Goods News! Princeton Alumni Weekly ran my letter–the one below. My faith in Princeton is partially restored. I think it’s a smart letter, and written in a fairly low key. So why not run it? Well, I’ve noticed more and more how the liberal media help the educators by the simple device of standing silently aside. Enough silence. We will not fix the problems in the schools until more people say, “Hey, you know what, these problems did NOT fall down out of the sky. So-called educators did the dirty work. Now, those same people can fix the problems–not likely–or they can get out of the way and let a new generation of real educators improve education.” Here’s the letter:
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“I want to compliment Norman Augustine ‘57 *59 for his article on American education and productivity. I agree with all his points. So, why are we having these problems?

This article echoes many of the points made in the famous 1983 report titled “A Nation at Risk.” No progress in almost 25 years? Can that be by accident?

Antonio Gramsci, a Communist theoretician, said that if you wish to help poor children, make sure they got a good basic education. Unfortunately, our ed establishment became enamoured with an ideology that emphasizes social engineering over learning and literacy.

There’s a hundred policies and promises I could point to. But the emblematic program for the 20th century will always, I believe, be Whole Word (sight reading). Said to be the best way to teach reading, it is in fact unworkable. Let’s do the numbers. The goal ls that children will memorize 800 words each year, which evidently guarantees semi-literacy through high school. Futhermore, only people with exceptional memories can memorize 10,000 of anything–faces, phone numbers, antiques, houses, or sight-words. But you really need to memorize 25,000 or even 50,000 sight-words to be literate in English (which has a huge vocabulary).

The more you study Whole Word, the more you’ll probably conclude with me it was never anything but a sophistry. I find it especially troubling that the media and academia appear to have stood aside and let educators have their way.

I say it’s time for an Education Revolution (I have a blog by that name). The first step might be to politely suggest that our top educators are not likely to fix problems they have created.

We need lots of new ideas and new blood–people from the arts, business, the military, and the professions. Put Norman Augustine and Bill Gates in charge of the schools. Ah, there would be a fine start.”

Bruce Deitrick Price
Norfolk, Va.
Improve-Education.org

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NOTE: Bruce Price’s EDUCATON REVOLUTION (just Google those 4 words) is on Squidoo.com