Educators Need Educating

I was somewhat surprised to find out, from an article in the Dallas Morning News, that "NEA" stands for Needs Education about America. Lee Berg, of the NEA, made a revealing claim that public education was responsible for founding democracy. That statement has only been bettered by Al Gore stating he was the Father of the Internet. I hope the reader knows that both Berg's and Gore's statement are very true and extremely absurd. Both statements also let an agenda out of the bag, on there part. This prompted me to write the following response:

When it comes to education, the NEA's Lee Berg is only an expert in his own mind. His claim that "public education happens to be the foundation of democracy" could not be farther from the truth. In his words, that "is dangerous hogwash." Public compulsory education as we know it today did not begin until the 1840s. Prior to that time, Americans were the most literate people of the world. Supported by local communities, their law required the creation of "common schools." These were the original public schools founded, in New England and the adjoining areas, as a means of insuring the faith from one generation to the next. The high literacy in America at that time existed because Biblical authority required it and allowed the public to create an education system leading to a manageable and moral social order. The founding fathers knew that nothing could improve on that and did not even mention education in the Constitution. On the contrary, public compulsory education grew out of the socialist movement originated by Robert Owen, a Scotsman known as "the father of socialism." The Unitarian movement, who infiltrated the major Universities in America by 1818, used the ideals that later founded communism to wield government-based control of society in the minds of the children through education. There was an abrupt turn, at that time, from the influence of theology to that of psychology. The model was the Prussian school system. Horace Mann was integral in spreading Hegelian philosophy through a published report, by Victor Cousin, widely read and distributed to teachers by 1933. The outcome was state-controlled teacher training which James G. Carter prophetically contended was a tool to "sway the public sentiment, the public morals, and the public religion more powerful than any other in possession of government."