How To Fix Our Public Schools and Rescue America From Disaster
Posted: Saturday, August 27, 2011
by Thomas Haskins
General Inventions
A Cure for the Public Schools
- First Installment -
Public schools in America are in crisis mode. With unfunded federal and state mandates, discipline and motivation concerns and the moral void that has been being cultivated by our society among our students and teachers especially since the early 1960’s, our schools are foundering dangerously. This moral void is a result of the recent removal of the Bible and prayer from the public schools after over 230 years of Constitutional history and precedent supporting and enforcing their presence in the schools (including under the founding fathers)! Do you know that our founding Congress spent public dollars to print the Aitken Bible “for use in the schools”? Attached is their endorsement of the Bible for this purpose. [SearchWarp deleted the image, sorry]. See www dot inthewordsofourfoundingfathers dot com for much more of this kind of evidence.
The answer is that there is an answer and it is quite simple. We must return to the most successful educational model in history, the model practiced by America’s founding fathers. Now you may ask, “What was that model?” Let us take a look at that model over the next few weeks. At the end of this series I will also reveal a plan that will enable our public schools to legally set aside the federal and state unfunded mandates, save millions of dollars per year, and create a superbly educated and morally strong student body. A superb education model is supported by several foundational pillars.
Pillar I: Highly Motivated Parents
The first pillar of the model established by our founding fathers was highly motivated and very involved parents, parents who expected and required their children to behave, study, learn and better themselves. When John Adams expressed his lack of desire to study his Latin his father sent him to dig ditches until his attitude changed. It changed very quickly. Many parents of young children in America today did not have parents who involved themselves in the lives of their children or who were willing to go through the uncomfortable experience of maintaining consistent discipline with their children. As a result their parenting model was deeply flawed. If the parents of today want to live in a society that is safe, prosperous and functional later in their lives, then they need to get very involved in their children’s lives and education because those children will be running the country when their parents grow old. I will say it again, if America’s parents do not get deeply involved in the lives of their children and begin to protect their children from disaster by consistently enforcing proper rules and standards in their lives then they will eventually find themselves in a society where our retirement funds are being stolen; our politicians are corrupt and ignore the will of the people; our government is intruding into our private lives and personal rights and our national and local finances are teetering on bankruptcy. Wait a minute, that sounds very familiar . . . but it is not too late!
There is a famous saying, “A man who does not discipline his son hates him.” This is a true statement. If you truly love your child you will go through the uncomfortable experience of disciplining your child consistently and whenever needed. You will not let your child walk all over you or get away with breaking the rules you set for them because that will destroy them For parents of children with discipline problems there are two superb resources worth utilizing. The first is the Bible. This was the resource utilized by our founding fathers and America’s early education system, and it enabled them to create the strongest, most righteous citizenry in history. This is the resource utilized by early Americans and our founding fathers and they did not have discipline issues in their schools or in their homes generally (certainly not discipline problems like what we have experienced since the 1960’s)! When children are not kept within the safety net of consistent, unchanging rules and standards they do not learn that there exists independent and unchanging truth. They also do not learn that some actions and decisions are wrong and some are right. Another, more recent resource is the Total Transformation Program which can be found at thetotaltransformation dot com ( I am not in any way connected with this program or company).
This program is hugely successful and has helped many, many families return peace and order to their homes. It is also available for school systems to use and they provide a help hotline for those who purchase the program. I have a copy of this program and would love to make it available to the Pubic Schools for use in the schools to empower the teachers and administrators to maintain excellent discipline and to empower the students to maintain excellent self discipline. I have the approval of the licensing company for this purpose and it has already been utilized by other public school systems very successfully. In the next installment we will discuss the 2ndpillar of the founding fathers’ education model: A Moral and Religious Student Body.
- Second Installment –
Pillar II: A Moral and Religious Student Body
The second pillar of the founding fathers’ education model was a moral and religious student body taught by moral and religious teachers. If you think I am saying that the teachers in our schools are immoral I have this to say: Early Americans and our founding fathers would most certainly have described MOST Americans (including our teachers) as immoral because most of us have lost the moral compass of our founding fathers, and I do not exempt myself from this indictment. I am not blaming our teachers. Many of them work hard, they mean well and they do the best they can within the limiting confines now placed on them by our corrupt and broken system. I am blaming our broken system, but I am blaming us, the American people, for allowing our leaders to take us down an immoral path toward confusion and destruction.
We each need to examine our lives closely and change our choices if America is to continue free and prosperous. We have traveled so far from the moral standard of America’s foundation (The Bible’s standard) that we do not even realize as a people how immoral we have become. It is this (our) immorality that is destroying us from within.
Whether it is simple and brief or deep and extensive, any perusal of the curriculum of the early American education system, including under the founding fathers and throughout the 1800’s will make this very clear. The Bible was the primary text book and many of the other text books quoted the Bible freely and regularly. For those who claim the Bible cannot be used in public schools I would remind our readers of the fact that in several U. S. Supreme Court decisions it has been made clear that the Bible can be used in the public schools to teach history, literature, comparative religions and ethics. ETHICS! (See Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980), Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226 (1990), Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263 (1981)). Below is a memorandum sent by President Bill Clinton to Attorney General Janet Reno and Secretary of Education William W. Riley in the summer of 1995, which they were required to communicate it to the public schools before the start of the next school year:
“As our courts have reaffirmed ... nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones, or requires all religious expression to be left behind at the schoolhouse door. While the government may not use schools to coerce the conscience of our students or to convey official endorsement of religion, the government's schools also may not discriminate against private religious expression during the school day.
I have been advised by the Department of Justice and the Department of Education that the First Amendment permits-and protects-a greater degree of religious expression in public schools than many Americans may now understand.”
While this directive is closer to the principles practiced and enforced by the authors and ratifiers of the Constitution and the First Amendment, it is still a gross contradiction of those principles and practices. Never-the-less, it is a step back toward the successful model of our founding fathers that we left behind in the early 1960’s
I would also remind the readers that the founding fathers expected the Bible to be used to teach religion and morality in the private and public schools, and it was under their watchful eyes.
This notion of “separation of church and state” is not in any of our founding documents, including the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and it is the opposite of what was practiced and “preached” by our founding fathers. In fact, quite to the contrary, our fourth founding document, “The Northwest Ordnance” declared,
“Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
Did you notice the direct link between government-sponsored education and religion? It is as simple and clear as A + B = C.
The separation intended by our founding Fathers was the separation of the government of the church from the government of the people. Their primary concern was that the government of the people not infringe on the government of the church or the free private and public expression of religion by the citizenry. Of course they also did not want the government of the church to infringe on the government of the people. The founding fathers themselves expressed their Christian religion openly and regularly in their public and official government activities. They intended that each local community exercise their freedom of religion by teaching their children religion in the schools as well as at home, and this is what happened under the Constitution for over 175 years! Incidentally, when the founding fathers referred to religion, they meant the Christian religion.
The founding fathers understood that a moral and religious student body would grow up to be a moral and religious citizenry and an immoral and irreligious student body would grow up to be an immoral and irreligious citizenry. An immoral and irreligious citizenry is by definition selfish, corrupt and self destructive as much of America is today. Just take a close look at any atheistic society in history and you will see this plainly. Unfortunately, since the 1960’s we have raised an immoral and irreligious public student body and they have grown up to be an immoral and irreligious citizenry. W are now reaping the consequences in spades! In the words of John Adam:
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion...Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
We are seeing the terrible fruits of America’s rejection of these principles in our prison populations, crime rates, our public and private corruption pandemic and our bankrupt fiscal policies. We are also experiencing it in our diseases, both physical and psychological. America’s immorality is destroying our families, our society and our national finances.
George Washington added,
“Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail, in exclusion of religious principle.”
William H. McGuffey, publisher of The McGuffey Reader which was a cornerstone of America’s early education system said,
“From no source has the author drawn more copiously than from the Sacred Scriptures. For this [I[ certainly apprehend no censure. In a Christian country, that man is to be pitied, who, at this day, can honestly object to imbuing the minds of youth with the language and spirit of the Word of God.”
Samuel Adams said,
“As piety, religion and morality have a happy influence on the minds of men, in their public as well as private transactions, you will not think it unreasonable, although I have frequently done it, to bring to your remembrance the great importance of encouraging our University, town schools, and other seminaries of education, that ourchildren and youth while they are engaged in the pursuit of useful science, may have their minds impressed with a strong sense of the duties they owe to their God.
He added,
If we continue to be a happy people, that happiness must be assured by the enacting and executing of the reasonable and wise laws expressed in the plainest language and by establishing such modes of education as tend to inculcate in the minds of youth the feelings and habits of ‘piety, religion and morality.’ [E]ducation . . . leads the youth beyond mere outside show [and] will impress their minds with a profound reverence of the Deity . . . It will excite in them a just regard to Divine revolution.”
Gouverneur Morris, penman and signer of the Constitution. Stated boldly,
“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God”
In 1787 when Benjamin Franklin helped found Benjamin Franklin University, it was dedicated as "a nursery of religion and learning, built on Christ, the Cornerstone.”
Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence declared,
“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.”
Daniel Webster, considered the father of the American education system said,
“The attainment of knowledge does not comprise all which is contained in the larger term of education . . . [A] profound religious feeling is to be instilled and pure morality inculcated under all circumstances. All this is comprised of education.”
I could go on for a long time with many more such quotes from the authors of this Great American system of government and education, and I have not left out any contrary quotes from the founding fathers concerning this issue. This message from the writings and actions of our founding fathers is unequivocal and united. As a result of our departure from these two principles our schools and governments are on the verge of bankruptcy, our students, in general, are dangerously ignorant and immoral, and crime, apathy and violence is growing at an alarming rate. Close to 30% of Americans have a sexually transmitted disease and these diseases are spreading fastest among our youths. This could not be if America had held close to the moral standards found in the Bible which prohibit sex outside of marriage. Only loose sexual lifestyles can cause this problem. Next week we will continue with the next foundational pillar of the most successful education model in history: The Unique Curriculum.
- Third Installment –
Pillar III: The Unique Curriculum
Early American schools had far, far less money and fewer resources than modern American public schools have today, yet they produced far, far better educated and informed students as a whole. As a result they produced considerably better quality and better producing citizens. Our public schools have far more money and recourses today than our private schools have, yet they generally offer a significantly inferior education. I recently reviewed an early American 4thgrade mathematics test. I would estimate that at least to 95% of American adults would struggle to pass this test today! How did the early Americans do it? How do our current private schools do it? The early American schools expected and maintained personal discipline among their students and, with the help of parents, they fostered an atmosphere of self discipline and concentrated education. They did not have all sorts of student clubs and useless, sometimes counter-productive student activities. The Students studied, quietly and obediently and the result was superb.
One of the key characteristics was that the schools were locally controlled and the federal and state governments did not dictate every nook and cranny of the curriculum or educational system. “The school system remained largely private and unorganized until the 1840s. Public schools were always under local control, with no federal role, and little state role.” – Wikipedia. This empowered the local community to raise and educate their children with their own values and priorities.
Return to the McGuffey Reader
The McGuffey Reader was first published in 1836 to teach reading, writing and spelling to the American students. It swept the country and profoundly influenced the entire nation. Not only did it provide the students with a matchless education in these subjects, but it inculcated in them a strong moral fiber and a pervading understanding of each person’s duty to their neighbor and to God. How did it instill this moral fiber into America’s students? It achieved this vital purpose by quoting the Bible extensively and teaching them the moral standards explained in the Bible! Remember that many classrooms taught by clergy. If Americans today were to adhere to the moral model of the Bible, a majority of our social and fiscal problems such as rampant divorce, child abuse and child sexual abuse, rampant sexually transmitted diseases, public and private corruption and many more would disappear or diminish dramatically.
In the words of James MchHenry, a signer of the Constitution:
“Public utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses, and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience.” -James McHenry –Signer of the Constitution.
I have documented this relationship in my book, “In The Words of Our Founding Fathers”, available at Amazon dot com or inthewordsofourfoundingfathers dot com. Remember that many of the founding fathers were still alive and running America’s governments during this time!
Early American education contained no fluff. It was efficient both fiscally and in terms of content and daily schedule. Students spent more time studying and less time playing. Education was rigorous and serious and strict discipline (strict discipline does not have to include abuse) was maintained among the students and teachers. There were few or no organized sports or fraternities. Students attended school to learn the subjects that would make them resourceful and productive citizens of a thriving and challenging republic. The subjects they studied included republican virtues, rhetoric, history, Latin, Greek, ancient Hebrew, civics, literature, mathematics, philosophy and science. Importantly, reason, logic and debate were often included in the students’ training.
Cooperation and one’s duty to your fellow man were emphasized over self interest and individual independence.
Morality and ethics. “By the late 19th century, these institutions were extending and reinforcing the tradition of women as educators and supervisors of American moral and ethical values.” – Wikipedia, “History of Education in America” - Sarah Robbins, "'The Future Good and Great of our Land': Republican Mothers, Female Authors, and Domesticated Literacy in Antebellum New England," New EnglandQuarterly 2002 75(4): 562-591. Note the link between education and moral and ethical values. In the 19thcentury education stressed the importance of virtuous families for a successful republic. This definition included the students learning a family model as consisting of one man and one woman in secure matrimony. This is quite the opposite of many of today’s schools which, in some cases push same-sex marriage and alternative lifestyles on the unsuspecting and impressionable students, against the will of many of their parents. The early Americans understood that a society of whole and stable families will be strong and resilient, while a society of broken families will fall apart, much like America is doing today.
In many instances this educational model included apprenticeships that would provide the students with a practical income immediately upon graduation.
Students were taught their role, purpose and responsibility in life. The New England was the primary early education textbook until the 1790s. The “Primerenabled the Puritan child to define the limits of his self by relating his life to the authority of God and his parents.” . . . The "blue backed speller" of Noah Webster was by far the most common textbook from the 1790s until 1836, when the McGuffey Readers appeared. Both series emphasized civic duty and morality, and sold tens of millions of copies nationwide. Wikipedia - John H. Westerhoff III, McGuffey and His Readers: Piety, Morality, and Education in Nineteenth-Century America (1978)
Language: Early American education was designed around the notion that a ”nation's linguistic forms and the thoughts correlated with them shaped individuals' behavior. Thus the etymological clarification and reform of American English promised to improve citizens' manners and thereby preserve republican purity and social stability.” Wikipedia - Vincent P. Bynack, "Noah Webster and the Idea of a National Culture: the Pathologies of Epistemology." Journal of the History of Ideas 1984 45(1): 99-114. This is why it is so vital that all Americans learn English universally as our national language.
Home schooling was also a very integral part of the early American educational system. Parents were not only closely involved in their childrens’ education, they were often their teachers and private tutors.
As a result of this educational model, America had one of the highest literacy rates in the world by the middle of the 19thcentury.
- Fourth Installment –
Final Edition: A Practical Solution
In this final edition I will propose a simple, yet powerful solution to the onerous and crippling legal constraints that are the primary cause of the failure of our public school systems. The problem that is most prominent in the minds of many Americans is the many unfunded federal and state mandates that public schools have to comply with, while private schools do not. These unfunded mandates take away from our students not only millions of dollars a year but many other resources that could otherwise be devoted to a better education.
The other onerous and crippling legal constraints placed on our public schools (and is not placed on our private schools) is the over zealous application of this historically discredited and Constitutionally illegal notion of “separation of church and state”. One of the primary differences between public and private schools is the complete absence or the presence of God and the Bible/religion, respectively. Just in case you are wondering, our private schools produce a majority of our scholars, and their graduates score consistently higher than those from our public schools, far higher. Our private schools achieve these astounding results at ¼ to ½ the cost of our public schools! How do they do this? They achieve these great results because they are following far more closely the superbly successful model of America’s founding fathers. This is the model to which we must return as a society.
The first issue is crippling our schools financially while the second issue is crippling our schools and our students morally. As I mentioned before, the ultimate result of these two crippling forces is that they are crippling our entire society in the same two areas. Here is how we can eliminate both problems at once:
Privatize the public School Systems. Shut down the public school system in each town and create a non-profit private school system called the [insert town name] Private School System. Since state law requires every town to provide free education to its children, the town will provide the parents of all our children with school vouchers which they can use to pay for the tuition in the [town] Private School System. “In 1925 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Pierce v. Society of Sisters that students could attend private schools to comply with state compulsory education laws, thus giving parochial schools an official blessing. – Wikipedia - Hennesey, American Catholics pp 247-48. The town will rent the school facilities to the [town] Private School System which will return some funds to the town. The town School Committee will also represent a majority membership on the board of directors of the [town] Private School System, enabling the town to continue to direct the education of their children.
I submit that, if any given [town] Private School System models their education after the model of America’s founding fathers, it is also likely that the surrounding towns will begin to send some of their students to the [town] Private School System once the see the superb education that they provide.
So, the town will be complying with the state law mandating they provide free education to their children and the [town] Private School System will be free from the unfunded mandates and they will also be free to educate their children with or without the Bible, whichever they see fit. Additionally, the educational system in each town will be free from the onerous and burdensome interference of the Federal and State governments and subject to the direction of the people of each town! That is, they will be freed from the unnatural and unconstitutional interference of the U. S. Supreme Court (and the ACLU) and will be enabled to return to the educational model created and utilized by America’s founding fathers. This is the model that produced the strongest, most moral, most successful, free and prosperous people in history. America has never been perfect or sinless, however, we have consistently been the most moral people in history. We have used our tremendous power abroad to help many nations and people whereas all of the powerful nations not and historically used such power to conquer and control. Our morally elevated status, however, we began to lose rapidly from the 1960’s until today . . .But it is not too late!
Let us return to our roots and our traditional values. Let us return to the supremely successful model of our forefathers . . .
T. E. S. Haskins
This Article has been viewed 240 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Many are perferring to home school their childrenl. Reason being the schools are
becoming more like jail with too many rules, too much control. Learning is suppose to be fun and exciting and a positive atmosphere. Home school children learn with someone they know and love and have the freedom to be out in the sun when they choose, eat when they choose, break when they choose and be creative how they choose and no one has to form into ridiculous line ups only to sit inside a boxed shaped room inside a boxed shaped building for hours a day, years of their youth.
The school system does nothing but conditioning our children to work a stupid system that no one even wants to live in.
Home schooling is my vote
Yes, currently, but it was not like that in the 1700's and 1800's.
Mr. Haskins, this is one of the most thorough and accurate assessments I have ever read. I have written articles, much shorter and much inferior, attempting to put this same message over. You have done an excellent job and I thank you for it. I can only say this: "I wish I had said that".
Hello joel,
Thank you so much for your kindly response. I am encouraged. If you have any recommendations on how I might get it publishes elsewhere as well I would appreciate your thoughts. What do you think of the plan I propose to privatize a town's entire schools system and thus empower them to circumvent (if the should so choose) the unfunded mandates and the ban on the Bible and prayer? Thank you again.
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