TEXTBOOKS

Back in the days when we were making steady progress in our schools we had faith in our TEXTBOOKS. Why did we have faith in our TEXTBOOKS? We had faith in our TEXTBOOKS because we understood that the people who wrote these books were PROFESSIONALS THAT SPENT THEIR DAYS DEVELOPING THE BEST WAY TO TEACH CURRICULUM  and that TEXTBOOKS TAUGHT A SUBJECT AT GRADE LEVEL COMPREHENSIVELY AND INCREMENTALLY, AND LOGICALLY BUILT KNOWLEDGE!! Teachers knew that their job was to DELIVER the curriculum, not to write the TEXTBOOK! Lesson planning, where teachers design a LESSON, is entirely different than creating the curriculum everyday.

Teachers worked on committees to write a curriculum and then found the best TEXTBOOKS they could to deliver the best education. They had a scope and sequence as a guide, but THE TEXTBOOK GAVE THE DAY TO DAY STRUCTURE THAT DELIVERED LOGICAL AND COMPREHENSIVE LEARNING. Fast forward to today and you will see superintendents SNEERING at TEXTBOOKS !! Yes, these geniuses have taken up the ultra left Common Core rhetoric of demeaning the use of TEXTBOOKS. The left has been sneering at TEXTBOOKS and trying to get rid of them for as long as I can remember. As I have said on this blog before, their ideas NEVER change. They do not see failure as an obstacle- anymore than the fact that the earth has not gotten warmer in TWENTY YEARS stops the global warming catastrophe crowd. The left just keeps marching on in the same track. The people can stop them with the vote- that's the only thing that will finally stop their failed ideas from marching on and continuing to destroy education in this country.

Teachers at the high schools here are being told they are "isolationists" if they want to teach the comprehensive curriculum. These genius administrators, following Jeb Bush's Common Core, "Just aren't sure the kids need to learn all of that." What do they want the teachers to do instead? They want the Calculus teacher to develop "collaborative units" with the English teacher. This is not a joke. I am dead serious. I heard this first hand. These jokers, who by the way have no research evidence for any of this, are trying to break down 200 years of education in this country. Meanwhile, my daughter who teaches Life Sciences in a college, is finding college students that don't even know what electrons and protons are!! Thirty percent of our Montana graduates have to be remediated in Math!!

Collaborative units are nothing more than little hands on projects, that at best, in a good curriculum, can add reinforcement. Across subject lines they aren't even that. This is the same "whole language" garbage the left has been trying to sell for fifty years. The same whole language idea that NEVER has shown success. And yet, they will take the valuable time of our high school students and spend it experimenting- whiling away days with no real learning progress. Learning is about building a foundation of knowledge in specific curricular areas- whether the left likes it or not. The question is, when will the American people step in and stop this destruction in our public schools?

TEXTBOOKS deliver comprehensive knowledge in a teach, practice, review and test format.TEXTBOOKS build information. TEXTBOOKS require accountability from teachers and students. TEXTBOOKS should be the foundation of classroom learning. They should be sought after competitively so that bad textbook companies, like Common Core's Pearson, are put out of business ,and the best TEXTBOOKS are purchased. There is not enough room here to tell about all the ridiculous wastes of curricular time the left has thought up, and that our even more ridiculous board members are so proud of. It doesn't take a neuroscientist to tell you that kids need on task uninterrupted structured curriculum time to learn, but our school board members, who are so proud of themselves, just can't see it at all. Why, they have programs!! Meanwhile, The Common Core tyrants, get to CHANGE THE TESTS ANY TIME AND IN ANYWAY THEY WANT TO!! How can Common Core fail? They'll just change the test- and voila! the kids can do it now!! What a wonderful world. Make your children's teachers stick to the TEXTBOOKS and make sure they are GOOD TEXTBOOKS!!