Intellectual Bankruptcy
Posted on 23. Sep, 2009 by Rachel in American Politics, Political Commentary, Political News
Harvard University
Why is it that a country that has produced some of the most beloved authors, prolific inventors, and has advanced the fields of science, medicine, and technology, recently found itself at the epicenter of moral and financial decline? Our current president has become the butt of Marxism jokes in the same week that he is appeasing Islam– how sad for America and its people.
Yet, I fear it is our people that have become complicit in this deterioration, for more often than naught, we take for granted our freedoms and the responsibilities tied in to those freedoms. One of our responsibilities is our education. Each family should be passing on traditions and experiences of our country’s heritage, and also seeking out education for themselves and their children. When we send our progeny out into the current educational system, do we know what, if anything, they are learning?
From 1991 – 2007, the average GPA rose, on a four-point scale, from 2.93 – 3.11 in public schools. Private schools also saw a climb in GPA from 3.10 – 3.30. When taken in historical context, in the 1930′s the average GPA was 2.35 (approximately C+), where now it is a B+. Does this mean our students are better equipped for real life? Entering society the wiser?
A 2006 Pew Charitable Trust study reported 50% of college seniors failed a test that required basic skills, such as interpreting a table about exercise and blood pressure, understanding the arguments of a newspaper editorial, and comparing credit card offers. Another survey found that one-third of students expected a “B” just for attending class. The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) published a 2008 national survey titled “Our Fading Heritage: Americans Fail a Basic Test of Their History and Institutions.” Inexplicably, only 21% knew that the phrase “government of the people” came from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Nearly 40% believe that the Constitution gives the President the power to declare war. In a statistic one can hardly believe, close to 25% Americans believe that Congress shares its foreign policy powers with the United Nations! What!?
Remember, this was a nationwide sampling of over 2,500 college students, and of this number, 71% failed— the average score was 49%. Yet, at Harvard, once our nation’s most prestigious university, 91% of seniors graduated with honors. It seems churning out undeserved grades is the new academia, with nearly fifty percent of all grades given are either “A” or “A-”. The Boston Globe called Harvard’s grading practices “the laughing stock of the Ivy League.”
So, why does all this matter, especially at a time when people are losing jobs, homes, and the financial security they’ve spent a lifetime building? It matters because freedom is not free and if we want any hope of retaining and regaining our national and personal greatness, we must go back to basics when it comes to our education. Don’t believe me or my opinion? Try this:
Stanislav Michin, a writer for the Russian newspaper Pravda and once the primary propaganda tool of the old Soviet Union, observes the following:
“It must be said that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hopeless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I mean people… First the population was dumbed down through a politicized and sub-standard education system based on pop-culture, rather than the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas than the drama in D.C. that directly affects their lives… The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been record setting, not just in America’s short history, but in the world. If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble a Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe. Prime Minister Putin in the last two months warned Obama not to follow the path to Marxism, it leads only to disaster.”
Thomas Jefferson said, “Those who think they can remain ignorant and free are fools.”
He was right.
–Rachel Land for mainstreetradical.com
Very nice information. Thanks for this.