Few problems in our society have the ability to shock and frighten us as much as the specter of school violence. As a rule, children do not instinctively kill other children. Thus, when we see reports of school shootings such as the atrocities that were committed in Littleton, Jonesboro, and Paducah, we instinctively cast aside the idea that children in our state going to our schools could ever perpetrate such crimes. This "head in the sand" attitude, however, ignores the very real and alarming level of violence present in Texas schools today.

Statistics compiled by the Texas Education Agency for the 1999-2000 school year indicate that students in Texas schools were cited for 1,230 assaults against school personnel, 1,654 instances of possessing a firearm, knife, club or prohibited weapon on campus, and 646 incidents of gang-related school violence. In addition, Texas schools reported 11,054 incidents of student possession of a controlled substance, and 1,784 terrorist threats. And these are only the incidents that were detected and reported! A report published by the Texas Kids Count project in 1998 placed the total number of assaults committed against students at an appalling 58,634! Clearly our schools are not immune from the problem of student-initiated violence.

The public response to this mind-boggling level of violence in our schools has been swift. Commissions have been formed and numerous studies conducted on the best way to identify "at-risk" students and intervene in dangerous situations. Intervention and prevention strategies have been developed and implemented, metal detectors have been installed, and a host of values-clarification and sensitivity training programs have been put in place. In addition, schools have scrambled to discourage spanking and gun ownership by parents while setting up zero-tolerance policies and hate crimes training programs for students of all ages. In spite of this rash of activity, however, our schools have yet to become safer places to learn.

This failure stems in part from a lack of emphasis on the truly important aspects of a child's development. Numerous studies have shown that media violence and poor academic performance are leading indicators of future tendencies toward violence in young children, yet few educators have been willing to tackle these issues head-on. This should come as no surprise to those who understand the oppressive atmosphere of political correctness in which many educators find themselves today. While beating up on media conglomerates that peddle violent fare to youngsters is acceptable, criticizing "progressive learning techniques" can amount to career suicide. A number of prominent citizens outside the education establishment have taken up these issues, however, and their stories deserve to be heard.

In his book Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill, author Lt. Col. Dave Grossman notes that graphic portrayals of "screen violence" in various forms of visual media have a powerful and far-reaching effect on the minds of impressionable children. He cites several studies that correlate aggressive behavior with exposure to high levels of depicted violence in television programs and movies. In particular, he points out the grave dangers associated with playing ultra-realistic interactive video games in which the player is continuously rewarded for obliterating everything…and everyone…in his path. These virtual "kill simulators" actually train the player to shoot and kill with accuracy and speed while simultaneously giving him intense satisfaction in the number of "kills" he accomplishes-all without upsetting his increasingly jaded conscience. Grossman writes that these games are intended to "arouse instead of awaken; excite instead of examine; splatter instead of study." Ironically, these graphically realistic games are more readily accessible to young children than are R-rated movies. This widespread availability of violent video games undoubtedly contributed to the rampages of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at Littleton, and Michael Carneal at Paducah-all avid players of graphically violent interactive video games.

Beyond the obvious dangers of massive exposure to high levels of screen violence, Grossman touches on a second problem that contributes directly to the formation of violent tendencies in children-illiteracy. His comments on the topic are worth quoting at length.

"It should give us pause when we consider how many millions of adults in America are functionally illiterate. It may seem like a simple solution-too simple to be believable-that literacy skills can act as a buffer to potentially violent behavior. But the more a child is able to verbalize and think on higher levels, the easier it will be to teach children about the consequences of violence."

This fact seems obvious, but its sweeping implications for our society are made clear only when one considers the fact that government studies and employer experience indicate that 40% of American youngsters are functionally illiterate. John Stormer, author of the book None Dare Call It Education, points out that this crisis of ignorance has been created almost out of thin air by an education establishment bent on implementing progressive learning techniques such as "look-see" and "whole reading" at the expense of teaching phonics. He notes that a report issued in 1915 found that "only 22 out of 1000 children between the ages of 10 and 14-slightly over two percent-were illiterate." Although no one reason can be given for the abandoning of phonics education in favor of experimental reading programs, Stormer suggests that this shift was part of an overall effort to undermine and devalue the whole of Western culture in every academic area. Apparently, reading was just one of many casualties in the war against tradition still being waged by the National Education Association.

What can be done to turn the tide on the vital and disturbing issue of youth violence? This question admits no easy answer, but there are simple ways in which concerned parents can make a difference. First, parents must have the courage to screen what their children are watching on television, and monitor what video games they play. This tremendously simple yet exceedingly difficult task is no longer an option for parents whose children are growing up in an increasingly violent world. These reasonable activities can spare children the mental damage done by repetitive exposure to gratuitous violence.

Secondly, parents can take the initiative in making sure that their children are able to read. Phyllis Schlafly, President of the Eagle Forum, has developed a phonics-based reading system called First Reader that empowers parents to teach their children the fundamental building blocks of literacy (for more information, www.firstreader.com).

By increasing literacy and shielding children from violent material, parents may be able to strike a major blow against school violence without ever setting foot in the schoolhouse. These issues must be dealt with quickly and forcefully, however, because all of the metal detectors and sensitivity training programs in the world are no match for a kid with a will and a gun.

Editor's Note: Join Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, John Stormer, Phyllis Schlafly and other noted speakers at the TEF 2001 Education Round-up on September 8, 2001 at the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Fort Worth. For more information, call 972-250-0734 or visit our web site at www.texaseagle.org/roundup.

Teaching children to read at home can be a challenge for you and the youngsters in your family-but it is also an urgent necessity for our nation.

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education detailed the decline in U.S. education and reported: "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed it to happen to ourselves."

Since then, education has declined even further. The National Adult Literacy Survey, which was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, found in 1993 that 90 million American adults-almost half of our adult population-are poor readers, possessing only the most rudimentary reading skills. That means they can't read street signs, instructions on medicine bottles, or fill out a job application.

Unfortunately, this epidemic of illiteracy will get worse, not better. A second U.S. Department of Education study disclosed that more than two-thirds of U.S. children can't read up to their grade level (even though "grade level" expectations have been dumbed down from what they were 50 years ago).

Cornell University sociologist Donald Hayes has released a scholarly report showing that schoolchildren's declining verbal skills are linked to increasingly simplified schoolbooks. Hayes says that first-grade reading books are now written at about "the level at which a farmer talks to his cows."

The consequences of this illiteracy for our nation are enormous. For example, how can an illiterate people understand enough about a complex issue to have an intelligent opinion? Just consider what we are up against when half of the American people cannot read a single article about an important issue, and know only what is put forth by politicians in 20-second sound bites on television!

Our marvelous American constitutional republic, under the process of self-government, cannot survive as a democracy of illiterate people. The media tell us that crime in our cities is our biggest problem. But crime correlates with illiteracy more than any other single factor. If you look at people in prison, the biggest single factor that they have in common is they are illiterate.

Please join me in a nationwide campaign to get all Americans to teach their own children to read-so that when they go to school they will be already started on the road to learning. Unless we are willing to become a society where only the elite can use the written language, mothers and fathers will have to assume the responsibility of teaching their own children to read. It is obvious that the public schools either can't or won't do it.

Editor's Note: Mrs. Schlafly taught all six of her children to read before they entered school and has written a reading program called First Reader to teach young children to read at home. It is available by calling 1-800-700-5228.

With its pictures of earnest schoolchildren busily learning, Regie Routman's book doesn't look dangerous. But like many textbooks used in colleges of education, Invitations: Changing Teachers and Learners K-12 may be keeping thousands of children from mastering basic academic skills. Future teachers learn from Routman, for example, that entirely too much attention is paid to phonics, with the result that "some children have difficulty in learning to read." In fact research has repeatedly shown almost the opposite: attending to phonics is important to preventing reading difficulties.

Invitations, one of the most widely used textbooks in ed schools, illustrates why efforts to improve American education are so often frustrated. Even when evidence about effective teaching abounds, education colleges tend to ignore it, and future teachers do not learn about it. This is true even in states committed to methods shown by research to be effective. Since 1997, for example, Massachusetts has had reading standards that call for the formal teaching of letter-sound relationships. Yet at Lesley College, which prepares more teachers that any other institution in the commonwealth, education students are still learning from Invitations that phonics instruction is useless or even a "handicap." Since 1996, California has had a law requiring future teachers be instructed in "systematic, explicit phonics," yet education professors at many California institutions are still assigning Routman.

Short on evidence, Routman's book is long on anecdotes. Routman presents the case of Maria, a teacher so frustrated that "she often ended the day in tears." The problem is that Maria, who herself had a traditional education, feels obligated to pass on to her students information about such matters as grammar and punctuation." Fortunately, Maria attends a workshop that shows her the error of her ways and the wisdom of "whole language," an approach based on the idea that children will naturally evolve into readers (and spellers and punctuators) if only adults will get out of the way. With this enlightenment, Maria becomes a teacher who "can offer children choices in decision making about their own learning"…and her classroom, freed from focusing on dull matters like capitalization, is a "joyful, collaborative community."

Lest any reader miss the message, Routman also reports on Loretta, a second grade teacher who has a similar conversion. Her eyes are opened to what she really wants to do (which includes "abandoning spelling workbooks and phonics pages") by a week-long conference called "Creating the Whole Language Classroom." As a result of her enlightenment, Loretta now presides over a "child-centered room where children are productively in charge of their own learning."

Routman is hardly alone in advocating independence for teachers while effectively restricting their choices. Creating Classrooms for Authors and Inquirers by Kathy Short and Jerome Harste begins by approvingly describing teachers who "develop their own personal theories of reading and writing" but by page nine has made clear that the only valid theories anyone could possibly develop are whole-language ones.

Similarly, although Short and Harste repeatedly state that children's agendas should drive the classroom, they are also adamant that students sometimes profess goals-such as wanting to spell correctly-of which teachers must be wary. When one of their third graders writes that she wants to "learn how to spell," she is carefully observed until the authors are sure she does not suffer from "an overconcern with spelling." Even then she does not get a spelling book, but "lessons on strategies," such as "discussing possible spellings with peers." Short and Harste refer future teachers who want more information to J. Richard Gentry's Spel…Is a Four-Letter Word, a book that views "good spelling" as "merely a convenience."

The Short and Harste book dominates elementary education instruction at Indiana University's School of Education, the third largest school of education in the country and the place where Harste teaches. The fact that Harste is the president-elect of the National Council of Teachers of English lends added significance to Creating Classrooms. The ideas in it are those that the council, an organization of some 90,000 strong, promotes though its publications, conferences and conventions. Future teachers who learn from Creating Classrooms that it is a mistake for the curriculum to be "mandated by 'experts' outside the classroom" are getting something close to the official doctrine of their profession-as well as rationale for ignoring standards set by states to establish what students should know and be able to do at various stages in their education. They leave Short and Harste and head for elementary classrooms uninformed about the findings of several decades of scientific research on reading instruction and, in any case, encouraged to regard such research as meaningless.

As textbooks used in many ed schools clearly show, what we really have all across the country is a situation inimical to making classrooms function more effectively. Colleges of education, long criticized for teaching trivia, are now doing something much worse: sabotaging the best efforts of reformers to get schools to use methods that work.

THE FADS OF PUBLIC SCHOOL FAILURE
Public education has long been plagued by fads that have failed to improve educational performance, says educational psychologist J. E. Stone in a new Independent Institute paper. Consider just a few of the now-discredited ideas that held the educational establishment enthralled for a few years:

• California's failed "whole language" reading program cost the state billions to help undo its damage to public school children.
• The worthless "open education" fad in the 1960s, which sought "openness" by doing away with walls between the classrooms-imposed huge construction costs on cash-strapped schools that came to understand the noise-reduction benefits of walls.
• The "fuzzy math" fad failed so badly that 200 distinguished mathematicians and scientists signed a letter denouncing it.

Perhaps the biggest fad in public schools today is called "learner-centered" education or "discovery learning," which attempts to teach students how to think but without systematically teaching a body of knowledge. While a few gifted students (10%) may learn adequately, most other students (90%) are not well prepared by this type of teaching.

Then why do public schools keep chasing after these fixes? Because the public school system, says Stone, is strongly influenced by schools of education that are out of touch with the public's desire for strong academic achievement.

Source: J. E. Stone, "Teacher Training and Texas Educational Reform: A Study in Contradiction," Working Paper No. 35, Independent Institute, Oakland, CA.

America is embroiled in a debate over how to best educate its students. Eager to respond to growing public pressure to improve the quality of education, policymakers at all levels of government are pressing for higher standards. Major corporations are calling for higher standards and partnering with educators to promote their strategies. Governors are instituting state standards and assessments, and many states are tying them to grade promotion and graduation. Federal funding of education programs through such legislation as the Improving America's School Act and Goals 2000 impose state content and performance standards tied to state assessments as a condition of funding eligibility. Indeed, the mantra of the day in education reform is high academic standards and accountability.

Quite unnoticed, a new definition of education standards has emerged-one that places greater relevance on the world of work. All learning is to take place within the context of a work situation or real-world environment with emphasis on workplace competencies. Proponents believe this will foster in students a greater desire to learn because the subject matter has greater relevance to their goals. But the result has been a narrower education that focuses on practical skills to the detriment of a broader education. The danger is that the new standards may elevate workplace competencies above essential academic knowledge.

The major impetus for transforming academic standards came in the 1990s with the U.S. Labor Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS); and in 1992 with a report entitled Learning a Living: A Blueprint for High Performance. This report identified the skills that the commission believed a 21st century high-performance workplace would require, including, "Foundational Skills" -basic reading, writing, and math skills, thinking and problem solving skills; and SCANS "Workplace Competencies"-knowing how to allocate time, money and materials, skills such as working on teams, communicating information, understanding technological systems, etc. The SCANS report recommended integrating these competencies into core academic subjects taught in K-12 and beyond.

In 1994, Congress passed the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, which embodies the central tenets of the school-to-work (STW) philosophy-workplace relevance, integration of academic and vocational education, and workplace competencies. STW is neither vocational education nor a distinct program. Rather, it is an umbrella philosophy for many activities that are intended to systematically restructure all education for all students.

A number of studies have raised serious questions about the effectiveness of STW. While some studies have found higher student motivation, as well as slightly lower dropout rates, not one study to date has found that STW has increased the academic achievement of students as measured on standardized test scores.

For far too long, public education has retreated from teaching core academic competencies. There is lifelong value in gaining knowledge of history, literature, science, mathematics, and the arts far beyond the world of work. The most important purpose of schools is to educate Americans to be vigilant guardians of their freedom and be able to take advantage of the social and economic opportunities that a free society affords. The success of the current effort in Washington to improve the quality of education by imposing higher standards and assessments will depend on the content and quality of these standards.
Source: Education Reporter, June 2001

While watching John Stossel's ABC News special, "Tampering With Nature" (June 29), I felt like a citizen of those not-so-long-ago "captive nations" who learned the truth of what was going on not from their own leaders and the controlled media, but from the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.

In one hour, Stossel exposed the propaganda and one-dimensional perspective about the environment and biotechnology that has caused millions of schoolchildren to repeat the information they've been spoon-fed in a way that would delight a teacher in a communist classroom.

The special revealed another point of view that is rarely, if ever, heard. The reason these views aren't heard is that most of the people who bring you the news and who teach our children are of a singular mindset and teach or broadcast only their ideas.

Patrick Moore, a former director of Greenpeace, was interviewed. He said political activists have hijacked the environmentalist movement and that they are "using environmental rhetoric to cloak agendas like class warfare and anti-corporatism that, in fact, have almost nothing to do with ecology."

Interest groups, Stossel said, pressure members of Congress into voting for things that have little or no effect on the environment, but which increase the influence and fund-raising capabilities of such groups. Even if greenhouse gasses were restricted, Stossel says reliable estimates show restrictions would prevent a rise in global temperature by only a fraction of a degree. He wondered if such low expectations are worth the potential high cost to taxpayers of trillions of dollars and a radically altered lifestyle.

Biotechnology, which is helping to make food more plentiful, is another target of environmentalists. Stossel showed that their objections have been answered by the very science they decry. Bovine growth hormone, for example, increases milk production in cows, though environmentalists regularly condemn it as harmful to human health. Stossel reported that the World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration and the American Medical Association have deemed the hormone safe.

The most controversial and disturbing moment came when Stossel interviewed elementary schoolchildren in Santa Monica, California. Stossel told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly that some interviews had been cut by ABC after an environmentalist group contacted and "brainwashed" parents into believing Stossel was doing an "editorial" that would be injurious to the environmental cause. Stossel told O'Reilly he wanted to show how public schoolchildren have been lied to about the environment. He said children believe the one side they have been taught of the global warming argument: that Republican presidents are responsible for dirty air and water and that all corporations are "evil."

Even with the interviews that remained in the program, Stossel managed to prove his point. He asked the children what they had learned, and then he quoted governmental and scientific sources to prove the children and teachers wrong. "The extremists dominate the debate," Stossel told O'Reilly. Indeed they do.

What else have students been taught and what else does the public believe that is factually untrue? It might take years of TV specials and a different education objective to cleanse our systems of the intellectual and moral impurities we have been programmed to accept as truth.

Stossel should be thanked and ABC News praised for allowing another environmental point of view to be heard. The environmental lobby controls almost all of the media, as do many other liberal perspectives. It is testimony to the power of truth that so many wish to discredit and even silence John Stossel.

Eagle Cliff Notes

U.S. TEENS STRUGGLE WITH AMERICAN HISTORY
A recent study commissioned by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation showed that over 20% of American teenagers do not know from whom our country declared its independence in 1776. Nearly 20% did not know that there were 13 original Colonies, or that the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. One-tenth did not know that our first president was George Washington, and nearly 25% did not know who fought in the Civil War. "When you look at these numbers, it means that more than five million teenagers don't understand the true meaning of Independence Day," said Colin Campbell, president of the foundation.
Source: EF News & Notes, 7/13/01

SENATORS FOR SOUND SCIENCE
Congressional conservatives are quietly cheering the passage (91-8) of a two-sentence amendment in the Senate education bill by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA). It reads in part that schools should teach students "to distinguish the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious claims that are made in the name of science." Santorum framed the language with help from Berkley law professor Philip Johnson, who has long pointed out that public schools teach Darwinism as dogma. A National Association of Biology Teachers spokesman said the organization plans to oppose the amendment. It must now clear a conference committee that will soon mesh the House and Senate bills together before sending a final bill to President Bush.
Source: WORLD, 6/30/01

DUMBED DOWN LAUNDRY INSTRUCTIONS
In an effort to cope with our country's scandalous illiteracy problem as well as to accommodate those who don't read English, clothing manufacturers have come up with symbols to tell people how they should launder their clothing. Through dots and various other geometric shapes, they are hoping to make laundry care easier for those who can't read.
Source: Washington Times, 6/23/01

REPEAL MOTOR VOTER LAW
Congressman Bob Stump (R-AZ) has proposed a bill to repeal the Motor Voter Law. The Heritage Foundation's Todd Gaziano, in a testimony regarding election reform, affirmed that Motor Voter "has helped create the most inaccurate voting rolls in history. Citizens are registered in multiple jurisdictions at the same time, and very few states have effective procedures to ensure that those registered are even citizens." Columnist David Limbaugh says, "Motor Voter may sound noble to some, but could be inflicting immeasurable damage on the republic. Those interested in real election reform, as opposed to rigging the rules to stack the deck in favor of their candidates, should take a hard look at Congressman Stump's bill."