Public Schools Can Waste 12 Years of Your Child’s Life

May 01, 2005 (PRLEAP.COM) Business News
STATEN ISLAND, NY – For over fifty years, public-school officials and politicians have tried one education fad after another. They have all failed. Joel Turtel, author of “Public Schools, Public Menace: How Public Schools Lie To Parents and Betray Our Children” explains why public schools can waste 12 years of a child’s life:

1. These schools teach children to read with the whole-language method, which cripples children’s ability to read. That is why after 12 years, millions of graduating high-school students have poor reading skills, and many students can barely read their own diplomas.

2. Public schools teach the “new” or fuzzy math which can cripple children’s ability to do math and destroy their self-confidence. A child who is afraid of math won’t have the confidence to pursue a career in science, computers, or engineering, thereby cutting them off from these rewarding careers.

3. Because these schools cripple children’s ability to read, they must force children to read dumbed-down textbooks in English, History, and many other subjects. The textbooks are geared to the slowest learners in the class and water-down the subject matter. Dumbed-down classes based on dumbed-down textbooks therefore waste children’s time.

4. Most “teaching” in public-schools consists of students having to memorize facts from dumbed-down textbooks, only to regurgitate these same facts on dumbed-down tests. John Holt, in his book, “How Children Fail” points out that most students forget the facts they memorized within a few weeks after the test. So most children learn little from their classes except how to cram their heads with useless facts which they soon forget. This goes on for 12 years.

5. Public schools force children to study subjects they hate, can’t learn, will never use in their lives, or which bore them. For example, many schools force students to study geometry and trigonometry, French or another foreign language, or world history. Children should be studying subjects they love and are good at. When they have to study subjects that bore them, the only thing children learn is to hate learning.

6. Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Edison, Mark Twain, and Abraham Lincoln all went to a formal “grammar” school for less than two years. All were home-schooled by their parents or self-taught after they learned to read. Author John Gatto, in his book “Dumbing Us Down” said that a child eager to learn can learn to read, write, and do basic arithmetic in about 100 hours. Yet our public schools keep children locked up for 12 years, yet can barely teach them to read.

7. Once children learn to read and write well within one to two years of intense study, they don’t need a public school at all. With their parents’ help and guidance, they can direct their own studies and education at home. Over two million children do this right now—it’s called home-schooling.

8. A study by the National Education Commission on Time and Learning found that middle-school and high-school children spent on average only about 50 percent of their school day on core "academic" subjects. The rest of their time is spent on classes such as sex-education, personal safety, consumer affairs, AIDS education, save-the-environment , family life, study halls, multiculturalism, "cooperative-learning" projects, homeroom, electives, counseling, sports activities, or pep rallies (in high school).

9. Public schools are a government-controlled near-monopoly. Bad schools don’t close down because compulsory taxes prop them up. Incompetent or mediocre teachers aren’t fired because tenure laws protect them. That’s why public schools will never improve and will always waste children’s precious time.

The author says, “If parents value their children’s time, passion for learning, and future success in life, then they should consider taking their children out of public school, permanently. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, internationally syndicated radio talk host and author of: “Stupid Things Parents Do To Mess Up Their Kids” said, “This book is a must-read for every parent … .” Turtel provides helpful resources, along with information about his books at his web site www.mykidsdeservebetter.com.

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Contact:
Joel Turtel
jturtel@aol.com
718-447-7348

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