums are open to the public and serve as a vehicle to introduce the Nassau County community at large to the financial commitment that USCSF is making to this effort and the need for financial support.
The Foundation awarded a total of $65,251 to Nassau County high school students this year alone, raising its cumulative award total to $418,883 since its inception in December 2016.
They can be contacted by going to: info@uscsf.net, calling (904) 261-5261 or writing them at 1471 Sadler Road, Box 216, Fernandina Beach, FL, 32034.
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Speaking Of America: Since we are just a few weeks away from our 250th July 4, following is a brief reminder of how we got here:
The United States declared its independence in 1776 but didn’t officially secure it until 1783 following seven years of warfare against Britian, which at the time was the most powerful military force in the world.
It wasn’t until 1781 when Lord Cornwallis realized that his exhausted army was trapped in Yorktown, Virginia, between the American allied French fleet and Washington’s revolutionary army that Cornwallis surrendered his 7,000 soldiers, 900 seamen, 144 cannon, and 30 ships ending almost eight years of warfare.
The war officially ended on September 3, 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
Many of the founding fathers that signed the 1776 Declaration of Independence ended up losing their lives and fortunes by the end of the war. American combatants paid a heavy price with some 6,800 killed, 6,100 wounded, and more than 17,000 dying from disease (such as smallpox), starvation, and exposure.
American students should be required to study our origins and the sacrifices that enable them to live in the freest most prosperous country that has ever existed. Teachers and administrators that think otherwise should look for another line of work and should not be allowed within 100 yards of a tax-funded school.
Speaking of July 4 Events
IIhan Omar may have been educated(?) by the same system. I think she got WWI (One) right, but she should take another look at WWII (or WW eleven) as she calls it. OR, I might have been sick the day my school taught about the other nine World Wars in between!!! Just sayin’!
When Jimmy Carter established the Department of Education in 1979 (and thereby receiving the teacher’s union’s endorsements), the USA was #1 in education. Forty seven years and over 4 trillion dollars later, the USA is #40. However, we are #1 in cost per student.
The UAW does not tell GM or Ford what to build or how to built it. They lobby for employee safety, salary, and benefits. Likewis the IUE, IBEW, Teamsters, longshoremen and other unions are there for the employee. So why do the teachers unions and the sub- human filth like Randi Weingarten get any say in the educational product? What oversight does our local school board have over the actual classrooms? Confront each schoolboard candidate on this, and make sure they, not the woke, DEI, trans pushing unions have the final say on curriculum.