Our Schools Are Deliberately Producing Stupid Americans

by

      Zeno Potas

       America’s Founders were united in their belief that our government requires engaged, well-informed and educated citizens committed to the practice of self-government. Their views were stated quite plainly:

"Promote…as an object of primary importance institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge.” - George Washington

"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.” - James Madison

"A nation that expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects what never was and never will be.” - Thomas Jefferson

      The founders understood that our experiment in self-government maintained by a well-educated populace. Tragically, our schools are now too often places of political correctness but not historical correctness or geographical correctness or scientific correctness. We’ve gone from the Greatest Generation to the stupidest. Today, we have millions of functional illiterates. There are graduates of high school who literally cannot read their own diplomas. In contrast, around 1800, John Adams said that "to find an uneducated man in New England was a rare as a comet. "

      Our children are deliberately are no longer taught about patriotism, morality, honor, or self-reliance. They’re not taught economics. They’re not taught about

the Constitution. Our society used to inculcate these values in schools, church and via our entertainment. For previous generations it was a different and, in many ways, better world. Students are unlikely to go through college without being assigned to read "The Communist Manifesto" -- often in more than one course -- while a classic like "The Federalist" is seldom assigned reading, even though it is a very readable and profound explanation of the principles on which the Constitution of the United States is based, written by three of the men who actually wrote the Constitution.

      A study by the group Opportunity Nation found that one in seven young adults between the ages of 16-24 is "disconnected" -- meaning neither in school, nor working. "We have too many kids who graduate from high school who are not well-educated, they're not good in reading, they're not good in their numbers and they're not prepared to learn a lot more that a company would want them to learn in order for them to work for that company," said Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution.

      The American Council of Trustees and Alumni said their survey uncovered a “crisis in American civic education.” The ACTA describes itself as an independent organization committed to academic freedom, excellence and accountability at America’s colleges and universities. Their findings reveal “that recent college graduates are alarmingly ignorant of America’s history and heritage.”

      In it’s reporting on the study US magazine reports that students

• Could not identify the father of the U.S. Constitution.
  
  
• Could not name one of our First Amendment Rights. That could explain a why a frightening number of college students support curbing free speech.

• Only 20.6% of respondents could identify James Madison as the Father of the Constitution. More than 60% thought the answer was Thomas Jefferson—despite the fact that Jefferson, as U.S. ambassador to France, was not present during the Constitutional Convention.

• 60% of college graduates failed to identify correctly a requirement for ratifying a constitutional amendment.

• 40% of college graduates didn’t know that Congress has the power to declare war.

• 10% of recent college graduates say that television star Judith Sheindlin - Judge Judy, is on the Supreme Court.

      Not only are our schools turning out, in what previous generations would have called functional illiterates, what our educational system is producing is cultural amnesia. Today's students don't know what liberty costs. They can't identify between good and right.

They have no sense of what "exceptionalism" means. They don't know how history got us to where we are today, and why its bloody path was worth it.  They possess accidental knowledge, but otherwise are masters of systematic ignorance. Efforts by several generations of reformers and public policy experts have combined to produce a generation of know-nothings who think they know it all and know what is best for all. 
They are producing anti-Constitutional Progressives.