I am a proponent of a total education….especially in history and civics for without a knowledge of these essentials then an educated citizenry will be pliable to the ideas and programs of authoritarianism…..as we see today in our beloved country.
I bring all this up because of something I read the other day about our children and their knowledge…..
For instance…..you know the famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware on his way to the successful attack in New Jersey during the Revolutionary War…..a recent study found that many students struggle to identify the standing man in the small boat….(hint: It was George Washington)
Far too many American students are failing to learn the basics about their country’s history and how their government operates, according to the assessment known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” The average history score among eighth-graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) dropped five points between 2018 and 2022 to 258, the lowest on record, NPR reports. In 1994, the first year of assessment, the average score was 259. Civics scores also dropped for the first time in the assessment’s history. According to the findings, only 14% percent of American eighth-graders are proficient in US history and 22% are proficient in civics.
Far too many American students are failing to learn the basics about their country’s history and how their government operates, according to the assessment known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” The average history score among eighth-graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) dropped five points between 2018 and 2022 to 258, the lowest on record, NPR reports. In 1994, the first year of assessment, the average score was 259. Civics scores also dropped for the first time in the assessment’s history. According to the findings, only 14% percent of American eighth-graders are proficient in US history and 22% are proficient in civics.
NAEP carries out the assessment on a nationally representative group of students from more than 400 public and private schools every four years. Results released last year showed steep drops in reading and math scores. Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, called the history and civics results a “national concern,” the Washington Post reports. Too many students, she said, are struggling to “understand and explain the importance of civic participation, how American government works and the historical significance of events.”
The NAEP found that around 68% of eighth-graders are taking classes focused on US history, down from 72% in 2018, AP reports. Around half were taking classes focused on civics or government. In a statement, US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said the report “further affirms the profound impact the pandemic had on student learning in subjects beyond math and reading,” though the Post notes that the decline in history scores began in 2014. Cardona added: “Banning history books and censoring educators from teaching these important subjects does our students a disservice and will move America in the wrong direction.”
This says it all and the best example of how destructive moronic programs that limit education have become.
Students are no longer teach what it means to be American…..a good education is a unifying characteristic which teaches students that we are all in this together…..nit the crap they are forced to teach these days.
It is common knowledge that I think our War Department is like a spoiled child…..we throw money at it to keep it quiet and pacified. Americans care more about some far away mud hole than the people down the street…..we have become a bloodthirsty pack of ingrates.
The War Department must invent international problems to ensure the money keeps rolling in.
So the ‘sucking’ sound you hear is the tax dollars being siphoned off to appease the gods of war.
America is a stratocracy, a form of government dominated by the military. It is axiomatic among the two ruling parties that there must be a constant preparation for war. The war machine’s massive budgets are sacrosanct. Its billions of dollars in waste and fraud are ignored. Its military fiascos in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East have disappeared into the vast cavern of historical amnesia. This amnesia, which means there is never accountability, licenses the war machine to economically disembowel the country and drive the Empire into one self-defeating conflict after another. The militarists win every election. They cannot lose. It is impossible to vote against them. The war state is a Götterdämmerung, as Dwight Macdonald writes, “without the gods.”
Since the end of the Second World War, the federal government has spent more than half its tax dollars on past, current and future military operations. It is the largest single sustaining activity of the government. Military systems are sold before they are produced with guarantees that huge cost overruns will be covered. Foreign aid is contingent on buying U.S. weapons. Egypt, which receives some $1.3 billion in foreign military financing, is required to devote it to buying and maintaining U.S. weapons systems. Israel has received $158 billion in bilateral assistance from the U.S. since 1949, almost all of it since 1971 in the form of military aid, with most of it going towards arms purchases from U.S. weapons manufacturers. The American public funds the research, development and building of weapons systems and then buys these same weapons systems on behalf of foreign governments. It is a circular system of corporate welfare.
Americans piss and moan about this part of society or that is falling apart and yet are uncaring about needed funds being sent aboard on some adventure that never turns out to be good for the nation as a whole.
In Saner Thought 