GoBigEd

Tuesday, January 07, 2003


BOOK REVIEW:
'FED ED: THE NEW FEDERAL CURRICULUM AND HOW IT'S ENFORCED'

If you've been wondering what the heck is going on with increasing federal involvement in local public schools, this book is for you. It's a well-written, well-organized two- or three-hour read available for $12, and I highly recommend it.

Chaptoids include:

-- Taking Control of the Curriculum

-- Politicizing Education

-- Redefining the Media

-- Bringing in Private and Home Schools

-- Defining the Curriculum as Themes

-- Undermining National Sovereignty

-- Redefining Natural Rights

-- Minimizing Natural Law

-- Promoting Environmentalism

-- Requiring Multiculturalism

-- Restructuring Government

-- Redefining Education as Job Skills

. . . and many more.

The book has 153 pages and is published by NuCompass Publishing, Glencoe, Minnn.

The author is Allen Quist, a college professor in Mankato, Minn., and a former Minnesota school-board member and state legislator, homeschooling champion, Republican activist, and father of 10.

The book is available through the excellent education reform website, Maple River Education Coalition, www.EdWatch.org or through www.amazon.com

If I have one beef, it's that the solutions chaptoid is skimpy. I gather that the author is calling for a public information campaign in order to try to head off the nationalization of our schools. I'm for that, majorly. But he gives no practical advice, steps to take, ways to go about it, people to contact, arms to twist, etc. Let's face it: most people are just not set up to do all the backgrounding that it takes to understand something this huge, much less organize and advocate for an alternative to it. They are 'way too busy making a buck, raising their families and what all.

I wish the author had come up with a checklist of, say, 10 do-able things that the rank and file could undertake or at least get together with like-minded citizens and delegate. But all he exhorts us to do is to spread the word.

Guess that's better than what most people are doing to save our schools . . . which is just 'bout nuttin'.

This book could change that.


Comments: Post a Comment

Home